Tag: Fish and Wildlife
From wilderness guide to environmental specialist: How CEMML’s early-career program helped one intern find her path
After early job experiences as a wilderness guide and ski instructor, Ellery McCaw came into CEMML’s Early-Career Development Program expecting just a part-time internship. What she found was a platform to gain career insights and build on technical skills. She left the program confident that the critical administrative and procedural skills she acquired will help her advance her career ambitions.
March 13, 2026
Community partnerships drive conservation success at Bellows Air Force Station
For Emma Beard, a CEMML natural resource specialist based at Bellows Air Force Station in Hawai’i, the work is all about sustainability – ecologically, culturally, and operationally. To achieve that, it takes a whole community. Beard regularly brings together service members, educators, community leaders and volunteers all in the name of an island-wide conservation effort.
February 12, 2026
An intertwined ecosystem: Species monitoring helps wildlife and the military mission
What does the behavior and health of a small, roundish mammal scampering through the sandy soil at Hill Air Force Base’s Utah Test and Training Range have to do with the military mission? More than you’d think. CEMML, in partnership with the base’s Natural Resources Program, is tracking the dark kangaroo mouse and several other species to better understand the health of the local ecosystem and inform military training operations.
December 9, 2025
Conserving reptiles — and training troops – in the Mojave Desert
The arid Mojave desert sprawls across roughly 50,000 square miles, mostly in southeast California and southern Nevada. Several rare species of wildlife live here, including the western pond turtle and the Mojave desert tortoise. These reptiles thrive in habitat free from development and human intrusion — and they find it on the Mojave’s vast military bases. CEMML, in partnership with the Air Force, is keeping a close eye on their behavior and numbers.
December 2, 2025
Nothing but flowers: On an Air Force base, CEMML helps create pollinator habitat
As a participant in CEMML’s Early-Career Development Program, Rebecca Morse is supporting pollinators and the military mission at Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas. Morse and her counterparts at the installation planted native wildflowers and grasses in a new pollinator garden they created on land once occupied by military housing and a golf course. Work on the garden has also involved local families as well as airmen from the installation.
May 6, 2025
CEMML staff present as part of Natural Areas Association webinar
CEMML Assistant Director, Mindy Clarke, and Principal Investigators Jennie Anderson and Dave Jones recently presented as part of a webinar hosted by the Natural Areas Association. Clarke began the presentations by providing an overview of CEMML and our work on military lands. Jones then presented on the ‘Importance of DoD Lands to Biodiversity Conservation,’ and Anderson wrapped things up with her insights on ‘Natural Resources Management Planning & Partnerships.’
April 1, 2025
Colorado State University and University of Guam sign MOU
Alonso A. Aguirre, Dean of the Warner College of Natural Resources, and the leadership team from the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands recently traveled to Guam to sign a MOU between the University of Guam and Colorado State University. The MOU aims to provide opportunities for future collaboration and cooperation including internship placement of University of Guam students into natural and cultural resource management opportunities with Warner College/CEMML.
February 27, 2025
CEMML intern wins 2024 Great Plains CESU Award
Levin Brandt, an intern with CEMML’s Early-career Development Program, was presented with the annual Great Plains CESU Graduate Student Award for his outstanding work supporting ecosystems on Air Force installations in Nebraska, South Dakota, Colorado, and North Dakota. Mr. Brandt is a graduate student in Biology at the University of North Dakota.
November 8, 2024
NAVFAC, CEMML battle brown tree snake to protect Guam’s endangered swiftlets
In a video by Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) Marianas, CEMML invasive species biologist, Virginie Ternisien explains how she uses dead mice laced with acetaminophen to reduce brown tree snake populations on Guam. The invasive predator is a major threat to the endangered Mariana swiftlet, a small cave-dwelling bird native to the Mariana Islands.
October 30, 2024
On remote Pacific Islands, CEMML helps eradicate invasive rats
In 2020, a joint project to eradicate invasive rats from the Wake Island Atoll was created between the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, CEMML, and other collaborators. Using poisoned bait and traps, as well as other preventative biosecurity measures, the project has experienced great success in the last four years. Rat populations have been radically reduced with the hope that they will be fully eradicated from the three islands that make up the atoll within another year.
September 3, 2024
On Travis Air Force Base, a rare salamander gets a helping hand
Twice a year, federally protected California tiger salamanders make their pilgrimage between breeding pond and burrow. At Travis Air Force Base, that bi-annual journey includes obstacles like runways and streets. CEMML biologists in partnership with Travis’ natural resources program is helping the species navigate those obstacles. Their efforts ensure the species’ survival, while also allowing the Air Force to continue to carry out its mission.
July 11, 2024
Reaching zero: 26 years of eradicating non-native ungulates from conservation areas in Hawai’i
CEMML Hawai’i staff members Rogelio Doratt, Dan Jensen, and Lena Schnell contributed an article to the Department of Defense Natural Resource Program’s Natural Selections Summer 2024 Newsletter. The article details CEMML’s management action plan to keep 37,300 acres of native dryland habitat free of non-native ungulates. The article starts on page 6 of the linked newsletter.
July 5, 2024