Chris O'Bryan, a Bristol Bird Club student member for near 10 years, has been selected as a Student Amphibian Field Technician working with the U.S. Forest Service this summer. Chris will work in the Sierra Nevada Mountains at the Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station. He will assist with a study investigating potential livestock grazing effects on Yosemite toads (Bufo canorus) and other amphibians in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He was in Northeast Tennessee the past few days after having stopped off on return from the 2010 Association of Southeastern Biologists meeting in Asheville, NC. He had dinner with biologists and friends in Johnson City. The Yosemite toad is found at elevations ranging from 6,500 to 11,500 feet. Some of his survey sites are remote, and he will be making overnight backpacking trips up to 8-days in duration. This is a great opportunity for him to further his field surveying experience and job training skills in ecological research. He will be headquartered just off I-80 west of Sacramento CA at Davis. Chris will live at Shaver Lake, CA and collecting habitat data, hiking, and camping the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Survey meadows are located in Sierra and Stanislaus National Forests and Yosemite National Park. This is a national program that fosters cooperation between universities and federal agencies; in this case the Pacific Southwest Research Station, Region 5, of the Forest Service, the University of California Davis and the University of California Berkeley. The purpose of the study is to determine the effects of livestock grazing on Yosemite Toads, Bufo canorus, and their habitat. It is being funded by the Region 5 Forest Service. The research station represent the research and development branch of the Forest Service in the states of California and Hawaii and the U.S. affiliated Pacific Islands. The station has served for more than 75 years on the leading edge of natural resource research, technology development, and applications. Research on the Yosemite toad is especially important because they are characterized as a California State species of concern, a Forest Service sensitive species, and a Federal endangered species candidate. The suspected link between Yosemite toad decline and livestock grazing led to changes in forest. Chris is a Presidential Research Scholar and an Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Department of Biology Center of Excellence for Field Biology at Austin Peay State University. He grew up in Shady Valley, TN and his parents live in Piney Flats, TN in Sullivan County.