Our third day started with a presentation by Ranger Ash, the chief botanist for the Park. He provided background about the work they do at the nursery to cultivate plantings and then place them in the park in critical places. He also talked about how they try to safeguard plants from the damage of all the human visitors that come through the park each year, education is a piece of this. There are not many employees that work in the nursery division and they keep very busy. There are always more projects on their list than they can possibly carry out, so they are happy to get volunteers when they can.
There are several plants in the park that are endangered. One is the Century Plant. It blooms every 18 years, sending up a huge central stalk that is used by the indigenous people for special ceremonies. There are only 3 places in the park where they are growing and those locations are secret. One field of plants was near a parking lot and they actually dug up and relocated the parking lot to protect the plants. Another endangered plant is the Sentry Milky Vetch. Its a small plant that grows in the soil pockets near the rim of the canyon (within 50'). There are only 4 areas on the north rim and 5 on the south rim.
Ash shared that the nursery propagates about 11,500 plants annually. They have an additional 13,000 specimens in their Herbarium. They cultivate as many cactus as they can to place strategically. They try to cut back on 'social trails' where people go off the designated trail and create their own damaging paths.
Before the dams were built up stream, the Colorado River would flood annually, scouring the shorelines and removing many non-native plants that tried to take root on the banks. Without the annual flooding, this natural way to remove invasive plants is gone and efforts have to be made manually. The park has gone from approximately 18 invasive species in 1908 to over 200 in 2024 (with 31 being a high priority to remove).
After we heard from Ash, we did a workshop on "Leave No Trace" and the 7 principles of leaving no trace when enjoying the outdoors. We even learned hand symbols to help us remember them:
1. Plan Ahead - hold up 1 finger and pretend to be writing out a plan.
2. Travel on durable surfaces (stay on the path) - use 2 fingers to walk across the palm of your other hand.
3. Dispose of waste - use 3 fingers like you are scooping up something (waste) - digging a cat pit.
4. Leave what you find (take only pictures) - use 2 fingers on each hand to make a picture frame
5. Minimize campfires - wave five fingers on one hand like a flickering flame
6. Respect wild life - use 3 fingers on each hand to form moose antlers
7. Be Considerate of others - use five fingers (your hand) to wave to others and 2 fingers on your other hand (peace sign).
The students then got to plan out skits to help teach people about the 7 principles. They were super creative and a lot of fun to watch!
Here is a student NOT respecting wildlife - chasing down a moose for a selfie with them.
These students are demonstrating that a safe distance from wildlife is when you hold up your thumb and can't see the animal. If you can see the animal around your thumb you are too close and should back up.
The student in the chair was making wishes by tossing coins into the canyon when an endangered condor came up and ate some of the coins (and died - below). You should leave nothing behind, especially not coins and trash that harm the wildlife.
In the afternoon, we went over to the nursery to help Ash and his staff out. They showed us there new green house that was really quite a step up from their previous facility. They had two different rooms for plants that grow at warmer temperatures near the river and those on the top of the rim where the environment is drier and cooler.
A few of our group got to plant out these pots, but most went outside to work.
It was a beautiful sunny day! We got to basically see and help with every aspect of the work at the nursery.
One group scooped mulch chips into sifters to capture the composting materials to use for potting. (The rest of the chips went back into the pile)
Then members of our group shoveled the wood chips into wheel barrows where it was taken to the paths around the workspace of the nursery, preventing plants from growing up where they were not wanted.
Some members dumped out old dirt from the pots, sorted them and got them ready for future plantings. You can imagine with 11,500 plantings each year, there were a lot of pots to sort and prep.
I got to work on a giant stand of willow saplings that they were prepping to go down to Phantom Ranch on the river. They had been working on a new water line and pumping station and had damaged a lot of the willows in the camp. There were four 'boxes' of willow plantings that had been growing in tall, narrow pots for the past two years. We were assigned to prune all the limbs from the trees as high as we could reach (6-7' up). For those twigs that were as thick as our pinkies, we could place them in a bucket of water to be propagated for the next season. Ash said that willows grow very quickly and root easily. After pruning them, we had to lift them out of the boxes and trim any roots that were sticking out of the bottom. Since they had been growing undisturbed for two years (and some a bit longer), many were rooted pretty well into the soil beneath. We pruned and wrestled with them and then re-stacked them into the boxes.
You can see how tall some of these saplings were! We asked Ash how they got the trees down to the base of the canyon. He said helicopter. They put them all on a palette and then net them below a helicopter. We had two additional volunteers working with us on pruning. They were interns from the Nature Conservancy (I think). Both were trying to get in the hours and experience to be able to get a permanent job in the park service. This is very competitive and as many volunteer and seasonal hours that you can get, the better your chances of getting a permanent position. I asked if they were biologists. One said she was a marine biologist (lol at the Grand Canyon).
A pile of mulch that other members of the group spread around. When we first walked around the grounds of the nursery, it didn't look like much, but the more we worked and learned about what was growing where, the more respect I had for the work being done.
Some of the cactus to be used to prevent people from creating social trails.
At the end of the day, our small groups played a family feud-like game about the Leave No Trace principles. It was pretty funny. Our group got the card deck that was all about different 'durable' surfaces..."Which surface is more durable: mud or deep snow? Tree roots or dry grass? Sand or stone?". It was a little counter intuitive. The surface that leaves the least trace and less damage is the one to pick.
No comments:
Post a Comment