CNHP Paid Internships for Summer 2017!

CNHP is looking for up to six Colorado State University undergraduate students interested in expanding their knowledge and experience in conservation science. Interns will build skills in plant identification, vegetation sampling, animal monitoring and surveys, monitoring protocols, data collection, and describing conservation values. Interns will be paid $12/hr, with per diem provided for overnight field trips. Program begins June 12, 2017 and ends August 18, 2017. Applications are due by March 1, 2017.

For more information read the full announcement on our website here:
http://www.cnhp.colostate.edu/download/documents/jobs/CNHP%20Internship%202017.pdf

The 2016 Siegele Conservation Science interns. 

Natives in Your Landscape!

Would you like to use Colorado native plants in your landscape? Check out the exciting new webinar below about using natives in your garden. You will learn about natives for sunny areas, for clay, for shade, for formal situations, for fragrance, for fall color, and more!

Why use natives? You can increase the sustainability of your garden, save money from less watering, attract native pollinators, and enjoy a bounty of Colorado’s native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees.

WEBINAR - Native Plants For Every Landscape Situation – March 16, 12 noon to 1 PM, taught by Irene Shonle, CSU native plant expert and County Extension Director.

Interested in receiving a CSU certificate for your knowledge about natives, becoming a Native Plant Master volunteer, or finding offerings in locations across the state? Learn more at www.COnativeplantmaster.org or call 303-271-6621. For research-based information on 1,000+ Colorado plants, see http://coloradoplants.jeffco.us. Extension programs are available to all without discrimination.

Life as a CNHP Work Study: Taming of the Shrew

By Alyssa Meier

At the end of the hall here at CNHP, there is a small lab in which, not ten feet apart, sit two very different worlds. On one side, we have a freezer filled to the brim with shrew specimens dating back to 2012. On the other, a cabinet loaded to the top with plant specimens all the way from 1993.

Collection of shrew specimens.

Shelf of plant specimens from the 90s.

This past semester, I had the privilege of being a part of two projects that dealt with these specimens. The first project involved taking the old plant specimens, digging through twenty-year-old field journals, and trying to glean enough information to make a label so I could turn them in to the Colorado State University Herbarium. The second involved separating the shrews into individual baggies and giving each a catalog number so we could cart them off to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Each of these projects had its own merits. Making labels for the plants involved a bit of detective work. I was snooping into the past—the far-off years of the 90s when I was just a kid and these plants were still alive. Of course, the field journals of each individual botanist had their own nuances to navigate just to obtain any relevant information, and this sometimes involved tracking down GIS files and surfing through records in Biotics. Many times the information was simply lost over the years.

A pressed rusty lupine (Lupinus pusillus) specimen.

Comparatively, working with shrew specimens was an overload of information. Dozens of grocery bags loaded with sandwich bags loaded with shrews. All of them frozen together. The unfortunate thing about studying shrews is that, because they are so small, it is difficult to draw any inference on habitat or location without the use of pitfall traps or other lethal methods. Thus, the specimens collected are bagged and frozen together. My job was to thaw out the shrews (the smell is indescribable), meticulously peel them apart (so I don’t accidentally rip them in half), put them in separate snack bags, and give them a catalog number.

Me gently peeling apart two shrews that have been frozen together.

Botany and zoology—they both have their ups and downs. One thing's for certain: reeking shrews and crispy plants are still better than case changes.

The Bethke Elementary “Bat-Bots” and Creative Solutions to Deter Bats from Wind Turbines

The Bethke Elementary Legos Robotics Team, called the Bat-Bots, invited Rob Schorr to talk with them about bat conservation and ecology. The Bat-Bots are tasked with coming up with solutions to reduce bat mortality at wind turbines. In 2012, it was estimated that over 600,000 bats died at wind turbine facilities in the United States (M.A. Hayes. 2013. Bats killed in large numbers at United States wind energy facilities. BioScience 63:975-979). They were all aware of the importance of bats for insect control and pollination, and were concerned about conflicts between renewal energy from wind energy development and bat conservation. They wanted to know about possible solutions to reducing bat deaths, while maintaining access to clean energy. Schorr and the team discussed options to use ultraviolet (UV) light as a deterrent (P.M. Gorresen and others. 2015. Dim ultraviolet light as a means of deterring activity by the Hawaiian hoary bat Lasiurus cinereus semotus. Endangered Species Research 28:249-257). The team discussed how to design buildings with UV lights, and were contemplating ways of designing new turbine facilities with dim UV light deterrents.

The Bethke Elementary Bat-Bots include Case L., Carly L., Juliana S., Ella N., Abigail F., and William W., with Schorr.