Celebrating Celastrina Saison at the Butterfly Pavilion

Kellan Barr of The Butterfly Pavilion and Rob Schorr
at The Butterfly Pavilion’s Living Lights Celebration.

The Butterfly Pavilion is hosting their annual Living Lights holiday celebration that allows access to the many invertebrate displays at night while the grounds are lit in fantastical lighting. The event highlights those creatures that produce light for communication, defense, or navigation. Rob Schorr of CNHP was there to celebrate with The Butterfly Pavilion, and brought an Odell Brewing Company beer that recognizes a rare Colorado invertebrate, the Hops Blue butterfly. This small blue butterfly is only found from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs in areas where wild hops are abundant. The Butterfly Pavilion asked Schorr and Odell Brewing Company to participate in the Living Lights celebration to highlight the unique collaboration between CNHP and Odell that spawned Celastrina Saison, a lightly-hoppy farmhouse ale with hints of clove. In 2012, Schorr proposed the idea of a beer to honor this butterfly, and Odell Brewing Company eagerly developed Celastrina Saison and donated $1 for every bottle sold to CNHP to conduct research on the butterfly.

The grounds at The Butterfly Pavilion during Living Lights Celebration.

Renee Rondeau’s visit to the Thatcher Ranch with Palmer Land Trust

by David Anderson, CNHP Director

As part of receiving the prestigious Stewardship Award from Palmer Land Trust, PLT made a wonderful film of Renee at the Thatcher Ranch in Southeastern Colorado.  In the film, Renee is talking about ranching and conservation in Southeast Colorado with the ranch owner, John Thatcher.  They did such a nice job of capturing the spirit of Renee and John’s friendship, and the subtle beauty of the Thatcher Ranch.  We want to send a special thank you to John Thatcher for his kind words and hospitality, and to PLT for creating this great film.



2013 is turning out to be the Year of the Video for CNHP!  I hope you enjoy watching this and the other content we’ve posted recently, and be on the look-out for more to come as the students in Amy Kousch’s Public Relations in Natural Resources complete their videos for CNHP.

CNHP director featured in Larimer County video

CNHP director David Anderson makes an appearance in a video about how Great Outdoors Colorado support for our work and that of our partners has helped to transform the face of Colorado in wonderful ways. Watch “Leveraging Colorado Lottery Funds” here:

Celastrina Saison video!

CNHP and Odell Brewing Company have entered a novel partnership to conserve the hops blue butterfly (Celastrina hummulus), which only lives along Colorado's Front Range, exclusively in populations of wild hops. Odell released Celastrina Saison in a Belgian farmhouse 750-ml bottle in late May 2013. The label boldly shows a male hops blue butterfly and along the edge of the label is a description of how $1 of each 750 ml bottle will go toward CNHP for hops blue butterfly research. This partnership between Odell Brewing Company and CNHP developed out of a shared interest in conserving species and landscapes that are uniquely Colorado.



Cheers!

Urban Wetland Surprises: Denver’s Parkfield Park

By Bernadette Kuhn, CNHP Botanist

We recently visited Parkfield Park as part of our EPA-funded wetland assessment project in Denver County. Much to our delight it was teeming with dragonflies, aquatic insects, and waving bulrushes. Our crew of botanists jumped up and down when we discovered floating mats of the world’s smallest flowering plant. The mats were made up of thousands of Wolffia columbiana that creating swirly lime-green patterns on the water. Ralph Brooks collected the only known Colorado specimen of W. columbiana from Yuma County in 1980. We collected voucher specimens to distribute to regional herbaria.

David Leatherman holds a green dragonfly with Billy Bunch (EPA), while
 Laura Cascardi and Bernadette Kuhn get distracted by plants.
Photo by Pam Smith.

Tiny, almost granular Wolffia columbiana plants (indicated by white arrows)
are dwarfed by duckweed, Lemna minor. Photo by B. Kuhn.

A Woodhouse’s toadlet at Parkfield Park. Photo by Pam Smith.

Blog readers stay tuned! We will be posting more photos of our Denver urban wetland work throughout the winter. 

Dr. Healy Hamilton Visits CSU and Fort Collins Museum of Discovery

On September 26^th and 27^th, Dr. Healy Hamilton came to Fort Collins to give presentations on her cutting-edge work in communicating about biodiversity, climate change, and land management.  Dr. Hamilton has a long list of accomplishments and has held many leadership roles including Director of the Center for Applied Biodiversity Informatics at the California Academy of Sciences, and co-founder of the Worldviews Network   In November she is going to become the Chief Scientist for NatureServe, and she is currently moving from her home in California to Washington DC.  So we were especially excited that she was able to visit us at CNHP and talk about our visions for the NatureServe Network of Heritage Programs and how we can work with her to achieve them.  We worked with our colleague Dr. Dana Winkelman to host her as the seminar speaker for the Fishand Wildlife Conservation Biology Department, where she talked about the fascinating work she is doing with the Worldviews Network.  

Left to right: Dr. Dana Winkelman, Unit Leader of the USGS 
Colorado Coop Unit, Dr. Healy Hamilton, 
and David G. Anderson, CNHP Director

At the FortCollins Museum of Discovery she gave a presentation for NPS staff and their partners on the planetarium dome, taking advantage of its immersive environment to “place Earth within its cosmic context and connect audiences with ecological and biodiversity issues in their backyards.”  Welcome to the NatureServe Network of Heritage Programs, Healy, and we are so excited to work with you!

Natural Resource Management Decision-Making under Climate Uncertainty: Building Social-Ecological Resilience in Southwestern Colorado

In joint collaboration with several other institutes, the Colorado Natural Heritage Program was awarded a multi-year project from the North Central Climate Science Center (part of U.S. Geological Survey): “Natural Resource Management Decision-Making under Climate Uncertainty: Building Social-Ecological Resilience in Southwestern Colorado.”  Renée Rondeau, Ecologist and Conservation Planner with the Colorado Natural Heritage Program is the CSU Principal Investigator and will be working closely with Jeffrey Morrisette and Dennis Ojima (North Central Climate Science Center), as well as University of Montana, The Nature Conservancy, Mountain Studies Institute and USGS-Fort Collins over the next few years to facilitate climate change adaptation that contributes to social-ecological resilience, ecosystem/species conservation, and sustainable human communities in Southwestern Colorado while focusing on the Gunnison Basin and the San Juan Mountains.  

Gunnison Basin landscape with East Beckwith Mountain in the background.

The group will develop a set of actionable and prioritized social/ecological adaptation strategies for vulnerable ecosystems and species based on best available science.  These adaptation strategies will incorporate the latest in climate science and must be useful and meaningful to natural resource managers and other stakeholders.  The Gunnison and San Juan Basins ownership and economies revolve around ranches and private industry that relies on natural resources, US Forest Service, US National Parks, Bureau of Land Management, and Tribal Lands, and will be integral in the success of this project.  The frameworks that are developed for this project should be applicable to other western landscapes and will help guide communities in adapting to changes associated with a changing climate.  

Lower South Platte River Basin Wetland & Riparian Condition Assessment Field Season in Full Swing!

by Dave Wesolowski, CNHP Wetland Field Ecology Technician

The field season for wetland and riparian condition assessment has been rocking and rolling since the beginning of June, and we’re learning so much about the Lower South Platte Basin!  Joanna Lemly and Laurie Gilligan lead a field crew consisting of Leah Fugere, Laura Cascardi, Cole Reagan, and Dave Wesolowski.  An intensive week of training has led to a thorough investigation out on the plains and foothills of northeastern Colorado.

Laura Cascardi investigates a soil pit.

Laurie Gilligan (far right) leading an exercise during training week.  

Most folks don’t associate the South Platte River or the plains of north eastern Colorado with wetlands, but they are out there and all over the place.  Diverse, complex, and fascinating warm water sloughs, emergent marshes, wet meadows, playas, and many other systems are found throughout the study area.  Our crew camps and surveys in and around many unique areas, including Chatfield and Jackson Lake State Parks and the wonderful towns of Strasburg, Sterling and Sedgwick.  Below we see Cole surveying a pond, which at first may not seem like a wetland but is, providing excellent habitat for wildlife such as: migrating birds, fish, macroinvertebrates, and a host of other organisms.

Cole Reagan field-tests his waders for a site photo.

While the plains wetlands are beautiful and provide crucial habitat for a variety of wildlife, we tend to also find a fair amount of non-native species such as cheat grass (Anisantha tectorum).

Invasive cheat grass!

Overall, it’s been a fun and exciting field season so far.  Our field season surveying the lower South Platte River basin lasts through the end of August.  At that point, we begin analyzing data and preparing for the next basin to survey.  The Lower South Platte has proven to be an intriguing basin full of unique plants and ecological systems.  We look forward to seeing what else northeastern Colorado has to offer!  Stay tuned!

Cole Reagan, Dave Wesolowski and Leah Fugere reviewing the results of today's field survey.