Housekeeping at CNUW's Pond and Greenhouse

Tour season is nearly upon us, so this past Wednesday, October 14th, CNUW students and staff waded out into the pond for some cleaning.

From left to right: Kellie Elliott, Education Coordinator Jean Rigden, and Terri Belisle get down and dirty removing water lilies.

In the desert, any constant source of water is an oasis, and the pond at Scottsdale Community College is a perfect example. In addition to hosting many native and migratory species, our pond is home to three endangered species: the Huachuca Water Umbel (Lilaeopsis schaffneriana spp. recurva), the Quitobaquito Pupfish (Cyprinodon macularius eremus), and the Gila Topminnow (Poeciliopsis occidentalis). Much of the effort made to clean up the pond was done with preserving these species in mind.

CNUW Director Roy Barnes helps Jean pull up more water lilies.

Our pond is also a very important stop on CNUW's biodiversity education tours. It allows visiting students to observe an example of a riparian ecosystem, a type of habitat that is rapidly disappearing in Arizona.

Kellie removes a thick mess of water lilies, making room in the pond for other plants.

The amount of plant material students removed from the pond was truly impressive. Even CNUW students were impressed by how productive the little pond was. Student Terri Belisle commented how glad she was that, by cleaning up the pond, "students coming by could see more than just lily pads, and could see what's actually living in there." By the next morning, the pond water was already clearer.

The first of several piles of organic debris and detritus CNUW students and staff pulled from the depths of the pond.

While the pond cleanup was underway, other students were hard at work preparing the greenhouse for upcoming elementary school visitors. The CNUW greenhouse is home to several of our largest Desert Tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), and has served in the past as a nursery for Lowland Leopard Frogs (Rana yavapaiensis).

Lori Sharpy puts her back into trash removal.

Chris Trimble clears away fallen evergreen needles.

Hard work pays off, and for CNUW, the tireless efforts of these students have contributed to making the Scottsdale Community College campus a better place for wildlife to live and for students to observe and enjoy nature.

Emma

Monarch Tagging at Arivaca Cienega

Tagore wrote, "the butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." As a society, we tend to think of butterflies as fragile and ephemeral creatures, but this past Sunday, October 4th, CNUW students learned that Monarch Butterflies (Danaeus plexippus) are a lot tougher than we'd imagined. We joined Gail Morris and friends from Southwest Monarch Study at Arivaca Cienega to tag these beautiful insects as they began their migration.

CNUW and Southwest Monarch Study head out into the field in search of Monarch Butterflies. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

We met at the trail head at 9:00 AM, where Gail gave us an introduction to Monarchs and Monarch tagging. She pointed out important Monarch plants like milkweed and sunflower, taught us how to tell a male Monarch from a female, and gave us a few pointers on butterfly catching technique.

Gail walks us through Butterfly Catching 101. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

Once we were turned loose in the field, catching butterflies proved a more formidable task than we'd imagined. Monarchs are surprisingly fast and elusive. The terrain, though beautiful, was very swampy and hard to move through, further assisting the butterflies. CNUW students are tough, though, and our hard work paid off. Our group netted and tagged thirteen Monarch Butterflies.

Gail helps student Mark Johnson remove a Monarch from his net. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

Kellie Elliott shows off her freshly-tagged Monarch just before releasing it. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

Southwest Monarch Study's work is critical right now, for Monarch Butterflies are rapidly losing thier habitat. By tagging individual butterflies, we can track Monarch movements and better identify important habitats and locations.

Lori Sharpy hosts a Monarch on her arm. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

We also recovered a Monarch that had been tagged at an earlier date, and its recapture will help us better understand Monarch migration. Hopefully, some or all of the thirteen individuals we tagged will be recovered.

Kellie (right) and John Yu release another tagged Monarch. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

It was hard work and we got muddy, but our efforts are directly helping the Monarch Butterflies, and that's something to be cheerful about.

From right to left, taggers John, Danielle Moore, and Terri Belisle brandish their nets. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

Emma

International Coastal Cleanup 2009 at Lake Pleasant

On Saturday, September 19th, CNUW and SCC Green Club volunteers stepped out of the desert to help conserve the coasts as part of the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup. Armed with trash bags and gardening gloves, five of us drove up to Lake Pleasant Regional Park to clean up as much garbage as we could.

From right to left: Education Coordinator Jean Rigden, Sustainability Coordinator Thomas Williams, John Yu, Kellie Elliott, and Grants and Projects Coordinator Emma N. Olsen. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

We arrived just after 8:00 AM, and our work was clearly cut out for us. Even in the parking lot we removed hundreds of cigarette butts, dozens of plastic bottles, and innumerable food wrappers and utensils. As we moved down toward the water, our finds became progressively more bizarre and more disgusting.

Thomas bags a filthy piece of carpet. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

Kellie wields an abandoned baseball cap and the string of trash and organic debris that has become attached to it. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

Over the course of about four hours, we continued to remove trash from along the shoreline. Some of our most interesting finds included a pair of glasses, a stuffed toy rabbit, an Arizona license plate, several pairs of underwear, and a bleach jug filled with dead bait fish. The vast majority of what we found, though, was food-related trash: fast food wrappers, soda cans, beer bottles, plastic forks and spoons, and many other types of food packaging.

John clears away two handfuls of food wrappings. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

For a while, it was depressing to see just how much trash had been dumped onto the beach. As we worked, however, passersby would stop to thank us. I like to think that, by seeing us working hard to clean up a mess we hadn't made, the people at Lake Pleasant would at least think twice before tossing their garbage onto the ground or into the water.

John, Emma and Kellie with some our trash bags. Photo by E.N. Olsen/CNUW.

MCTV also came out to do a story about the Cleanup and to help raise awareness about littering and how it damages the environment. The segment aired on the October 3rd, 2009 segment of Maricopa Now!, which you can see here.

By the end of the day, we had filled 9 trash bags with nearly 500 pounds of garbage. It seems like a drop in the bucket, but that's 500 pounds of garbage that won't injure wildlife, poison water, or spoil the beautiful views at Lake Pleasant. We worked hard and I think our efforts paid off. I'm looking forward to the Cleanup again next year!

Emma