Avena Fatua, is an oatgrass, invasive in this area of southern California, which dries out in early summer contributing to the high fire threats.

This internship is placed at the San Diego Zoological Institute for Conservation Research, our main goal is to collect SOS seeds for restoration. This location is nice since we have the opportunity to not only collect in the desert, but also chaparral, and coastal sage scrub.  We were also fortunate enough to help with various other research projects including, Herp Array monitoring for biodiversity and Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat Habitat Monitoring, which included a prescribed burn.

The Biodiversity study, located on the 900 acre preserve adjunct to the Wild Animal Park, is meant to monitor small mammals, reptiles and amphibians living in the preserve. A series of several herp arrays with buried buckets trap creatures at night and then are assessed by scientists and volunteers the next morning.

Three arrays radiate from the center bucket of herp array 9. The plastic fencing serves to drive the creatures towards the bucket as they look for a way around.

My fellow intern and I got to help with this assessment for two days and saw a few species of snake, pocket mice, kangaroo rats, and tons of lizards! It was very educational to be exposed to the different techniques of weighing the animals, marking the lizards, capture and rerelease.

This side blotch lizard was captured in one of the herp arrays

The Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat Study takes place an hour and half North of the Institute near Temecula, CA. The Applied Plant Ecology Division is working on assessing the grassland vegetation in the area for release of Stephen’s Kangaroo Rats (SKR) that will be released later in the fall. The plots are actually hexagons with various treatments for invasive including herbicide, mowing, sheep grazing, and fire.  Monitoring these plots was actually really fun because we had great weather and got to learn about 5 invasive grass species in one day. Along with assisting in habitat enrichment, control of the invasive grasses should limit the amount of fuels available for wildfires.

I am holding a species of Kangaroo Rat, which looks similar to the SKR targeted in the study.

Posing with our favorite field guide: Native Plants of San Diego County. Thank you James Lightner!

A great part of this placement is that not only do we get to work in gorgeous natural areas but also we are also very close to San Diego. The Marina is a great place for sunsets and sailboats.

Angelique Herman

San Diego Zoological Institute for Conservation Research

Escondido, CA

Second Law of Thermodynamics: Entropy ! What can go wrong, will go wrong…but it’s great!

One of the aspects of field work that I love so much is that you can’t really ever predict how a day will turn out.  Unexpected things happen on a whim and it seems like, what can go wrong, will in fact go wrong. Working in San Diego county is no exception. This is my third blog of my internship, and reflecting back, there have been plenty of moments in the field that stand out in my mind as being particularly hazardous, problematic and exciting!

Our coverage area includes all of San Diego county so we have been collecting seeds for SOS in desert, desert transition, oak woodland chaparral, and coastal sage scrub. So far, we’ve managed to get our truck stuck in some soft sand in the desert. Here’s a tip: you can use the emergency break depressed halfway down to transfer power away from back wheels if they are stuck, keep them from spinning and help pull you out of a tricky situation. I’ve also used the emergency break halfway down trick to avoid rolling backwards in a tight turn around area with steep cliffs.  Another time at a mountainous chaparral area, we got the front of our truck stuck over a massive boulder and a simultaneous flat tire. Through this incident, we learned that 4” by 4” boards can be your best friend in lifting your wheels just enough to get over an obstacle. We got our flat on a steep incline so we had to drive the truck down the hill with a complete flat tire, but- no permanent damage was done. Pheu!

To continue on with the truck theme, we’ve had some interesting issues figuring out the particularities of the Ford F 150 off road edition.  At one point we got the transmission stuck in 4 WD low gear. This wouldn’t be much of a problem but we usually take a freeway to get back from this site and didn’t think we’d survive on CA freeways driving under 45 mph! After consulting the WONDERFUL mechanics at the Wild Animal Park, we learned the trick to getting it to drop back into 2 WD is to put the truck in neutral and then PUSH it about 10 feet forward and then backward. It worked!  That very same day, the driver’s side door kept rattling as though it was loose, and when my fellow intern fiddled with the lock to correct it, it shifted into the lock position and then refused to close at all. What to do? An option would have been to drive all the 2 hours all the way back with the driver holding the door shut with her hand, or we could have bungee corded the door shut and wrapped it around the driver’s head rest. But then that wouldn’t be safe, and then the door handle would have slowly started to detach itself from the door… And then after inspecting another door to figure out how the doors locked, the driver’s side backdoor was stuck open as well! The good news, is that we were able to procure a screw driver and after some fiddling, I fixed both doors and we drove home safely. J

Another issue we’ve been running into frequently are gates. We’ve been locked out of gates unexpectedly and had to abandon collections at the site. Even more peculiar is getting locked INTO areas and not being able to exit. At one site, we entered the preserve through the main gate with our key and relocked it behind us as we normally do. A few hours later when we come to exit the area, we notice that our master lock has been removed and replaced by a shiny, new combination lock- of which we don’t have the combination. We were able to get out when a border patrol officer drove by. This is when we learned that the new lock belonged to the Border Patrol. Why did they remove our lock and replace it with theirs? This is one mystery that has yet to be solved! A word of warning: be careful entering through gates that are open- but which can be locked. Getting locked in is no fun and dangerous.

Other fun and scary things about field work in San Diego are rattlesnakes, of which we’ve had several sightings and near misses, bobcats and earthquakes! We came here in the summer of earthquakes and have experienced 4 shakers in the past 4 months.

These boulders hide many rattlesnakes!

Nothing says fun like measuring cactus pads at 6 am !

The underside of this lizard is so torquoise !

This is our favorite coffee shop on the way to one of the field sites.

Angelique Herman

San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research

Escondido, CA

Blog #3

I am one of two interns placed with the San Diego Zoological Society for Conservation Research, a non-profit organization focused on conservation science around the world.  The Applied Plant Ecology Division, of which I am part of, is just one small part of the scientific community here at the Beckman Center for Conservation Research. Other divisions within the building include Animal Reproductive Biology, Behavioral Biology, Genetics, Regional Conservation Programs and Conservation Education to name a few.  We share our lab space with Applied Animal Ecology as well as their Mountain Yellow-Legged Frog Aquariums.  Currently endangered, these frogs were rescued from a puddle in the high elevation mountains in central California, so they prefer cooler temperatures. Unfortunately for us, this results in our lab space being quite chill! ( 68 degrees F!)

Mountain Yellow-Legged Frogs

This is our lovely courtyard for eating lunch: complete with fountains!

Much of the focus at the institute is conserving genes for the future, which are stored here in the Frozen Zoo!

Although our primary responsibilities here include seed collections for Seeds of Success, we’ve been fortunate to get our hands dirty with a variety of research projects within the institute.  This particular organization receives the majority of it’s funding for endangered animal species, so most of our plant projects revolve around habitat rehabilitation.  Our first two weeks of intense field work involved a vegetation survey of the chaparral areas in the 900 acre preserve (“the back 9”) located adjacent to The Wild Animal Park to restore for the Cactus Wren.  Transversing in this environment can be painful as you can imagine, but it was actually a great experience for an east-coaster like me to back my butt into a prickly pear cactus for the first time!

A contrast to the normal sunny dry weather associated with the Mediterranean climate of southern California, spring months can often bring hazey, cloudy mornings, otherwise coined "May Gray" and " June Gloom".

The view of the Wild Animal Park from the "back 9" preserve offers a unique backdrop for field work- note the hot air balloon!

Sarah Brewster, and others try to find a sanctuary of shade near the trucks. This is nearly impossible at 12 noon, as can be seen here.

Another perk of being placed at the Wild Animal Park, is that we are able to get to know the collection animals, such as this African elephant and her baby- seen here at 1 week old.