Arboretum & Wildlife Center Fall Report 2011
Activities of students and volunteers working in the WSU Arboretum & Wildlife Conservation Center (AWCC) are highlighted in the Fall Report 2011. This report illustrates and describes fieldwork and development projects on the AWCC, including the new citizen science project on pollinators in Palouse Prairie that was prototyped by students during the fall. NOTE: The … Continue reading
Stalking the Wild Bee
Hunting season is open in the WSU Arboretum – at least if you’re a student or visitor with a camera and are looking to carefully watch or shoot a picture of a bee or other pollinator! Students in WSU’s class in Restoration Ecology currently are prototyping a future “Citizen Scientist” project to census bees and … Continue reading
Throwing the Frogs Out With the Bath Water
Say hello to our new Columbia spotted frog friend, Fred, or Fredricka, as the case may be. We don’t know which it is yet, but we were quite surprised recently to discover this little frog sitting in our amphibian breeding pond at the Endangered Species Lab in the Wildlife Conservation Center at Washington State University. … Continue reading
Build It and They Will Come: Beavers in the Arboretum
While driving past the WSU Arboretum today, I noticed a small 2-3 inch diameter aspen (Populus tremuloides) toppled over on the ground on the banks of our small Airport Creek that runs through the arboretum. In a split second, the thought flashed in my head – you don’t suppose it could be the work of … Continue reading
How to Save an Endangered Species
I recently had an interesting dialogue with Brian Palmer, who writes for the Green Lantern series for Slate Magazine, an online publication of the The Slate Group, a Division of the Washington Post Company. Brian contacted me to see how I would answer a question that a reader had posed to him, “Which endangered species … Continue reading