Standing on the side of Brown’s Mountain in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve in April amid a sea of blooming brittlebush blanketed with bright-yellow flowers, Tiffany Sprague found herself overcome with emotion.
The Parsons Field Institute manager for McDowell Sonoran Conservancy and her team of stewards had just completed 12 field projects over two challenging months, during which they were walloped by unusually heavy rains and a global pandemic.
“It was an incredible feeling being out there with these incredible people, knowing that we had accomplished so much; and being able to see the results of that was definitely a highlight for me,” Sprague recalled.
Spring is the busiest time of the year in the field for McDowell Sonoran Conservancy’s Parsons Field Institute. The staff and stewards typically conduct 10 projects then, with results that contribute to invasive plant species research and mitigation, restoration of native flora and soil crust restoration among other issues.
“We have a lot of projects that occur throughout the year, but spring is when everything comes to a head,” Sprague said. “It’s when the desert really starts to come to life.”
This year, they added two more projects – RestoreNet and soil crust field experiments – as well as new plots to their trail restoration project and a new treatment to their non-native plant experiments.
After eight months of planning and preparation, including hiring on two botanists and training stewards, they felt ready to tackle this year’s projects.
Mother Nature, however, had different plans.
“We’re used to handling weather events. If we get a rain-day or two, we can usually wiggle around it,” Sprague said. “This year, of course, it was relatively dry until we started our field work – and then the rains just hit.”
In response to the coronavirus pandemic, health officials began recommending limited social gatherings of no more than 10 people.
“We started to get really creative,” Sprague said. “We had to sit down and put on our thinking caps: ‘Are there projects that we can delay and should delay? Are there projects that absolutely have to get done? And if so, can we do them safely?’”
Maintaining social distancing was easy in the field; the stewards had plenty of open space to spread out.
The real challenge, however, was completing all of their projects with smaller teams.
“We focused on the projects that had to get done and the ones that we could do safely. Luckily, it turned out that all the projects that we had could be done safely with some modifications, and that included cutting teams down to the absolute bare minimum,” Sprague said.
After rain delays and a few long, six- to 10-hour days, they finished all the projects – and “we continued to collect the same amount of data as we did in previous years,” Sprague said.
Sprague attributes their success entirely to the Conservancy’s stewards and botanists.
“I’d say we engaged 40 to 50 different volunteers through those two months; and we continue to engage folks now,” she said. “It really is their tenacity and their interest and doing the best that they can.”
Among those stewards is Douglas Jensen, the lead for their butterfly survey and non-native plant removal projects.
“It’s very important to us to have these semi-annual data streams flowing in. We were very reluctant to give up these projects,” Jensen said.
Jensen, who moved from Seattle to Scottsdale in 2015 as a retiree, heard about the Conservancy through his neighbor, and he’s been a steward since.
“It’s a real privilege to be able to work with the Conservancy,” Jensen said. “They do a lot of really wonderful work, and it’s a great way to be out enjoying the outdoors.”
Jensen is most involved in the removal part of the three-prong project, which starts with researching and surveying.
“We helped to develop a fantastic app that allows you to go into the field and indicate what type of environment they’re in. Once we have that information, then the removal people will schedule projects and decide what projects have priority. I’ll go out into the field and remove the stuff,” Jensen said.
Typically, the removal process is entirely manual.
But this year, Jensen, along with six other stewards, were trained and certified by the state to apply herbicides, allowing them to cover more ground, more quickly.
“Once the pandemic hit, we really started focusing on very large projects where we would send teams of three, four, or five people several days to work on a very large infestation. That way we can spread out very broadly across the landscape,” Jensen said.
And this was the highlight for Jensen this year: completing a major infestation removal.
“When you finish a project like that, you can look back and see the result of your work. And it’s very extensive: We’re talking about an acre or more work,” Jensen said.
Jensen said he also enjoys “having people enjoy the experience … it’s really fun to work with them. They’re wonderful people,” he said.
Amid the pandemic, steward and public engagement continues to be a challenge for the Conservancy.
After pausing all of their public-facing activities in the spring, the Conservancy introduced and transitioned their educational programs online, including Conservancy Kids.
Geared toward third through fifth graders, Conservancy Kids takes students on a virtual educational tour through the Sonoran Desert.
“The Conservancy Kids program has been really inspirational, and I’ve been able to provide a lot of online opportunities to engage teachers and kids and parents. That’s been really exciting,” Sprague said. “We’re continuing to try to be creative and figure out what other things we can do remotely.
As for stewards, the Conservancy has paused onboarding volunteers and hopes to resume in the fall.
“The question is: Do we have enough ways to engage all of these new stewards that it makes it worth it?” Sprague said. “Luckily, all of the stewards are thoroughly engaged in this, and they’re looking for things to do.”
Jensen added: “We’re looking forward to the day when we can get back to our normal-sized crews and normal practices, but the work is getting done.”
Information: mcdowellsonoran.org
