By Gretchen Wing
Special to the Weekly
Lopez’s National Monument lands received special attention in May and June from a research team led by Dr. Wendy Anderson, Environmental Science professor at Florida’s Stetson University.
The team had two mandates: review, summarize and analyze 24 years of volunteer monitors’ reports and other research on Iceberg Point, Point Colville and Watmough Bay to glean trends in human use; and conduct a fine-grain survey of plant species, analyzing and mapping their distribution.
Anderson visited Iceberg Point in 1997 and “felt like I had found the place where my soul lives.” Then studying ecosystems in Baja California, she felt drawn to the cool green of the San Juans. In 2008, Anderson bumped into the Bureau of Land Management’s Nick Teague. Teague helped facilitate Anderson’s plan to survey plants and soil on some outer islands with a group of students. This year, funded by a National Conservation Lands research grant, the survey moved to Lopez.
The team spent six weeks wielding measuring tapes and one-meter-square grids at each site. They ran GPS-corrected transect lines south to north to create a 20 meters by 20 meters sampling grid. Within each grid, they identified every plant and noted any rare or invasive species.
When some areas proved too dense or prickly to cross, they documented the dominant species from afar. Anderson says, “We agonized over the trampling impact we were making with every footstep, and walked with great care.”
While Florida is a long way to travel, Anderson says the San Juans’ well-preserved but at-risk beauty presents compelling conservation challenges and opportunities. Besides, she jokes, Florida’s summers suffocate Swedish-heritage people like her.
Anderson’s team included lead field assistant Morgen Holt, a 2013 Drury University grad; Tabitha Petri and Ben Chase, senior biology-environmental Science majors at Stetson; Katie Nathenson, a history and environmental studies major, whose compilation of BLM monitors’ reports highlights the importance of volunteers in the monument’s future; and Sarah Coffey, the lone sophomore in the group. Coffey “utterly fell in love with the San Juans,” and will likely be back. Monument manager Marcia deChadenedes stated that the connection made between these young scientists and our landscapes may be one of the most important accomplishments of the research effort.
Along with Teague, deChadenedes and the volunteers, Anderson singles out for gratitude Madrona Murphy, who first helped her understand the region’s history, and Colin Doherty, who guided her previous groups’ kayak journeys: “They represent that generation who will continue carrying the torch of conservation.” Her team also enjoyed the annual hospitality of hosts Rick and Sue Ayre on San Juan.
Back in Florida, the team will generate multi layered maps for land management, showing, among other things, locations of rare plants and trouble-species that might need controlling. Meanwhile, their compilation of usage reports shows an increase in inappropriate usage (off-leash dogs, bicycles, etc.), but the rate of misuse is not rising as fast as the rate of visitation. This suggests that public education, or the mere presence of monitors, may help visitors understand the need to minimize their impact.
The Monument Advisory Committee invites the public to a meeting on land use with opportunities for public comment on July 8 at 10:30 a.m. at Grace Church.
