Wyoming AP News - Wildlands Restoration Volunteers

Wyoming AP News
Fescue Rescue - Volunteers Collect Seeds For Restoration
Aug 12,200910:46 am US/Mountain
EVE NEWMAN, Laramie Boomerang
LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) -
The wind picked up slightly as early morning smoothed toward midday,
A close-up of Idaho fescue.
Eve Newman/Boomerang staff
but no one was surprised.
The sounds of low voices, dogs barking and cows mooing were picked up and flung to the east across a spread
of grassland in the northern part of the Pole Mountain Unit of the Medicine Bow National Forest, between
Laramie and Cheyenne.
The sounds of low voices, dogs barking and cows mooing were picked up and flung to the east across a spread
of grassland in the northern part of the Pole Mountain Unit of the Medicine Bow National Forest, between
Laramie and Cheyenne.
My eyes stayed on the ground, my hands clutching a brown grocery sack that was deceptively light considering
that it held thousands of Idaho fescue grass seeds, the product of the last couple hours of work.
Matt Scott, resource specialist for Laramie Rivers Conservation District, had earlier explained to a group of
volunteers how to tell Idaho fescue from its look-a-like neighbors -look for the green vegetation at the base,
reddish stems, and tiny awls rising from the seeds.
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"Once your eyes get trained to it, you'll be good to go," he said.
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Dave Fletcher of Niwot, Colo., gathers
native grass seeds in the Medicine Bow
National Forest last week as a volunteer
with the Boulder, Colo.-based Wildlands
Restoration Volunteers. Eve Newman/
Boomerang staff
He was right, though at first all the grasses were a blur of brown and green and sameness. Then I started to
really look, and they jumped into focus as a dozen different species, with the one I wanted rising taller than
most and bobbing in the wind.
Elsewhere, other volunteers snipped stalks of prairie junegrass and collected them in sacks. Those seeds weren't
ripe yet, but by cutting the grass stalks near the ground the seeds would continue to ripen even as they were sent
to a plant-growing center in Colorado.
All told, about 40 people spent two days last week collecting native grass seeds with a Colorado-based group
called Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, which conducts volunteer projects around northern Colorado. This
was the group's first foray into Wyoming, interim community programs director Jarret Roberts said.
"We're trying to spread out as an organization," he said. Scott said the extra hands were a great help. "Trying to
get that much seed collected with just a few people is a real pain," he said.
He'll send the seeds to a plant-growing center in Colorado, which will grow them and harvest even more seeds
for restoration projects such as road decommissioning, fire rehabilitation and range reseeding. Seeds harvested
from plants that grow happily at 7,000 feet in elevation are necessary for reseeding those same areas.
"We're trying to get some more species that are more adapted to this climate," he said.
John Giordanengo, who heads Wildlands Restoration Volunteers' new Fort Collins, Colo., office, said the group
conducts projects all summer including shrub plantings, boardwalk constructions, habitat restorations and trail
maintenance.
Volunteers on each project also cook food, lead crews, serve as teclmical advisers and manage tools.
"We have a whole leadership structure that allows us to take anywhere from 60 to 120 volunteers and provide a
service for land management agencies," Giordanengo said.
Todd Henderson of Longmont, Colo., helped arrange the Wyoming project and also serves on the board of
directors. He said the first priority is making sure volunteers come away with a positive experience.
"The most important thing by far is that the people have a safe time and a fun time and really feel enriched and
rewarded by their participation, because then we get them back," he said. "We can always come back and get
the work done, but what we're really trying to do is build community and instill a sense of shared responsibility
for our public lands."
A waiting list for most projects is a testament to that goal, he said. Indeed, the group's camping experience
included cooked meals and fireside entertairunent. Linard Limermanis of Boulder, Colo., has participated in 19
projects just this summer.
"It's something I've wanted to do for a long time," he said. "I love seed collecting. It's so relaxing."
Cathy Foley of Broomfield, Colo., heard about the organization from a friend of a friend and came away
impressed enough to participate herself.
"You feel like you're really helping out and doing something worthwhile," she said.
Upcoming projects organized by Wildlands Restoration Volunteers include seed collecting and boardwalk
construction in the Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge near Walden, Colo.
On the Net:
Wildlands Restoration Volunteers: www.wlrv.org