Wild About Utah: Don't Tread on Me!

Hi, I’m Holly Strand from Stokes Nature Center in beautiful Logan Canyon.

Rattlesnakes are pit vipers with heavy bodies and broad heads. There are about 30 species and 40 more subspecies found in North and South America. They aren’t found anywhere else. All possess rattles and all are venomous.


Here in Utah we have 5 species plus 2 subspecies. The Great Basin Rattlesnake is the most widespread, living all across Western Utah at elevations up to 9000 feet. Another subspecies of western rattler--the midget faded rattlesnake--is dominant in the eastern part of the state. The Hopi rattlesnake and the greenish colored prairie rattlesnake are found in southeastern Utah. And the Mojave rattlesnake, speckled rattlesnake, and sidewinder are found only in the extreme southwest corner of Utah.

The rattle itself is a unique biological feature. It’s a loose, but interlocking series of nested segments, actually modified scales, at the end of the tail. When vibrated, the rattle produces a hissing sound.

A snake gets a new rattle segment every time it sheds it skin, and it sheds from one to four times a year. 15 or 16 rattles are common in captive snakes, but in the wild snakes with six to eight are segments more common. In wild snakes, rattles are subject to a lot of wear and tear, so they break off before they get very long. The rattle sound is the reaction of a startled or threatened snake. You’ll often see the rattling snake in a defensive S-shaped coil—but not always!

Aggression and venom in rattlesnakes vary by both species type and by individual. The western diamondback rattlesnake is the archetypal large, aggressive and very dangerous species, responsible for the majority of human fatalities caused by snake bites in America. But it’s northern range limit is south of the Utah border. However, the Mojave rattler found in southeastern Utah is extremely toxic, excitable, and its venom attacks both the nervous system and circulatory system.

Rattlesnakes aren’t out to get us, mainly they just want to be left alone. You’ll generally be fine if you stay aware of what might be in or around rocks, and don’t walk barefoot or in open-toed shoes in their habitat. Also, use a flashlight after dark; most rattlesnakes are active at night too!

Thanks to the Rocky Mountain Power Foundation for supporting the development of this Wild About Utah topic. For Wild About Utah and Stokes Nature Center, I’m Holly Strand.

Credits:
Image: Courtesy and Copyright 2009 Holly Strand
Text: Holly Strand, Stokes Nature Center

USEE Member Taking a Different Approach to Climate Change

The Utah Chapter of the Nature Conservancy (and USEE Institutional Member) was featured in the Salt Lake Tribune for its plans to use its Dugout Ranch as "a laboratory for understanding how climate change is affecting Utah and for solutions on easing its impacts."

The laboratory, featured dubbed the Canyonlands Research Center, "would shift its focus from the discussion of whether climate change is a problem to more practical considerations: How can ranchers, water districts and other natural resource managers best cope with the changes under way -- changes that affect everything from forests, streams and range?"

This is exciting news as the Nature Conservancy is working actively find solutions and adaptions to issues that Utah will have to deal with in the future resulting from climate change. "The work already has begun, with the Nature Conservancy's Utah Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment. The first-of-its-kind project in the state involves identifying and mapping plants, animals and ecological systems thought to be most vulnerable to changes in climate"

Read the entire article by Judy Fahys here: Nature Conservancy Lauches Climate Change Research Site

Dugout Ranch will be the site of the Canyonlands Research Center.
Photo courtesy of Tom Till

Washington State Prisons: Green Job Training and Sustainability

I came across this article in The Grist the other day. (Washington State Prisons Pursue Sustainable Practices, Green Collar Job Training by Sarah van Schagen) Though they have a lot of interesting articles circulating about, this one I thought was particularly interesting. It's about a partnership between The Nature Conservancy, Evergreen State University in Washington, and the Washington state prison system. It's called the Sustainable Prisons Project and it's changing the way Washington state prisons are training offenders for the workforce.

Jason Chandler plants Walla Walla Sweet Onions in the
organic garden at Stafford Creak Corrections Center
Photo: Sarah van Schagen

The Sustainable Prisons Project's website states their mission is "to reduce the environmental, economic and human costs of prisons by training offenders and correctional staff in sustainable practices. Equally important, we bring science into prisons by helping scientists conduct ecological research and conserve biodiversity through projects with offenders, college students and community partners." They achieve this by providing offenders with green job training. It is so far a win-win situation as "the scientists get cheap (and eager) labor, while the offenders get the opportunity to participate in meaningful work."

Offenders' task vary from tending the prison's organic garden (the produce is used in the prison's kitchen), separating recyclables from the prison's waste stream, beekeeping, and attending to composting worms. The offenders can also participate in a variety of conservation efforts as well. One project led by The Nature Conservancy involves planting native grass seeds as part of a federally funded prairie restoration project. Other offenders "are also helping breed endangered spotted Oregon frogs and “farm” mosses for the horticultural trade (which aids in preventing unsustainable harvesting from old-growth forests)."

This training allows the offenders to have the opportunity to get involved in science, develop their critical thinking skills, and develop needed skills that could help them in the job market after serving their time in prison. The program is also helping the state prison system money. At the Cedar Creek facility, "efficiency upgrades like low-flow toilets and showers and a rainwater catchment system helped save 250,000 gallons of water in the summer alone. And the gardening, composting, and recycling efforts are saving the facilities thousands of dollars every year."

The Sustainable Prisons Project is currently in practice at 3 state prisons in Washington. The project hopes to expand the program to all prisons in the state. Since correctional facilities as basically like small cities, they hope their example can be followed by other state prisons, summer camps, military bases, hospitals, and schools.

To find out more information about this project, I recommend reading the entire article.

Photo by Sarah van Schagen

Household Hazardous Waste Collection

Do you have old cleaners, paint, electronics or other household hazardous waste (HHW) cluttering up your home? Bring them down to SugarHouse Park this THURSDAY!!

This event is FREE to all Salt Lake County Residents:

Date: Thursday, August 27, 2009
Time: 7:00am - 10:00am
Location: SUGARHOUSE PARK - (Garden Center-North entrance of Sugar House Park)
1602 East 2100 South
Salt Lake City, UT

According to the EPA, The average home can accumulate as much as 100 pounds of HHW in the basement, garage, and in storage closets. HHW is anything in and around your home that is poisonous, flammable, corrosive, toxic, or requires special disposal practices. It is many of your cleaning supplies, yard care chemicals, pesticides, fuels, batteries, CFLs, used oil and antifreeze, old medications, pharmaceuticals, and electronics. (All Salt Lake City collection events have a police officer present to collect old medications.) This is the last collection event of the summer- don’t miss it!

Also, for information about some safe alternative to hazardous household products, check the Salt Lake County Valley Health Department.

NAAEE Conference

The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) is having their annual conference in Portland, OR, from October 6 to October 11. Jason and I will be attending the conference this year and I am particularly excited as this is my first NAAEE conference as well as my first time to Oregon!

The theme for NAAEE's 2009 conference is The Power of Partnerships: Creative Leadership in Environmental Education. Jason and I are presenting during one of the sessions the results from and the next steps of the Utah Project for Excellence in Environmental Education that we recently completed in May. Please join us, we'd love to see you there!

Wild About Utah: Paper Wasps

We credit the Chinese with inventing paper 2000 years ago, but some social wasps have been making their paper nests for eons. Species of paper wasps are found throughout Utah.

The burly bald-faced hornet workers are patterned in black and white. They place their grey, basketball sized paper nests in tree branches.

Bold yellow and black striped Yellowjackets are the persistent unwelcome guests at summer picnics. They too wrap their round nests in an envelope of paper, but typically place it in a shallow underground chamber. Within the paper envelope, both hornets and yellowjackets have a muti-tiered stack of paper honeycombs, like an inverted pagoda.

Our most familiar paper wasps belong to the genus Polistes. These are the reddish-brown spindly looking wasps. They make their simple paper nests under your home's roof eaves and deck railings. A Polistes nest consists of a single inverted paper honeycomb suspended from a stiff, short stalk. There is no paper envelope, so you can readily see the hexagonal paper cells. Around your yard, look for the workers scraping fibers from weathered wood surfaces. Workers mix the chewed fibers with saliva and water, carry the ball of wood pulp home, and add it to the thin sheets of their paper nest. The nest is their nursery, where you can see the queen's tiny sausage shaped eggs and the fat white grubs. The grubs are fed by their sisters, the workers, who scour the surrounding habitat for insect prey or damaged fruit.

Utah has been invaded by the European species Polistes dominula. These interlopers are displacing our native Polistes. Where these European Polistes wasps are a stinging nuisance, you can easily dispatch them at their nests with a sprayed solution of dishwashing detergent and water. Thus stripped of its clever defenders, take the opportunity to admire their homes of paper.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy and © Copyright 2009 Jim Cane
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Wild About Utah is a weekly nature series produced by Utah Public Radio in cooperation with Stokes Nature Center and Bridgerland Audubon Society. Archives of the program can be found at www.wildaboututah.org.

USEE BASH! - You're Invited!

You are invited to the 13th Annual USEE Benefit BASH!
A fun-filled evening with food, drinks, music, socializing, and silent and live auction items!

DATE:
September 18, 2009, 6pm - 10pm

LOCATION:
The Wasatch Retreat and Conference Center
75 South 200 East, Salt Lake City

TICKET PRICES:
$40 for USEE members
$55 for non-members
$400 for a table of 8

Purchase tickets online today, or for more information, please call (801)328-1549.

Calling all K-12 Teachers - 20th Annual Science Grant Competition

Calling All K–12 Science Teachers: Toyota TAPESTRY Program Now Accepting Entries for the 20th Annual Science Grant Competition!

The Toyota TAPESTRY Grants for Science Teachers program, sponsored by Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc., and administered by NSTA, is now accepting entries for the 2009–2010 competition. Now in its 20th year, the program offers grants up to $10,000 to K–12 science teachers for innovative projects that enhance science education in their school and/or school district over a one-year period.

Fifty large grants and a minimum of 20 mini-grants totaling $550,000 will be awarded this year. Individual science teachers or a team of up to five teachers can submit proposals in one of three categories: physical science application; environmental science education; and integrating literacy and science. A judging panel convened by the NSTA will select the award-winning projects based on several criteria, including their innovative approach in teaching science and ability to create a stimulating and hands-on learning environment.

Since the program’s inception in 1990, Toyota TAPESTRY grants totaling more than $8.6 million have been awarded to science teachers across the country. More than 2,000 teachers have used those funds to develop and execute extraordinary programs that helped hundreds of thousands of students nationwide make a passionate connection with science.

For more information about the Toyota TAPESTRY Grants for Science Teachers program or to learn how to apply, visit www.nsta.org/pd/tapestry. Applications must be submitted no later than January 18, 2010 to be considered. Don’t delay, apply now!

USEE Annual Conference: Call for Proposals

Environmental Education in the West: Past, Present, & Future Conference Dates: November 19-21, 2009 Location: The Wasatch Retreat and Conference Center in Salt Lake City
Submission Deadline: September 11, 2009
Would you like to be a presenter at, or lead a field trip for, the Utah Environmental Education Conference? This year we are proud to announce that we will be including surrounding States, making this a REGIONAL Conference. This is a great opportunity to share your work and learn from others in the West.

Click here to download the proposal submission packet.

CONFERENCE STRANDS

• Environmental Literacy
• Foundations of EE
• Professional Responsibilities
• Planning and Implementing EE
• Assessment and Evaluation

Please call 801-328-1549 if you have any questions, or visit us on the web at www.usee.org. Check back frequently as we update the conference information.

Your Voice is Heard!

The following article was published in the Salt Lake Tribune and written by one of our members, Susan Dyer, after attending a USEE Green Bag Lunchtime lecture series focusing on "How to Live a Greener Lifestyle." The presentation was given by the Salt Lake City's Mayors Office Outreach Coordinator for the Division of Sustainability and the Environment. Thanks Susan for letting your voice be heard!

Tribune and energy
Public Forum Letter
Updated: 08/10/2009 05:45:04 PM MDT

After hearing a fascinating presentation last week by the Salt Lake City mayor's office on alternative energy and sustainability, I wondered why The Tribune doesn't devote more coverage to environmental issues? The presentation's most important good news/bad news points were: The quality of drinking water in Utah is among the best (no need to buy bottled water), and Salt Lake's air quality is among the worst. The latter is due in part to the city and state's reliance on fossil fuels for energy: 84 percent of Salt Lake's electricity comes from fossil fuels, primarily coal-powered plants; for Utah, it's 98 percent.

It would be helpful if The Tribune could target these subjects more thoroughly, spotlighting increases in alternative energy use, such as solar energy and wind power. Providing more news about developing new energy sources, about the reduction in Utah's reliance on coal, and about the consequent improvement in air quality helps readers connect the dots.

Reports about the impact of citizens' sustainable practices (recycling and ripping up strips of lawn) provide valuable feedback and encourage further efforts. Such information helps readers make informed decisions about increasing their low-impact energy use.

Susan Dyer
Holladay

______

Are you interested in attending a Green Bag? Be sure you are signed up on our enews list to receive the announcements!

Wild About Utah: Squash Bees

Three Squash Bees
Peponapis pruinosa
Copyright © 2009 Jim Cane

At long last we are enjoying full summer, and with it, the bounty of our gardens. Last August on this program, you learned about our native squash bees. Unlike honeybees and bumblebees, Squash bees are not social. Each female excavates a simple vertical tunnel in the dirt the diameter of a pencil. Lateral tunnels terminate in tiny chambers where she caches pollen and nectar to feed her progeny. She lays one egg per chamber. These nests are well concealed.

But you can readily see the feverish activity of males and females at squash, pumpkin and gourd flowers soon after sunrise, often before honeybee activity. Squash bees are the size of honey bees, but earlier, faster and more deliberate in their flight. Males have a yellow spot on the face. Unlike honeybees, female squash bees carry squash pollen dry in a brush of hairs on their hind legs.

Both sexes of squash bee are valuable pollinators, indeed they are the unheralded pollinators of most of the nations squash and pumpkins. But there is more to their story in Utah. Their native hosts, the wild gourds, only grow in the hot low deserts. Native Americans domesticated and cultivated squashes and gourds, but the practice did not spread north of the red rock country. Across most of Utah and the northern US in general, we have squash bees because we grow squash. In Utah, European settlers first grew squashes only 150 years ago. Each annual generation of squash bees spread further north, hopscotching from homestead to homestead, reaching as far north today as Boise Idaho. As you pick your zucchinis, butternuts and pumpkins, realize that your squash’s flowers also fed the descendants of our squash bee pioneers.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy and © Copyright 2009 Jim Cane
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Wild About Utah is a weekly nature series produced by Utah Public Radio in cooperation with Stokes Nature Center and Bridgerland Audubon Society. Archives of the program can be found at www.wildaboututah.org.

How do you fight Nature Deficit?

I've been following Nicholas Kristof's series of opinion pieces on nature deficit disorder at the New York Times.

His first article addresses the general problem of Nature Deficit Disorder in children. We've discussed this issue before on the blog but I do wonder if one of our great failings in the environmental education movement has been an inability to articulate the 'why' aspect of preservation.

One problem may be that the American environmental movement has focused so much on preserving nature that it has neglected to do enough to preserve a constituency for nature. It’s important not only to save forests, but also to promote camping, hiking, bouldering and white-water rafting so that people care about saving those forests.

His second article takes a deeper look at what we as adults can do to 'recharge' our soul through experiences with nature. To Mr. Kristof, this involves backpacking and he gives a 10 point how-to guide:

1. Follow Robert Frost and take the path less traveled by, for that makes all the difference. In the evening, camp where no one else is around. You don’t need a campground: just stop anywhere that is flat. Indeed, the ground in the woods and fields is much softer than the packed dirt of campgrounds. But when you leave in the morning, make sure that you leave no trace.


Backpacking is also my favorite outdoor activity; I just spent a week rafting the Green River and certainly have that 'soul' recharging feeling he is referring to. What types of outdoor activities do you participate in for a nature recharge?

Recycling Info for Teachers

Have you been trying to get your school to recycle the mass amounts of paper that your school generates? Maybe try this option:

GreenFiber wants the communities trashed paper products, as is not only willing to pick them up for free, but will also pay your school per ton of paper they collect. This could potentially be a great solution for local schools and businesses to solve the some of the recycling issues around the valley.

The following article was written in the Salt Lake Tribune by Jennifer W. Sanchez:

West Valley City » In a warehouse here, newspapers and cereal boxes, among other paper products, are shredded and made into insulation for buildings.

To get the paper products, GreenFiber pays citizens money to recycle. The company pays $15 a ton to the schools or businesses that house its green recycling bins and $30 a ton if someone drops it off at the warehouse.

"You don't have to do anything, and [you] get a check," said GreenFiber spokesman Bruce Lyman.

And company officials promise there's no catch.

GreenFiber, a North Carolina-based company, is among the nation's biggest manufacturers of natural fiber insulation, fire and sound products. The West Valley City plant, which was acquired by the company three years ago, is one of eight recycling and manufacturing facilities nationwide.

The West Valley City warehouse's former owner Redi Therm opened the warehouse in 1983.

In 1995, the plant started a Community Paper Recycling Program, where the company provides free green bins at various locations, from schools to mall parking lots, and later white recycle trucks return to collect the paper products , Lyman said.

There are no fees for clients at any point, he said.

Today, the GreenFiber plant in West Valley City oversees an estimated 1,600 recycling bins -- which look like industrial green garbage cans -- from northern to central Utah, he said.

The paper products are then delivered to the West Valley City plant, where they are shredded and made into bundles of insulation. The insulation is then taken to be sold at hardware stores, such as Home Depot, Lyman said.

It's a win-win situation -- recycling the paper products helps the environment, people make a few bucks and some waste-disposal bills are decreased, Lyman said.

Some schools or businesses might make a few hundred dollars or up to $1,000 a year, depending on how much they recycle. Profits from some bins go to nonprofit groups, such as the Utah Food Bank, he said.

When a group of students wanted to start the recycling program at Northwest Middle School in Salt Lake City, Principal Rod Goode said he supported their idea, and they really got other kids and teachers involved.

The school eventually won a contest among 35 schools on which campus could most improve their recycling numbers. In spring 2008, Northwest gathered .75 tons of paper products. That increased to almost six tons in spring 2009, making them the recipients of a $100 prize, Lyman said.

Goode said the school will definitely continue to participate in the program, and he plans to let the students decide on how to spend the extra cash.

"It makes recycling easy and convenient," he said.

Wild About Utah: Migratory Locust

Vast migratory swarms of flying grasshoppers, or locusts, have periodically scoured arid parts of Africa and the Middle East since Biblical times, devastating crops and causing famine. But did you know that during the 19th century, American homesteaders were likewise plagued by migratory swarms of grasshoppers? The largest swarm passed through Nebraska in June of 1875; it was 110 miles wide, 1800 miles long and more than a 1/4 mile thick, taking five days to pass overhead. It remains the world’s largest recorded insect outbreak.

Here in Utah, at the time of the transcontinental railroad, migratory locusts periodically descended on the homesteads of Mormon settlers, laying up to 1 billion eggs per acre. These ravenous swarms devoured crops, vegetation, even laundry hung out to dry. Around the Great Salt Lake, drowned pickled grasshoppers would wash ahore in vast drifts. Native peoples gathered these salty, sun-dried hoppers for food, a rich source of protein and fat.

Why are we no longer plagued by locust swarms? It appears that the Rocky Mountain locust, went extinct at the turn of the 20th century. Entomologist Jeffrey Lockwood reports that the DNA of specimens preserved in the ice of glaciers in the Wind River Range are like no other grasshopper alive today. The cause of the locust’s abrupt extinction may never be known with certainty, but Lockwood believes that these outbreaks originated in the mountain meadows of the northern Rockies. By the 1880s, these public lands were packed with cattle and sheep, far more than the land could sustain. In a few short years, livestock stripped bare the very core habitats needed by the Rocky Mountain locust, leading to its abrupt extinction and the end of locust swarms in North America.

This is Linda Kervin for Bridgerland Audubon Society.

Rocky Mountain Locust were similar to this large grasshopper.
Melanoplus sanguinipes
Photo#215400
Courtesy & Copyright © 2008 Lynette Schimming
As found on www.bugguide.net

Credits:

Photo: Courtesy & Copyright © 2008 Lynette Schimming (As found on www.bugguide.net)
Text: Jim Cane, Bridgerland Audubon Society

Wild About Utah is a weekly nature series produced by Utah Public Radio in cooperation with Stokes Nature Center and Bridgerland Audubon Society. Archives of the program can be found at www.wildaboututah.org.

The Green Building Center

-by Alaina Caudillo


Earlier this month TJ, Nicole, and I took a trip to The Green Building Center, located at 1952 East 2700 South in the Sugarhouse area. The owner of the Green Building Center, Ashley Patterson, was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful in answering all our questions and giving us a complete tour. The store does a great job utilizing many of the same products they sell such as integrating LED lighting and the use of a solar electric system, a Chili Pepper water heater, and natural lighting fixtures called Sun Pipes. Sun Pipes resemble sky lights, but transfer less of the heat coming from the natural light indoors and they conserve more heat in winter months, all the while providing an incredibly bright lighting option for your home or business. Among other things I observed a solar oven, a few types of wood stoves, and a few alternative water heaters, many of which qualify for tax credits. One of the alternative water heaters was the Chili Pepper, which they use in the store, that notifies you when the hot water from your water heater is warm so you don’t have to run the faucet while waiting for the water to heat up.

I was amazed at the selection of books for sale that can help you get started in choosing the right products for you and your family. This is a great place to find a wealth of different information, along with green products for your next remodel or home- improvement project! Some of the options available at the Green Building Center include reclaimed, FSC certified, sustainably harvested wood as well as cork and bamboo flooring. In addition, the green building center also sells beautifully recycled glass tiles and decorative paints containing zero VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) which can be matched to the color of your choice. The possibilities are endless in terms of choosing a product that will address the issue that is most concerning to the consumer, whether that means ease of use or a certain environmental concern. For example, you can choose an oil based finish for hardwood flooring made from linseed oil, which has more VOC’s but is more absorbable and easier to use, or a water based polyurethane finish that is lower in VOC’s but can be a little harder to use. Another great resource in flooring options is the real linoleum that they carry which is made from linseed oil and pine resin which makes it a biodegradable alternative to the typical “linoleum” that is actually made from vinyl.

It’s easy to improve the aesthetic value of your home as well with sustainably made products. Consider integrating beautiful furnishings and accessories into your design scheme, such as decorative pillows and clay based plasters that add texture and color to your walls. Clay based plaster is a wonderful option for bathroom walls because they naturally absorb some of the water vapor, acting as a mold inhibitor. A great way to improve the years we spend throughout our lifetime asleep is to invest in organic cotton bedding and eco-friendly mattresses made from wool or natural latex. These materials are naturally flame retardant without being processed chemically to provide you with this very important, as well as mandatory, safety quality. So if you are looking to make some greener decisions in your home life make time to check out The Green Building Center, a wonderful local business who would love your support!