Text and photos by Keegan Curry, SPP Butterfly Program Coordinator
Washington’s winter was exceptionally cold and wet this year, posing unique challenges for SPP’s Taylor’s checkerspot rearing program. After a deceptive warm spell, the butterfly technicians at Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women (MCCCW) brought the caterpillars out of winter diapause only to find that spring was yet to come! Temperatures plummeted and constant rainfall postponed the larval release that typically follows within a few weeks of wake up. But in spite of this delay, technicians patiently fed and nurtured over 3,000 hungry caterpillars as we waited for weather to improve.
(Left to right) Jessica Stevens, Cynthia Fetterly, and Susan Christopher rest after a long day of counting, sorting, and feeding caterpillars. The shelves behind them house over 3,000 Taylor’s checkerspot larvae!
Everyone (including the caterpillars) thought it was time for spring. But winter returned with additional snowfall at the MCCCW rearing facility.
WDFW biologist Mary Linders carefully releases Taylor’s checkerspot larvae onto their host plant.
When environmental conditions finally improved, SPP transported the caterpillars to field sites for release. Our partners at Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) were happy to see healthy and active larvae crawling about in the sunny weather. Sadly, the women from MCCCW were unable to attend the release this year, but their efforts in the lab were recognized as critical in transitioning these larvae from captivity to the wild.
A curious Taylor’s checkerspot larva explores its new habitat.
WDFW biologist Mary Linders explains larval release procedures to volunteers.
A volunteer releases one final cup of Taylor’s checkerspot caterpillars.
This larva had already traveled over a yard from its release site!
In all, about 2,500 Taylor’s checkerspot larvae made it out to Salish lowland prairie reintroduction sites where they continue to support the recovery of this endangered species and their habitat.
Clouds break over the prairie as Taylor’s checkerspot larvae adjust to their new home.
By Carl Elliott, Kelli Bush, and Joslyn Rose Trivett, SPP-Evergreen Managers
Fawn brought Princess Remington, a turkey vulture, to the lecture series at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, and held the class’ full attention for a solid hour (more about her presentation here). Photo by Joslyn Rose Trivett.
Fawn Harris fills her days to overflowing, and navigates her many activities with grace and patience. She is a Master of Environmental Studies student, employee and volunteer with West Sound Wildlife, regularly active in her cultural community and environmental movement, and she coordinates SPP’s prairie conservation nursery program at Washington Corrections Center—a relatively new program with unusual and complex demands.
Fawn is the first member of her family to attend college. She is passionate about education, the environment, and building community. She successfully juggles the many elements of her life.
Fawn works on plant pressings with a student at Washington Corrections Center. Photo by Carl Elliott.
At Washington Corrections Center, she works and studies with men who are cognitively disabled, and finds ways to make science and environmental education accessible and relevant to them. Partnering with this population is a new challenge for SPP, and Fawn has been central to the program’s success thus far. She has shown patience and perseverance with everyone involved.
Above all, Fawn is a wonderful communicator. She knows how to captivate a large audience, describing the habits of birds-of-prey in a way that makes a lasting impression. She will take the time with a student to explain and discuss complex topics until the student feels satisfied. She also stands up for herself, and says what she needs, so that she is both safe and effective in her work. We are so impressed by Fawn and so happy to be working with her!
Fawn Harris and Sadie Gilliom collect violet seeds at Washington Corrections Center. Photo by Ricky Osborne.
By Emily Passarelli, SPP Green Track Coordinator, and Joslyn Rose Trivett, SPP Education and Outreach Manager
A WSP Beekeeper gets geared up and ready to check on the hives. Photo by Ricky Osborne.
You might think that beekeeping in prisons is a nice idea, but not a big idea: maybe it’s a small, fanciful project that would crop up here or there. Not the case!
In Washington State prisons alone, we already have seven beekeeping programs up and running, and at least three more are in the works. Beekeeping is also in the prison at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and many corrections facilities nationwide, including Georgia, Maryland, Illinois, Oregon,Florida, Nebraska, and LA County. Beekeeping programs can also be found in foreign prisons like England, New Zealand, Italy, and France. We’ve been contacted by prisons interested in beekeeping in Massachusetts, Albania, and Canada!
Three Maryland facilities host honeybee programs to provide training for inmates and boost the local population of pollinators. These hives are at Maryland Correctional Institution for Women. Photo by Anthony DePanise of Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.
Outside of prison, reentry programs, like Sweet Beginnings in Chicago, offer meaningful work experience. The founding executive director of Sweet Beginnings, Brenda Palms Barber, found that “Fewer than 4% of Sweet Beginnings participants go back into the criminal justice system, compared with the national average of more than 65% and the Illinois average of 55%.” How amazing is that?
Adding to the honeybee focus are countless prison gardens that are accessible to many types of pollinators: beds of flowers and herbs, small-scale vegetable production, and full-scale farms. Corrections facilities typically don’t use any chemical pesticides, so don’t contain the systemic poisons that threaten foraging pollinators; prison plantings are helping to rebuild pollinator habitat by offering a safe food supply. Some prisons add habitat structures for native pollinators, such as mason bee boxes at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center (see photo) and a literal-log delivered to the retention pond at Airway Heights Corrections Center.
A home for mason bees, a native pollinator, at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center. Photo by Ricky Osborne.
These programs tap into the many therapeutic benefits of working with nature, which has been widely documented in scientific research. Working with honeybees is particularly soothing; it’s impossible to get good results with bees without calming down. Both inmates and staff sorely need relief from prison stresses, and nature programs can be a place of refuge and recharge.
Also these programs provide a way for inmates to “give back ” to communities and the environment. In recent decades, pollinators have been dying at a frightening rate, putting our food sources in jeopardy: we depend on pollinators for more than 30% of human food and drink. Generally, nearly all plants with flowers need pollinators; 85% depend on insects for their reproduction! We need healthy hives to conserve and restore bee populations. In 2015, pollinator health was declared a national priority; as a hobby or career, beekeeping is has societal recognition and value. This is no fanciful endeavor—weneed bees to thrive so thatwecan thrive.
A professional beekeeper devoted her summer vacation to teaching about bees in a prison; how cool is that. Photo by Ricky Osborne.
In Washington, we are ramping up to a full-day Summit for Beekeeping in Prisons, to be hosted by Washington Corrections Center for Woman on March 3rd. More than 100 people are registered, and they will come from all 12 Washington prisons, the Evergreen State College, various non-profits and community groups, and multiple beekeeping associations, including the statewide association that oversees beekeeping certification. A major bonus of holding the summit inside a prison is that incarcerated beekeepers will be able to participate. All partners will share best practices, future prison beekeeping plans, safety ideas, community outreach plans, and pollinator health knowledge. We can’t wait to hear what great ideas and thoughts come from our many, fantastic partners!
Each program depends on partnerships among incarcerated individuals, corrections staff, and expert beekeepers. They are united in learning about and tending to something beautiful, complex, and a little bit scary…until it becomes second nature.
Text by Giovanni Galarza and Joslyn Rose Trivett
Photos by Ricky Osborne
Last week, SPP’s Science and Sustainability Lecture at Stafford Creek Corrections Center brought Giovanni Galarza and two snakes into the classroom. Giovanni is an Evergreen student and herpetology enthusiast, and he gave an exceptionally compelling presentation. Thank you to Ricky Osborne for his powers of photography—seeing these images is almost as good as being there!
Sierra, a Desert Kingsnake, investigates his enclosure before the lecture. Desert Kingsnakes are nonvenomous snakes native to the Southwestern United States, and are immune to the venom of Rattlesnakes which they prey on.
A student takes a closer look at Sierra the Kingsnake.
Giovanni passes around Brandy, a young Corn Snake, for students to touch.
Corn Snakes like Brandy are very docile, making it easy for everyone to get a special, hands-on experience.
Giovanni assists a student with proper handling of the Corn Snake.
For many in the audience, this was their first encounter with live snakes. Everybody seemed to gain a new appreciation for these beautiful and often misunderstood creatures.
By Amanda Mintz, Emergent Vegetation Conservation Nursery Coordinator, and Master of Environmental Studies student
Technician Kent Dillard inspects the plants for evidence of pests. Photo by Fawn Harris.
In SPP’s new Emergent Vegetation Conservation Nursery at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, we are growing native wetland plants in coconut fiber mats for wetland restoration projects. The program relies on a team effort from incarcerated technicians, prison maintenance staff, Evergreen’s program coordinators and managers, Joint Base Lewis McChord, the Center for Natural Lands Management, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the United States Fish and Wildlife. All have done an amazing job meeting the challenges of the innovative program’s technical demands.
DOC’s Jim Snider, technician Brian Bedilion, aquaponics expert Daniel Cherniske and SPP Program Manager Kelli Bush tour the nursery. Photo by Fawn Harris.
Coconut fiber mats, or “coir” mats, are commonly used in restoration for erosion control and suppression of weeds such as reed canarygrass. We are pre-planting them with wetland sedges and rushes, giving those beneficial plants a head start under nursery conditions. These plant types are known as “emergent” for their ability to grow through—emerge from—the water’s surface. Our hope is that the plants will be able to out-compete weeds and provide superior habitat for wildlife, such as the endangered Oregon spotted frog.
To grow the plants, we are using an aquaponics system. Two large fish tanks contain more than 100 koi, which produce waste that the plants use as nutrients. The water from the fish tanks circulates through the plant beds and then back to the fish tanks to pick up additional nutrients. The plants grow directly into the coir mats and do not need soil. By using an aquaponics system, we save water and reduce the need to weed or fertilize the plants.
We installed the first mats at Joint Base Lewis McChord in early November, and plan to have new mats ready in just a couple of months.
Conservation Nursery Manager Carl Elliott prepares to unroll a mat at JBLM. Photo by Amanda Mintz.
The first mats have been installed! Photo by Amanda Mintz.
One particularly adorable turtle who recently arrived at Cedar Creek.
During this waiting period, the turtles received acute care for shell disease, which included antibiotics, antifungal medication and shell surgery. The turtles that have arrived have completed treatments and just need watchful eyes and extra time to heal and wait out the winter months. The technicians provide all of this and more. They were excited to have new turtles to care for and prep for their eventual release back into the wild!
Mr. Hill, a Turtle Technician at Larch, getting ready to put a new turtle in her tank.
Mr. Goff, a Turtle Technician at Larch, getting ready to put a new turtle in her tank.
I delivered the turtles with the help of WDFW biologist, Emily Butler, to Cedar Creek on Monday November 1st and just this Monday Larch received their turtles. We were honored to have Dr. Matt Brooks, a nutritionist from the Oregon Zoo, to help us transport the turtles to Larch. This was Dr. Brooks’ first visit to the turtle program. He is helping us to improve turtle health by increasing the nutritional value of their diets. We are so thankful for his help, as we are always looking for ways to improve the quality of care provided to these endangered turtles. Thank you Dr. Brooks!
Dr. Brooks and the Turtle Technicians posing with a bin full of mealworms. Dr. Brooks took a sample of mealworms back with him to test their nutritional value.
Co-Authored by Western Pond Turtle Technicians Taylour Eldridge and William Anglemyer
On Monday October 3rd, turtle 4176 was released from the Turtle Rehabilitation program at Cedar Creek Corrections Center . She had been there for quite some time—about 4 months, with a month long intermission at PAWS wildlife rehabilitation center in Lynnwood, WA—then back for another 4 months. She had suffered from seizure-like episodes and for awhile it looked like she wouldn’t be deemed releasable back into the wild. We had been worried, as people who have spent time in solitary confinement ourselves, that months in captivity would have a detrimental effect on her. So it was a great relief to finally load her into a container and board a van destined to deliver her to the Lakewood Western Pond Turtle Refuge.
Turtle Technicians, Mr. Anglemyer and Mr. Eldridge, getting ready to release turtle 4176. Photo by Sadie Gilliom.
When we arrived, we were met by Washington State Fish and Wildlife Biologist, Emily Butler. In addition to facilitating the turtle release, Ms. Butler showed us how the radio telemetry transmitters are attached to the turtles. We were then given a training on how to use the radio receivers and Ms. Butler took us to the area where the turtles lay their nests. She had hidden two mock (plastic) turtles with transmitters attached to the shells. We took turns using the radio receiver and the attached antenna to find the plastic turtles. We both found it quite difficult; it’s not even close to easy to use the radio telemetry equipment. But we were eventually successful in locating them–truthfully, we received some visual hints. We have a new-found respect for anyone who has to attempt to find turtle nests in this manner.
Technician, Mr. Eldridge, learning to use the radio telemetry equipment. Photo by Sadie Gilliom.
Apart from the experience making us much more aware of the very difficult work of finding nests, it was a great learning experience which gave us a new found appreciation for the hands-on work that goes on in the field—a part of the program we’d never been privy to before. We learned of the plethora of other activities that the biologists do every day to help with the recovery of this amazing species.
We both feel good about being part of the SPP Western Pond Turtle Rehabilitation Program and we cannot think of a more worthwhile job—especially as people in an incarceration setting. We’re looking forward to helping the next batch of turtles get through their healing process and seeing them released back into the wild. We hope the day will come soon when there are no more turtles that need help healing. Hopefully, the future will bring multitudes of healthy turtles living in their natural habitat.
Drawing and art making are powerful tools to increase the ability to focus, relax, and develop creative problem solving in areas far beyond visual art. As an artist, illustrator and teacher, my experience working with students has illuminated the understanding that drawing teaches people to see. When we look closely in the way that illustration demands, we observe and comprehend the subtle details that make our subject significant and unique.
Teaching the art of the butterfly
We learn so much by looking closely, understanding, and representing. These were ideas I hoped to convey when planning a natural science illustration class as part of an internship with SPP for students at Airway Heights Correctional Center.
The illustration workshop was developed around the essential relationship between milkweed and Monarch butterflies and —most importantly—how creating artwork about this relationship can inspire understanding of core issues facing the imperiled Monarch butterfly and actions we can take to preserve and restore this species.
Studying the butterfly specimens
This internship project, pursued with support from SPP staff, the Endangered Species Coalition, Airway Heights, and other partners, centers on the proposal to develop a milkweed propagation site at the prison. The idea is to grow a species of milkweed, Asclepias speciosa, which is native to Washington State. Milkweed seed from plants grown in the prison would be collected by technicians for habitat restoration at designated sites near Spokane. The project goal would be to increase habitat for the Western population of the Monarch butterfly. Milkweed is the obligate host plant for Monarchs; eggs are laid on the plant and emergent caterpillars consume the leaves of the plants, developing toxicity which makes them undesirable to predators such as birds. Habitat where milkweed has historically grown has been destroyed due to pesticide use, changes in land use patterns, and other factors. Without milkweed, the only host plant for key lifecycle stages, the survival of Monarch butterflies is imperiled.
Inspiring message from an incarcerated artist: lifecycle of the Monarch
Sharing knowledge about this symbiotic relationship between butterfly and plant by creating illustrations with students and corrections staff at Airway Heights was inspiring. The workshop participants asked insightful questions, expressing concerns about how the loss of important pollinators such as Monarchs will impact other species, including humans. They saw the intricate detail of Monarch wing scales and milkweed leaves in specimens borrowed from the University of Washington. These observations were captured in detailed, creative colored pencil and graphite illustrations.
We talked about how drawing is a practice that takes patience and that mistakes made provide opportunities to reinforce skills. At the end, we viewed all of the work in a classroom gallery walk and shared what we noticed; a key observation was how everyone approached the project in their own way, some realistically, others adding words, some representing their ideas about how to protect these species. One of the most profound observations was how drawing and educational workshops like this allow students to feel reconnected to the community and themselves. It’s my hope that this connection will extend outward toward the development of a milkweed planting project and restoration of habitat for Monarchs, a species that so eloquently represents cycles of growth, transformation, and renewal.
Jeanne Dodds is a Teaching Artist, illustrator, and photographer who explores themes of connection and discord in the relationship between humans and the natural world. She is an incoming student with the fall 2016 MES cohort, and interned with SPP to research milkweed and Monarchs during summer quarter.
Mike Brown, a student in Mr. Scott Knapp’s horticulture class at Cedar Creek Corrections Center shared his poem with Mr. Knapp, who then shared it with us. With Mr. Brown’s permission, we now share it with all of you:
In Service to the Earth
To those who heal and protect the earth
In all ways and large.
To those who throw a protective shield ‘gainst
Industries toxic barge.
Endangered Checkerspot Butterfly from Mission Creek Corrections Center. Photo by SPP Staff.
Valued be the composters; gardeners;
Breeders of worms; frogs; bees and soil renewers.
To those who train dogs for the military vet;
Much appreciation, though we’ve never met.
To those who choose to purify the air.
Makers of clean water…all share,
From rivers, lakes, creeks and sea’s.
To those who plant trees.
Rearing Endangered Frogs. Photo by Joslyn Rose Trivett.
Valued are those who heal the prairies,
Grasslands, and renew the seeds.
Those who fight pollution by recycling and restore
The lore of fisheries
Herbs of plants (their healing salve),
Wildflowers that feed the gopher, butterfly,
And larks in the sky.
Valued are those who ask questions, “Why?”
Amending the Soil. Photo by SPP Staff.
Valued are those who heal cities.
Healing to them for whom the flock flows slowly.
To those with excitement and creativity.
Those who promote prison sustainability.
Beekeeping at Cedar Creek Corrections Center. Photo by SPP Staff.
Photos by Jim Miles, Prairie Conservation Technician at Stafford Creek Corrections Center (SCCC)
Text by Ricky Johnson, Prairie Conservation Technician Program Coordinator
Jim Miles is a conservation nursery technician at SCCC. We bought a new picture microscope for the program, and gave Jim the task of documenting more than 40 different species of prairie plant seeds. Miles had shown an interest in earlier detail-oriented tasks such as data collection and plant tracking. His ability to efficiently and systematically organize, document, and store critical data and information sold me that he was the right person for this particular task.
I delivered the seeds to Miles in a small box full of little manila folders. Being the meticulous worker he is, he immediately began to alphabetized the folders and outline a documentation sheet to correspond with the photos which were saved on an SD card. Tediously, he aligned each seed on a ruler to measure its length and width. Some species, like Micranthes integrifolia, are smaller than cracked pepper, so it takes patience to place them where you want them. Miles took the initiative to photograph seeds with various backgrounds—this proved useful for identifying characteristics of each seed, providing differing levels of contrast and illumination. The effects were impressive and looked like they belonged in an art gallery.
Gaillardia aristata, blanketflower, is a colorful daisy-like flower of the prairie, but the seeds look like wolf heads.
Erigeron speciosus also has a daisy-like flower…
…and here it is blooming on the prairie! Photo by Benj Drummond.
Microseris laciniata is a dandelion look-alike which is native to south Sound prairies.
Lomatium seeds are beautiful! They look a bit like dill seeds, because they are in the same family. This one is Lomatium utriculatum.
This one is Lomatium-nudicaule. Lomatium flowers are a powerful source of nectar for prairie butterflies.
This one is Lomatium triternatum, also known as nine-leaf biscuitroot. (Such a great name!)
Festuca romerii is one of only a couple grasses we grow in SPP’s prairie conservation nurseries—south Sound prairies are dominated by flowering plants.
Under the microscope, western buttercup, or Ranunculus-occidentalis, looks like fat little birds without legs.
Jim Miles spelled his name in Solidago simplex, also known as goldenrod.
Here is Technician Miles working with the picture microscope.
