The CCP travels, learning conservation and restoration first hand!

Name: Kyle Turner

Class Year: Class of 2019

Hometown: Pickerington, Ohio

Internship: Houston Zoo Collegiate Conservation Program

Location: Houston Zoo, Texas

Dates covered:  05/28/2018- 06/16/2018

Hello again everyone!  Things have been busy and exciting down here in Houston.  With being on the go these past weeks, I now have so much to catch you all up on.  The Collegiate Conservation Program (CCP) team has gotten to work on multiple projects, met even more influential people from the Houston Zoo, and have enjoyed our first day with Gabriel Massocato.

Working at Brazos Bend State Park to remove invasive Alamo Switchgrass

Payton and Robert cutting down the infamous Chinese Tallow Tree!

Week three started us off meeting with Mary Kate Kunzinger, Bennett Dones, and Peter Riger.  Mary Kate Kunzinger is the Conservation Sustainability Coordinator at the Houston Zoo and she talked to us about how the Houston Zoo keeps pushing towards sustainability.  Their most recent feat was ditching single use plastics throughout the facility.  Bennett Dones is the interpretative program supervisor, and he is known for his charismatic personality with both Zoo guests and staff.  He explained how his style of interpretation has evolved and adapted over the years, and with him we learned different styles of engaging guests.  Peter Riger is the Vice President of Conservation and we were fortunate to have lunch with him to ask him about his job and for career advice.  It was amazing to hear that he has traveled to Borneo, Africa, Madagascar, and other wildlife hotspots!  We also continued our animal handling.  I teamed up with Zoe to present a baby Greek tortoise to our guests, and I think we had a few junior herpetologists come up to us.  Later, the team got to head out and work at multiple different facilities for invasive species removal.  Our first project was at Brazos Bend State Park, where the CCP dug out Alamo Switch Grass.  After we filled up two truckloads, we had lunch and then walked one of the trails and saw three alligators! At the end of the week, we drove to Katy Prairie Conservancy and chopped down Chinese Tallow.  We pulled up young shoots, sprayed some older trees, but we also took down some adult trees. My group started the shift in a shaded riparian, but after we were done the sun could once again reach the ground.  It was amazing to see the results of our labor.

Here in the CCP, we aren’t afraid to get a little wet.

Week four we spent two days working with the Galveston Bay Foundation.  The first day was my favorite day of our week.  That was the day we went out and made 50 feet of oyster reef.  The CCP bagged recycled oyster shells from local restaurants and took six tons of oysters into the bay.  We then started laying down our bags into the water to help build a natural buffer between the shore and the waves to prevent erosion and to protect the planted nursery marsh.  Day two with Galveston we helped cut back and clear a part of a trail they manage.  It was interesting to see both sides, marine and land, of the Galveston Bay Foundation projects.  In the middle of the week we went to the Nature Discovery Center to help them remove Screech Owl nesting boxes since it was the end of the nesting season.  By this time the owls have reared their young and moved on for the year.  We removed around 30 boxes, some we could not take down because of different reasons.  One nesting box was engulfed by a massive beehive while another gave us a small surprise, my teammate Sheila was shocked by a screech owl still inside!  

Whoooo dares disturb the nesting screech owl?  Sheila, that’s who

This owl had lost its nest to bees earlier in the season, and so we guess it decided to stay back and raise another clutch!  To end this week we had an overnight at the Zoo.  To start the night we went to Waugh Drive Bat Bridge, where we saw a small colony of bats emerge and fly away.  It was similar to Bracken, but just a fraction of the bats.  Here we also learned and saw another effect of Harvey.  This bat colony was hit by the massive flooding and we were told how local community came out to fish bats out of the water to save as many as they could.  The bats that survived will create the next generation of their species.  To me it was another example of how the communities resolve to help others during this natural disaster and it is so inspiring to hear how far the hearts of some people reached out.  After we watched the bats we went back to the zoo and had our night tour.  We got to hear how the zoo engaged with their .guests in a different way, we were an anomaly to the usual overnight guests because as of now there are no adult only overnights.  The Houston Zoo is looking into creating adult overnights and hit a new area for education for adults.  It was amazing to see the Zoo after hours, things are very different once the sun goes down.  In the morning we went on the morning tour where we got to see the animals before the Zoo opened.  It was a pleasant way to end our week because we got to explore and take in the Zoo in a different way.

We are learning the purpose of these acclimation pens for the Attwater Prairie Chickens.

Week five we got to talk with zoo staff and we learned about Project Dragonfly and other Master’s/ grad school opportunities.  We went to Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary where we helped them weed and organize their nursery.  This nursery is where restoration projects and places/people that want natural plants go to for their native plants.  The CCP also got to go and visit the Attwater Prairie Chicken Native Wildlife Refuge.  There we learned about the conservation effort to save the Attwater Prairie Chicken which they estimate to have only around 25 left in the wild.  While we were there the team helped organize some nets.  The nets are used to assemble the acclimation pens for the Prairie Chickens soft release into the wild.  This week we worked on Saturday where the Collegiate Conservation Program presented the Giant Anteater Spotlight On Species (SOS).  We educated guests about two Brazilian giants, the giant anteater and the giant armadillo.  We had a faux giant armadillo burrow where we taught them about being an ecosystem engineer.  There were keeper talks given by the hoof stock department for the zoo’s giant anteater.  The Giant Armadillo Project is tracking a new giant anteater and we had the public vote on what we would call it!   We also had a digging game to compare how much dirt people can move to that of a giant armadillo.  However, the best part about this day was we had a special guest.  We got to meet with the Giant Armadillo Project Biologist that the Houston Zoo sponsors, Gabriel Massocato.  Gabriel was born in Brazil and he is one of seven to work for the Giant Armadillo Project.  He is an amazing guy and he shared with us his knowledge about these Brazilian giants and worked with us on growing our abilities to being conservationists. 

There is so much I want to say about him because it is amazing how much his passion for these animals shows.  We were fortunate to have six days with Gabriel, which I will have to tell you all later.  It is invaluable to have the opportunity to meet and talk with field biologist since they have different insight on how conservation plays out.  It is not everything you read in the text books, it is so much more.