A Day in the Life... Of Botanists!

Today we joined up with the SCA crew in Essex County for the day. Basically, there was a large fenced in area (about 1/2 of a square mile I believe) in order to keep the deer out. Native species had been dying out in this park due to the large deer population eating them. So our job was to take data about sections of the park in the fence and out, so that hopefully in a few years, data can be recollected and we can know whether or not the fence was working. We worked with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and a few representatives from El Paso, a company that builds natural gas pipelines, that I think are funding some money for SCA next year. (If I'm getting these details completely wrong, I'm sorry)

We learned about several different kinds of plants that lived in the park and how to identify them with some helpful botanists. Today was very fun, and so very different from our regular days of trail building that we've grown accustomed to. We also had a great lunch and water bottles thanks to the NJ Conservation Foundation!! If anyone from there reads this, we all thank you very much! We really had a great day and I think everyone learned a lot.