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A Nose for Rare Plants
Team of scientists has good results using dogs to sniff out threatened wildflowers
By Nancy Raskauskas
Corvallis Gazette-Times
LUPINE MEADOWS — “Ready ... search.”
On a recent sunny morning, Rogue, a 4-year-old Belgian sheepdog, sniffed and snuffled his way across a field of tall grasses near Philomath ahead of his owner David Vesely.
To a passerby, it might have looked like the two were out for a stroll. But they were actually hard at work searching for Kincaid’s lupine, a rare native plant closely associated with the Fender’s blue butterfly, which uses the plant as a place to lay its eggs and later as a food source.
When Rogue suddenly stopped and sat back on his haunches, that was his tell that he’d found a new plant.
As the name suggests, at Lupine Meadows, an area owned by the Greenbelt Land Trust, it’s never long before Rogue finds another plant.
Click here to download the full article (originally pubished Monday, July 7, 2008 by the Gazette Times)
To read the article titled "Dogs Use sense of smell to help protect butterfly near Corvallis" published on Aug. 4, 2008 in The Oregonian click here.
current projects
Stewardship & Restoration
Greenbelt Land Trust monitors all protected properties annually, typically in late summer and early fall. Over the past several years we have created a detailed electronic database of all properties to support our land stewardship.
We work with landowners on where we hold conservation easements to secure funding for restoration and enhancement of important habitats.
We also work to restore habitats and species on properties we own. Major restoration work is focused on two properties:
Owens Farm, where Greenbelt Land Trust is restoring habitats by stabilizing wetland prairies and reestablishing their native vegetation by planting camas bulbs and native forb (flowering broad-leafed plants) seed. (Children from the Waldorf School planted 1,200 camas bulbs in Fall 2007 in exchange for hot chocolate and snacks!) We are also reducing unwanted vegetation within the oak woodlands to encourage a healthy native understory community. Click here for more information on Owens Farm.
Lupine Meadows, where Greenbelt Land Trust is removing unwanted trees from the wetland prairie and enhancing the upland prairie and it's rare species. We have just completed a management plan for this site and will be implementing additional restoration and educational activities at this site. Click here for more information on Lupine Meadows.