[Pollinator] Xerces Goes Island Hopping for Bees

[Matthew Shepherd]

*Xerces Goes Island Hopping for Bees *

Eric Lee-Mäder, Pollinator Program Co-Director



How do you restore a 50-acre native wildflower meadow for bees on an island
in the middle of the Columbia River?



It’s simple. Working with the Port of Portland, and seed company Pacific
Northwest Natives, we loaded up a barge with a tractor, a truck, a drill
seeder, hundreds of pounds of seed, and half a dozen tough farmers, then we
floated out to the island and started planting.



Special credit goes to our fantastic crew, contractors, plant ecologist,
and pollinator ecologists, who between them can calibrate a 1,000-pound
drill seeder, get us unstuck from sandbars, make emergency welds and
equipment repairs in the middle of nowhere, and formulate complex seed
mixes designed to support dozens of local species of bees and butterflies.



In addition to the seeding, more than 2,000 camas bulbs are also being
planted.



Stay tuned for future updates on this project, and expect a massive
wildflower show in spring 2016!



Go to http://www.xerces.org/blog/xerces-goes-island-hopping-for-bees/ to
see photos!





Matthew



________



*Matthew Shepherd*, Communications Director



*The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation     *Protecting the Life
that Sustains Us



Stay in touch:     *xerces.org <http://www.xerces.org/>*          *Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Xerces-Society/193182577358618>*
*E-newsletter <http://www.xerces.org/enewsletters/>*          *Twitter
<https://twitter.com/xerces_society>*



628 NE Broadway, Ste 200, Portland, OR 97232-1324, USA

Tel: (503) 232-6639 ext. 110; Toll free: 1-855-232 6639 ext. 110; Cell:
(503) 807-1577

mdshepherd at xerces.org



The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation is an international
nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of
invertebrates and their habitat. To join the Society, make a donation, or
read about our work, please visit www.xerces.org.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20150924/20d9f83b/attachment.html>