Despite the very stormy weather, 17 souls came to our Thursday, January 16, Chapter meeting to hear a talk by Anna Shrenck of Whiskeytown National Recreation Area.
Anna’s presentation, The National Park Service: Promoting Native Plants through Park Based Nurseries, highlighted the efforts of several native plant nurseries in the National Park Service system that are propagating local genotypes for restoration purposes. At the end of the slide show, she gave her very attentive audience an update on Whiskeytown’s progress as it attempts to recover from the Carr Fire.
Anna started her career with the Park Service in 1998 at Grand Canyon National Park, working in the Vegetation Branch of the Resource Management Division, after graduating from Prescott College in Arizona with a degree in Plant Ecology. She managed native plant nurseries at both Grand Canyon and Joshua Tree National Parks. She now works at Whiskeytown National Recreation Area as the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Coordinator for the Carr Fire.
After the talk, attendees chatted amongst themselves and with Anna, helped themselves to the refreshments, perused the books for sale, and checked out the tiny seedlings that President Susan Libonati-Barnes brought in for a little pre-spring botany.
The Shasta Chapter thanks Anna for her most informative talk. We were all very glad to have braved the wicked weather to attend!
Next month’s speaker will be Scot Loring of the Bryophyte Chapter CNPS, who will present a talk on Bryophytes, on Thursday, February 20. Scot will also hold a workshop and lead a field trip to augment his talk, so be sure to mark your calendars for that one! More details can be found on our calendar.