An Introduction to Scotch Broom
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Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparious) is a perennial shrub native to western and central Europe and is a noxious species in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Reminiscent of the dreaded hitches of the Nevada Conservation Corps where we pulled the invasive Brassica, or Sahara mustard, most of the time our NCCC team spent working with the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department was spent removing Scotch Broom. Our first taste of this invasive was at a Willamette River tributary, the Luckiamute River.
Scotch Broom was removed from the landscape and placed into a trailer to later be burned.
The NCCC team takes lunch by the Luckiamute River.
Sydney Lawson handles a snake found on the rocks by the river.
NCC crewmembers worked 20 miles east of Fallon, NV at Sand Mountain to decommission unauthorized OHV roads. Sand Mountain, a 
The dry lake bed of ancient Lake Lahonton can be seen in the distance. Formed by glaciers over 10,000 years ago, climate change led to the gradual dessication of the lake. As the water level dropped, the lake broke up into a series of smaller lakes. The lake here dried up about 4,000 years ago.
NCC crewmembers decommission roads during precipitation in the Sand Mountain area outside of Fallon, NV. The mountains in the distance belong to the Clan Alpine Mountain Range.
A lizard sunbathes on a rock in the Sand Mountain Recreation Area.
Decommissioning of unauthorized OHV roads in the Sand Mountain Recreation Area. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages these 4,795 acres of designated recreation area, used primarily by OHVs. An endemic species called the Sand Mountain Blue Butterfly lives only in this area and was recently petitioned to be listed as a threatened or endangered species. The butterfly is almost completely dependent on Kearney Buckwheat, a plant that continues to diminish due to unchecked OHV use on non-designated areas. Decommissioning unauthorized roads at Sand Mountain will prevent further lose of habitat for the endemic butterfly.
NCC crewmembers take a break.
Sand Mountain.
The Great Basin Institute (GBI), which houses the Nevada Conservation Corps, also runs a program geared towards the study and preservation of the desert tortoise. This tortoise is a native of the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of the southwestern United States, and is federally listed as a threatened species. We only saw a few in their native habitats, but GBI has a center southwest of Las Vegas where it attempts to rehabilitate tortoises that are sick or injured, or tortoises that people have illegally kept as pets. GBI also spearheads a population monitoring program in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This program conducts line distance sampling monitoring annually to determine the desert tortoise populations in Nevada, Arizona and Utah.
This GBI program. To prepare members of this program for work with GBI, our NCC crew was chosen to aid in setting up a training course for to-be desert tortoise monitoring members. GBI prepares a GIS (geographic information system) course that has fake desert tortoises set up at specific locations. Using GPS and compasses, members practice by locating these fake tortoises. Our task this week was to ensure the fake, polystyrene tortoises were in the exact position that they should be in according to the GPS numbers GBI had on file.
We would sometimes come across a dead desert tortoise while traversing the desert outside of Las Vegas.
Our crew supervisor, Amanda, stands above a polystyrene tortoise to measure the distance between it and a center line of the practice course to ensure the fake tortoise is in a precise location. The polystyrene tortoises are painted to resemble an actual desert tortoise.
An NCC crewmember uses a compass to line up the correct location where a polystyrene tortoise should be located for the practice course.
