Nicodemus Wilderness Project -- Global Registry of Apprentice Ecologists

My name is Angelica, and I am a freshman majoring in Environmental Science and Resource Management at California State University, Channel Islands and I am a lifetime member of the Girl Scouts. As a girl scout, I grew up spending lots of time outdoors and participating in outdoor activities such as hiking, camping and exploring nature. All of my time spent outdoors inspired me look for ways to help our local environment. So, for my Girl Scout Gold Award, I wanted to lead a project that would help a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center. I looked for centers that were local to my area and found Wildcare Eastern Sierra located south of Bishop. Their mission statements are:

Restore animals' health and release them back into their environment Care for injured animals and treat their injuries Educate the public on living with wild animals and how to prevent conflicts from arising

They are a small facility that serves a 150 mile stretch of the Eastern Sierras and their impact on the areas they serve is large. They care for many different kinds of wild animals such as bats, birds, squirrels, raccoons, skunks, foxes, rabbits, groundhogs, coyotes, chipmucks, marmots, bobcats, tortoises, snakes, etc. The members of the communities they serve bring them the animals or notify them in addition to other local and federal agencies.

Their website: https://www.eswildcare.org/ I made a trip up to Wildcare Eastern Sierra to determine what kind of condition their facility was in and noticed that the songbird enclosure was dilapidated and failing to meet their needs. All the countertops and cabinets that are used for storage were weathered, falling apart, and lacked the necessary storage space for supplies.

Addressing Wildcare Eastern Sierra's need for an upgraded songbird enclosure became important to me when I learned about the regional decline in bird populations. Due to the detrimental impacts of humans on the environment, songbird populations have been experiencing large declines in their numbers. The decline in songbird numbers adversely impacts our environment, which in turn affects the quality of life for humanity. For example, plants and trees that rely on songbirds for seed dispersal are negatively affected by the songbird population decline. Industrial activities are also polluting the natural habitat of songbirds. According to a 2019 article in the Audubon Society magazine, a recent scientific study found that North America alone has lost more than one in four birds over the last fifty years.

I began my project by taking all the necessary measurements, asking how many birdcages they needed to fit on the countertops for injured and young birds, and determined what storage space they needed. Once I had all the necessary measurements, I researched the supplies needed and solicited donations for all the supplies. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the outdoor storage cabinets that I originally planned to get. The cabinets I was able to obtain were larger and therefor I had to reduce the number of cabinets I obtained. I also had to change the design of the countertop supports because of this change in the outdoor storage cabinets, so I worked with my team to change the design of the countertop supports. Once I had all the supplies bought, I identified the right people with the right skill sets needed to remove the old infrastructure and build my project. For the convenance of time and the number of trips my team and I would have to make, I decided that it would be more convenient to build the storage cabinets before arrival. My team and I headed back to Wildcare Eastern Sierra to start taking out all the old countertops and cabinets.

Once all the old countertops and cabinets were taken out, I organized my team into small groups of two to four people to complete the build. I developed a basic plan for how to build my project and got advice from members of my team on how to improve the plan so the build would be successful. My team and I discovered the doorway into the enclosure was too small to fit the assembled cabinets through the entryway. So, we had to disassemble them and put them back together inside the enclosure. During the build I kept track of our progress and made sure my team had what they needed. I also made sure to keep Wildcare Eastern Sierra's staff informed on our progress and asked for their input when questions came up.

After the project was completed, we counted all of the bird cages that could now could safely fit on the countertops. The original counter tops could fit a total of five cages before the upgrade. Now the new counter tops can fit sixteen cages because of the extended counter space and the amount of weight the new counter tops can support. The original counter tops were unable to support the weight of stacked bird cages, but the new counter tops can. I have also doubled their storage shelf area, as well as more than tripled their storage cabinet volume.

My Gold Award project helped Wildcare Eastern Sierra gain the capability to rehabilitate more songbirds. Songbirds migrate throughout all of North America, which includes Canada, the United States, and Mexico. By expanding the capability of the wildlife rescue to rehabilitate songbirds in the Bishop area that migrate globally, the impacts of this gold award project extend beyond the local Bishop region in California.

This gold award project gave me the opportunity to learn about the global decline in songbird populations and many of the reasons it is happening. It has reinforced my passion for animals and the environment and has helped set me on my course for college where I am an Environmental Science and Resource Management major. I learned some very important skills that will better prepare me for my future career. I had to use decision making skills and relied on the experience of my team to get good information for those decisions. People skills were also important when working with a team of people with different backgrounds and approaches to building things. I also had to use money management skills to figure out how to fund the project.