Interns’ statewide conservation tour winds down

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This article was written and posted on INHF's website July 2005.

Making photocopies and coffee is the last thing on the agenda for four Iowa college students working as Ding Darling interns this summer for the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (INHF).

Since mid-May, the crew has traveled throughout eastern Iowa restoring the natural features of INHF properties and conservation easements. The crew visited more than 10 different sites, including a special conservation trip to the Loess Hills along the Missouri River near Council Bluffs in southwest Iowa.

The crew will complete their final summer project July 25-28 in the opposite corner of the state, near the historic Capoli Bluff along Iowa’s northernmost banks of the Mississippi River.

Ding Darling interns are Casey Jeffries of Urbandale, Jacob Rogers of Tiffin, Elizabeth Ward of Epworth and crew leader Jessica Nanke of Decorah. Because the crew restores locations that are often far from their homes, they frequently camp together nearby their worksites to avoid commuting.

“I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my summer,” said Rogers. “Working outside, camping with people that have become close friends—its unlike any other internship.”

Projects are completed exclusively on INHF-owned properties or on private property where landowners have donated conservation easements to INHF. These landowners partner with INHF to permanently protect natural resources on their land, while retaining other rights.

Conservation projects undertaken by the crew frequently involve prairie restoration, as this native environment once covered 85 percent of the state. Today, more than 99.9 percent of that native prairie has disappeared, forever changing the ecosystems of the remaining remnants. Fires and grazing animals once naturally performed tasks like exotic plant removal, clearing brush and spreading seeds—all jobs the Ding Darling interns are responsible for today.

Among the crew’s many jobs is the removal of garlic mustard, a non-native, invasive species that frequently crowds out desirable native plants. This plant has over taken thousands of acres throughout Iowa, especially targeting the state’s eastern and central regions.

“The work the Ding Darling interns perform, particularly in removing invasive species like garlic mustard, is imperative to the long-term recovery of Iowa’s native landscape,” said INHF Land Stewardship Program Director Joe McGovern.

The crew has also worked to restore oak savanna, implemented erosion control measures on rare trout streams and maintained woodland health. “This job is important, and I’ve learned a lot,” said Nanke. “It’s been a unique opportunity to work alongside both landowners and INHF staff to restore the land.”

The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation is a nonprofit, member-supported organization that protects Iowa’s land, water and wildlife “for those who follow.” Since its inception in 1979, INHF has protected more than 80,000 acres of Iowa’s natural places. Since 1986, INHF has hired more than 100 interns to work both on the land and in their central office. This summer, the organization supported 11 land interns on three different crews throughout the state and 5 “indoor” interns.

Primary funding for the Ding Darling interns came from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust of Muscatine through a grant to INHF’s Ding Darling Educational Fund. The fund was set up to recognize the late Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling, a Pulitzer-Prize winning editorial cartoonist at the Des Moines Register, designer of the original federal duck stamp and a noted conservationist of the early 1900s. Additional funding for the crew comes from special contributions to INHF’s land stewardship fund.  

For more information, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Director of Communications, or call (515) 288-1846.