LOCALadk Magazine

66 Summer 2017 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk How you can help: The good news is that there is a lot you can do to help protect and restore pollinators. Plant a pollinator garden. A wonderful way to help pollina- tors is to create a pollinator garden at your home. If you live in the Adirondack region, pick up one of our seed packets at local farmers markets, The Wild Center, and many participat- ing businesses, and start planting! A good rule of thumb is to think about transforming one third of your lawn to a pollina- tor garden or no-mow zone. To avoid contamination from in- vasives, it is very important to find a good, local source for native seeds and plants. Local plant nurseries, garden clubs, cooperative extensions, and farmers markets are all great places to learn what grows best in your area. In addition to providing critical habitat and food sources, pollinator gardens provide beauty all season long. Matt Schlesinger suggests we can help pollinators by doing the following: "... the more diverse native plantings we can manage over a large area, the better. Any small garden or backyard flower bed can provide good pollinator habitat, pro- vided that chemical insecticides are minimized and a diverse collection of native plants is grown. Most pollinators are fly- ing insects and they're quite mobile, so having somewhat iso- lated, small patches of habitat isn't necessarily a problem for them." Alternatively, if you do not have the space at home, encourage your workplace, school, parks, community, or even roadsides to create a space for pollinators. You can also look to local garden clubs like Common Ground Gardens and start your own garden plot. Become a citizen scientist. Citizen science is when the volunteers from the public work with scientists to solve re- al-world problems. The growing field of public participation in scientific research (PPSR) includes citizen science, volunteer monitoring, and other forms of organized research in which members of the public engage in the process of scientific in- vestigations, including asking questions, collecting data, and/ or interpreting results. To help interested landowners better understand pollinator activities on their property, the Lake Placid Land Conservancy (LPLC) is developing a conservation monitoring program that invites citizen scientists to monitor their property for wildlife, invasive species, birds, phenology, and pollinators. LPLC will assess whether a property is suit- able for pollinators, for instance, by looking at specific habitat requirements, such as open space and a diversity of flowering plants. LPLC will then enroll eligible landowners who will ob- serve for the presence of bees, butterflies, and other polli- nators. Landowners will record their observations which will be entered into a public database where the data can then be easily reviewed and organized. If the property supports a more intensive project and the landowner is willing, LPLC will then reach out to expert scientists to implement more thor- ough protocols for monitoring.

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