Phasey bean, and dog fennel, and bidens alba, oh my! Volunteer UCF is at it again. This time, they took a trip to the zoo and became botanists for the day to help maintain the environment for the wildlife.
The 10 young men and women arrived at the Central Florida Zoo on Saturday morning ready to pick, equipped with gloves, water bottles, bug spray, and active wear perfect for the summer weather.
Steve DeCresie, the park's senior horticulturist of seven years, led the way, giving a tour of the zoo and what he calls a "crash course" in botany. "This will take a lot of man and woman power," he said. And also asserted, "By the [end], you'll be wet, gross and somewhat muddy."
The VUCF gang were ready to go in their first visit to the zoo. Their task: to weed and spread pine straw in a dragonfly garden. "That's our mission," DeCresie said, then humorously hummed a melody, and in a comedically deep voice added: "Your mission, should you decide to accept it. Just make dragonfly pond look beautiful."
Chelsea Balkam is the director of the animal unit of the organization. "We have a very diverse group of people," she said. "Everyone is doing different majors , studying different things, but just love animals." Balkam started working for the committee two years ago when she was a sophomore and says she hopes to gain more knowledge about the zoo and what they do in conservation efforts.
The group followed DeCresie to the pond where they will be working and explained the process, saying they will mostly be focusing on ecology, but also hydrology, land use, some biology and zooology aspects and a brief medical lesson.
The pond system has been there since 2005 and is part of a farm water filteration system, which includes a pipe that connects to the St. John's River. DeCresie, a swamp lover, takes care of the swamps in the zoo, which consists of 117 acres of swampland. This one in particular is the black water river flood plain swamp, which is one of the 14 different types of swamps Florida has.
Surrounded by massive vegetation, DeCresie says it will take a lot of hands to do the job because the zoo staff has sprayed the weedkiller, herbacides, which he says they don't like doing, and because they have planted a innumerable amount of wildlife, which he gave them a lesson on how to identify, such as phasey bean, dog fennel and bidens alba and informs the group that they will be on a "scavenger hunt."
Balkam, who said she was "pumped," jumped up and down with excitement and smiled from ear-to-ear saying she was thrilled to begin. "I just love being outside," she said.
Max Lang is a pre-med major focusing on biology and was interested in helping out. "It just seems kind of interesting to do," said Lang, a senior. "Something different than my ordinary Saturday. Get to help out the zoo so that always helps. And I like the bio aspects, it goes into my niche of things that seem interesting." This is his first volunteer effort with VUCF, but usually does with Sherperd's Hope. "I do like to volunteer from time to time. It always treats me to help out."
Balkam says she was satisfied with the number of people who participated. "I'm like bubbling over with happiness," she said. "I only thought three people were going to come, so I'm really happy ... It's more than I expected, because it's a Saturday morning and it's the summer, so I didn't expect a lot of people."
Balkam says she hopes to make news friends as many of them did not know each other prior to this and signed up on the VUCF Web site.
DeCresie, who says he loves getting people in the mud, affirmed that the amount of people who attended was sufficient. "This group is perfect for dragonfly pond." he said. "I can't train really small kids, who sometimes just start to pulling anything, so it's nice when I get older, teenagers, college students and adults, that's when we usually do more difficult scavenger hunts."
Wet, gross and muddy two hours after they arrived, they reached their goal of edibles. Four bags were filled and ready to be taken to the animals, such as the camels, kangaroos and tortoises, all of which, DeCresie says, love the bidens and grasses. He exclaims it's a special treat for them because the plants surrounding the pond usually only gets picked by the end of summer because that is when it gets chaotic and needs to be pampered for the fall.
Following lunch, they will lay down the pine straw like "carpet or mulch," DeCresie said, and then the mission is accomplished for the VUCF volunteers.
"We can't do it without you guys," says Terri Clark about UCF. Clark is the community resource manager at the zoo and is one of the staff members assigns projects to volunteers. "We are just a small staff, a small non-profit so we have limited staff so for us to do everything that needs to get done, we cannot do it without volunteers. So we kiss the feet that you walk on. We are just so appreciative."
The zoo and UCF have a "great partnership," says Clark. Previously, a playground was built with countless UCF volunteers taking part. "We can't do it without them. We love them."
For more information about Volunteer UCF, visit http://www.vucf.getinvolveducf.com
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