Volunteers kill velvet grass in local national park

SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK — Eight volunteers are deep in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park plucking a grayish hairy plant.

It is routine work, but a unique trip.

“It’s unusual for it to be a two-day hike away,” Athena Demetry, restoration ecologist with Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, said.

They are members of American Conservation Experience, close to finishing a 10-week mission to remove non-native velvet grass that is infesting the federally protected habitat.

“This is a valuable experience for them, and for the park itself,” Joel Baker, director of American Conservation Experience in California, said.

Invasive non-native plants, like velvet grass, establish dense patches that exclude natural vegetation. The 3-foot tall perennial was introduced to California from Europe as livestock feed.

Eventually it became a weed species that flourished in moist meadows. Like other menacing foreign plants, it hurts native plants by out-competing them, polluting their gene pools through hybridization, altering nutrient cycles and transmitting alien diseases.

The volunteers’ 20-mile trek led them to Kern Canyon, the most southern portion of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. They are using several methods to kill the grass: hand pulling, hand tools, herbicide and a black cloth laid on top of the grass, barring sunlight until it dies.

The American Conservation Experience is a non-profit organization that places American and international volunteers in challenging outdoor projects in three-month stints. Two of the 11 volunteers in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park are from Orange County, the others come from outside the country.

“Four weeks is usually the maximum they spend in each spot,” Baker said. “We’ve had other projects like this with nice big hikes, but this is the first time we’ve done it in Sequoia.”   

A trip like this requires a lot of support, according to Demetry.

“We can’t bring in supplies by helicopter,” she said.

Enter the Back Country Horsemen.

In early June, before the crew ventured out into the wilderness, at least five Back Country Horsemen riders loaded 13 stock animals with tarps, ropes, camp stoves and the like to help set up the camp near the Kern Ranger Station. Since then they have gone out on weekends to deliver fresh food.

“They’ve been instrumental,” Baker said.

-- Contact Jenna Chandler at 784-5000, Ext. 1045, or jchandler@portervillerecorder.com.