WEBVTT

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the other thing that was kind of

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interesting . I believe it was the end

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of my first year , beginning of the

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second year here is when Karner Blue

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was proposed for being listed as an

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endangered species . What we did at

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that time based on the biologist that

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that was here , he was pretty proactive

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on getting ahead of the game . So we

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started to do some surveys for the

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Karner blue butterfly . At that time we

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worked with the Nature Conservancy and

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at that time we thought , yeah , we

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found a couple of butterflies , you

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know , we might find a few more lo

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behold we have one of the best

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populations in the nation here . And a

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lot of that is tied to the military

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training and how it affects the habitat

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for Karner blue . So it's kind of real

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interesting to get build up to that

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that that 10.2 from the ground up and

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learning more and more about the

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habitat , the interactions with

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military training training and

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different species as well . And

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speaking of the you guys kind of wrote

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the book on the how to maintain that

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habitat over these years to I mean

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between you and Tim Wilder , another

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biologist who's now the NRB chief . I

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mean you guys worked together for so

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many years to to document it and and

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and share that with so many other

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biology biologists throughout the

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country . I think that's that's another

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feather in your cap . Yeah . And I

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think , you know , a lot of that goes

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back to kim met met melo who was a

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biologist when I said , you know , he

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did have a lot of foresight in the

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endangered species and in the invasive

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species program to which kind of

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started on Fort McCoy as well . So um

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having that kind of a mentor mentor

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kind of help um solidify , you know the

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importance of the natural resources

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work and kind of staying ahead of the

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game to um with the Karner Blue , we

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did do a lot of work with some

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researchers at that time , we had a few

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people doing their grad grad graduate

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work and that's when we got more of the

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information on habitat use and

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vegetation growth and stuff . Um

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but then like I said on the invasive

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species , that was another intriguing

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thing on Fort McCoy back in the early

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days too . We started that I think in

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1991 and at that time the main

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species we have concern were spotted

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nap weed and leafy spurge . Um They

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were both pretty extensive on McCoy .

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Um but we really didn't know to what

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extent . So we started to do some

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mapping of those as well and found out

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that it's pretty much all over the

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place , especially on South Post . Um

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at that time kim understood that there

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was a need for invasive plant control

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because the damage it does to while

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habitat um

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soil erosion , um

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issues like that . Um And the detriment

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of military training training lands as

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well . So we started to do some

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herbicide treatments , started to try

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out different chemicals work with uh

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different researchers as well . And uh

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at that time when we started Fort McCoy

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is probably the only place in Wisconsin

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that was doing invasive species work

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even at that time . The D . N . R . Was

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slowly getting into it with a couple of

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people but a lot of people thought it

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was a lost cause not even worth doing

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it . Of course we kept going and going

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and found more species but we're

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finding a lot of good success in

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controlling some of these species um

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improving the natural habitat and

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military lands . And then from there it

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kind of spread again to the state of

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Wisconsin . We were kind of a big

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influencer with the state . We

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collaborated a lot helped provide

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information and then within Department

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of Defense as well um started getting

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more involved with Military Fish and

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Wildlife Association developed a uh

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invasive species working group and a

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few of the other installations would

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start getting on board because they

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kind of have the same issues too . But

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didn't know where to go . So then we

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sort of have a good group of folks to

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work on invasive species on military

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lands