Award-Winner: Wildlife ecologist receives Director’s Award

NPS/Kristen Lalumiere

Pinnacles National Monument, California, protects the remains of an ancient volcano. The park’s spires, sheer-walled canyons, and talus passages stand as evidence of millions of years of erosion and faulting. Today Pinnacles is also known as a haven for rare wildlife, thanks in part to the commitment of NPS Wildlife Ecologist Amy Fesnock. Given the Director’s Award for Professional Excellence in Natural Resources, Amy worked hard to secure a brighter future for three rare species at the monument: California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), California red-legged frog (Rana aurora draytonii), and Townsend’s big-eared bat (Corynorhinus townsendii).

Her most impressive accomplishment was getting the monument selected as the newest release site for endangered California condors and securing three years’ worth of project funding. By late 2004, five free-flying California condors were making their home at the monument. One could argue that Amy’s efforts on behalf of the condor were reason enough for an award, but she did not stop there. Concurrently, Amy launched an effort to bolster the monument’s population of California red-legged frogs, a federally listed threatened species, developing an experimental recovery program that restored frogs to the Bear Gulch Reservoir. The project more than doubled the monument’s population of frogs and protected them from invasive green sunfish. Thanks to Amy’s efforts to develop a cave management plan, Townsend’s big-eared bats, a species of special concern in California that was unexpectedly found in the park, are managed both to protect the species and to allow the public to enjoy the popular caves the bats use as roosts.

Amy was motivated to focus on these three rare species because findings from the Inventory and Monitoring program showed that these three animals were critical parts of the park ecosystem that were missing or likely to become so. “In the case of the California red-legged frog and Townsend’s bat, some of the motivation was to make sure these species were not lost on my watch, which I think many park managers can understand,” notes Amy. “And condors, condors are just cool.”

“One person cannot do great things alone,” says Amy. “Great things require the right environment, including support from upper management and the willingness to do the right thing, even if it is hard.” Amy credits park Superintendent Cicely Muldoon and Chief of Resource Management Tom Leatherman for encouraging her to set the bar high and achieve difficult goals.

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