The riparian associated migratory Snow Goose from Alaska and Siberia descend in the thousands on the high desert community to overwinter in the Indian Wells Valley, CA in November 2023 (Photo credit: Meghan Branson)

Program: Master of Arts in Biology, Global Field Program of Project Dragonfly, Miami University, 2024.

Keywords: Aquifer depletion, bird biodiversity, drought, water systems management, xeric gardening, backyard habitats, sustainable living.

Introduction 

My conservation journey started with the question: “why are there snow geese in the high desert?” In our community—the Indian Wells Valley (IWV) of central eastern California—we see thousands of these Snow Goose (Anser caerulescens) from about November to April every year. They hang out in our ball fields, grassy parks, and even seem to hunt for winter grass out amongst the desert Creosote scrub. At the same time, I was ready for a career change and thought I might pursue a master’s degree in Biology. I am currently a high school science teacher, and I would like to transition into more of a local environmental advocate. The Global Field Program with Project Dragonfly of Miami University came highly recommended from a number of my fellow Advanced Placement Biology colleagues, which focuses on conservation and traveling to other countries for field work. Having both a passion for nature and travel, I had found the perfect fit.

At the beginning of the program, I studied my community’s conservation organizations and researched the Pacific Flyway migratory route of the Snow Goose. I was shocked to discover that California had lost over 90% of its wetland habitats since 1930 (Wilson, 2010). Hundreds of thousands of these birds travel from areas such as Wrangel Island off the north coast of Siberia, and over-winters in California, a distance of almost 4,000 miles round trip each year (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2023). These facts led me to decide to study how our local bird biodiversity compared to other nearby habitats (Branson, 2022) and which environmental factors most impact bird biodiversity (Branson, 2023). It was during this research I learned that:

In the midst of my conservation studies, a local environmental drama was slowly unfolding. As a result of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the IWV was designated “critical overdraft” in 2020. Critical overdraft status is defined by SGMA as follows: “a basin is subject to critical overdraft when continuation of present water management practices would probably result in significant adverse overdraft-related environmental, social, or economic impacts” (California Department of Water Resources, 2024) . The Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Agency (IWVGA) was thereby established to solve this water crisis, mandated to formulate a plan for the valley’s aquifer basin to become “net zero” in water use by 2022. This meant that our sole water source of groundwater—snow melt/rain run-off that percolates down hundreds of feet to our water aquifer—must not be over pumped from wells past the amount of water coming into the aquifer (known as “recharge”). As part of the required compliance to the SGMA, the IWVGA developed a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP), which outlined the group’s plans to achieve net zero status (Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority, 2020). 

One item of personal interest during the public comment period to the Draft GSP was a letter submitted by The Nature Conservancy. They had studied the IWV Draft GSP and found a concerning lack of input and attention to environmental impacts from low groundwater availability to the local ecosystem (The Nature Conservancy, 2020).

My path to understanding this complex picture of “water wars” and my concern for impact on the local environment was prompted after talking with the local Quail Forever hunting/conservation group about their efforts to maintain the valley’s wildlife guzzlers. Their stories of hauling water trailers over rough backcountry dirt roads to refill dry wildlife water guzzlers during our 2012-2016 drought really brought home to me how our local springs could be impacted by our reduced water table. Speaking with the local Audubon club, I learned about another conservation concern regarding a future project which could impact the waste-water settling ponds so vital to our thousands of migratory waterfowl (Daily Independent, 2023).

These experiences led me to join the Audubon and Resources Conservation District boards and partner with the local museum to bring awareness and action to local environmental issues. Through the Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Master’s program in Biology, I learned how important it was to actively engage diverse, sometimes conflicting, stakeholders and to find commonality towards a more sustainable future together. Seeing conservation programs in action in Belize, Costa Rica and Guyana made me realize how much more can be accomplished in the long run when people work together towards common goals—even if they started miles apart.

Master Plan

Over the past two and a half years of my conservation journey with Miami University, this Master Plan was developed as a road map to guide my learning, research, vested community projects, and future opportunities. My goals were to:

1. Study the local water and biodiversity issues. 

2. Establish connections in the local conservation community.

3. Establish conservation goals within community groups.

4. Support water and habitat conservation through the founding of the IWV Conservancy and through established local organizations such as Kerncrest Audubon Society, the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Authority (IWVGA) and Indian Wells Valley Water District (IWVWD) and the Eastern Kern County Resources Conservation District (EKCRCD). Also working with the local Naval Base Environmental Department, Bureau of Land Management - Ridgecrest, the Mohave Desert Ground Squirrel Council, Desert Tortoise Council, Aguabonita Flyfishers and Quail Forever.

5. Host an annual conservation event at the Maturango Museum featuring local groups involved in conservation (#4 above).

6. Support a residential backyard habitat program with a focus on xeric landscape, wildlife habitat and sustainable living. 

These guiding principles helped to formulate my six main projects during this time, which will be discussed in detail in the next three sections: 1) Community Conscientiousness and Conservation, 2) Research and 3) Leadership and Action.

Community Conscientiousness and Conservation

This section and class project reflect my introduction to the world of hidden east Kern County conservation groups and environmental concerns in the Indian Wells Valley, California. The primary sources of income in this mostly rural area of California are the military, agriculture and oil production.

Project 1 - Indian Wells Valley (IWV), CA Community Profile and Mapping 

As part of the class requirement for Conservation Science and Community, I researched my local IWV community profile, looking at demographics, environmental characteristics, community support structures and governance, and finally conservation organizations. Local newspapers and prominent businesses place military projects, the economy, city hall functioning, church, and fairground events at the top of most discussions. There are little to no mentions of our local environment, other than our water shortage or the beautiful sky. I had lived in Ridgecrest for 16 years before I learned—during this fall semester 2022 class—that there are organizations here, such as Kerncrest Audubon Society and Quail Forever, which have a primary or secondary focus on conservation. While researching our local conservation groups, I developed community contacts, establishing a rapport by participating and building social capital.

In terms of social capital—social relations that have productive benefits—it was interesting to study the “small rural town” type connections at the heart of our valley’s city of Ridgecrest. I found that there were many opportunities for social bonding—bridge game groups, philanthropy and church groups, community support groups and yes, a number of conservation groups. Social bridging on the other hand, in which relationships are built between people of different backgrounds or groups, I found to be not our strong suit. Business people tend to socialize with others in like-minded organizations that support an outlet for their businesses, and church groups tend not to mingle with other denominations. There is a definite division between Democrats and Republicans (predominant in Kern County), with a strong dislike for the “other party”. In terms of industry, Kern County is the number one oil producer in California (Shale XP, 2022), and the next leading large employers are the military and agriculture/ranching interests. These types of businesses tend to focus more on economic issues and less on conservation. Appealing to pro-business and pro-environmental concerns is a tough division to bridge for any community. On the other hand, social linking—vertically building relationships between socioeconomic or political levels—is also more of a strength of the IWV. Those on the Republican side have a large sway through our local Navy base, which regional politicians want to support, and Democrats have support in many areas through the California government network.

Despite our weak social bridging, I was surprised to find that the Indian Wells Valley has the capacity to be socio-ecologically resilient due to its strong social bonds and links. Pretty and Smith (2004) report that communities which are well-connected are much more likely to sustain stewardship for the long-term if they are included in planning and developing conservation programs. I am hoping to foster a strong community conservation ethos through building social capital with a diverse variety of groups which will help in bridging social gaps between groups. Social psychologists point out that “especially crucial in moving toward long-term human and environmental well-being are transformational individuals who step outside of the norm, embrace ecological principles, and inspire collective action” (Amel et al., 2017). Through my foundational local research and the building of a network of conservation groups I hope that the collective IWV can become more environmentally conscientious and climate resilient. This research and the establishment of the IWV Conservancy are discussed in the next two sections. 

California’s central valley Lake Tulare, once three times the size of Lake Tahoe at 700 square miles and the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi River, completely disappeared after diverting and damming tributary rivers for agriculture from about 1826 to 1899. Many of the riparian California Wildlife Refuges were established in the 1920s, partly as a response to desperate Pacific Flyway migratory birds raiding farmers’ grain fields (Wilson, 2010). This idea furthered my hypothesis that the Snow Goose populations were prevalent here in the high IWV desert due to the fact that there were not many other riparian grass areas left in California. At the conclusion of my research, it was evident that biodiverse man-made riparian areas, such as wastewater settling ponds, can have about the same bird diversity as lakes and forested riparian areas in the Mojave Desert ecoregion. There are several biodiversity indices that can be used to measure diversity, one of them being Simpson’s Index of Diversity. 

Species richness (the diverse number of different species) for these areas were 80, 90 and 101 (CL, SFV, KRV respectively). Bird biodiversity therefore is considered high but varied in species feed guilds at the studied sites, such as ocean piscivores (like the California Gull, Larus californicus) preferring lakes, insectivores (such as the Western Bluebird, Sialia mexicana) were more likely to be found in forested areas, and granivores (the Snow Goose, Anser caerulescens) were prevalent in open desert areas with access to the ponds and grassy parks. This is an important finding, as it bolsters the idea that man-made ponds and parks are vital, not only for human recreation and/or ecosystem services such as wastewater management, but also for other species in the habitat such as birds.

Habitat loss, as evidenced in California’s history of water exploitation discussed in the introduction, led to a 90% unprecedented loss of diverse riparian habitats (Wilson, 2010). Today, this has led to a large number of migratory birds being reliant on man-made features, such as wastewater ponds and park grass, to replace historical wetlands and marsh grass. Not only are they reliant on man-made infrastructure for food and night roosting, but even the refuges such as the Kern Wildlife Refuge must pump water into their ponds due to excessive water diversion to farmers. Communities must support these birds. Water must be conserved and wildlife have the right to water access through refuges, wildlife guzzlers, wastewater ponds, and park water features. Why is bird diversity so important? Ecosystem services provided by balanced, diverse habitats support a healthy environment through many invisible beneficial processes such as waste recycling, seed dispersal, and dust mitigation (Whelan, 2008). Once the world we live in becomes unbalanced with dysfunctional ecosystems, humans will face more and more environmental and health crises. I am passionate about bringing public awareness to this issue, and finding programs to help promote biodiversity. As part of my Master Plan, I plan on interfacing more with the general public through certifying wildlife backyard habitats and with conservation groups to promote environmentally-friendly policies with local leadership.

Project 3 - Changing bird populations and water access in the Indian Wells Valley (IWV), CA (Branson, 2023). 

The driving questions of this research paper were focused on overwintering Snow Geese: what are the environmental variables driving this wetland species to the desert? Additionally, what can residents and leaders of the IWV do to support the bird diversity—migratory and residents—so important to a balanced ecosystem? The Snow Goose was chosen as representative of the biannual migratory Pacific Flyway pathway for birds summering in mostly Alaska, and wintering in warmer North American regions. In Ridgecrest, the Snow Goose is the predominant migratory bird population at about 47% of the winter roosting flocks. The local Audubon Christmas Bird Counts from 1953 to 2022 were used to assess any correlating population growth patterns with variables such as temperature, annual rainfall, and valley aquifer pumping levels. Main findings of the research (Fig. 1 - 4) include:

• The waterfowl groups doubled in percent of the IWV population average from 17% (1953 - 1984) to 36% (1985 - 2022). These ducks and geese rely on the city of Ridgecrest and town of Inyokern’s Wastewater Treatment Plants (WTPs), along with a nine-hole golf course pond for approximately 250 acres of man-made wetlands (Kerncrest Audubon Society, 2023; The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 2023). 

• 60% of IWV aquifer pumping goes to agriculture (Indian Well Valley Groundwater Authority, 2022), and with the 47% increase in pumping, especially in the 1980s, food may be one of the strong factors supporting the increase in Snow Goose population.

• The support of wildlife and plant ecosystem’s water requirements are not addressed in the IWVGA’s water planning process (The Nature Conservancy, 2020).

For the IWV water management planning purposes, we must ensure that wildlife habitat, both natural and man-made, be considered in the IWV Sustainable Groundwater Plan. Nature, represented in this study as the Snow Goose and its relationship with the IWV wintering habitat, must not be relegated to the dark corner behind self-centered human requirements. I strongly feel that ecosystem services—clean water, air, recycling of natural resources—only work in a balanced system, therefore I hope to work within my community organizations to ensure habitats, wildlife and plants are not forgotten. After this project, I realized that this gap in our community support of habitat health needs additional support.

Project 4 - Eco-restoration and water recharge at the Fay Wetlands managed by the Audubon Kern River Preserve in Weldon, California (Branson, 2024). 

After my previous project was completed, I was afforded an opportunity to study a new water/bird diversity project at the Audubon Kern River Preserve, which happens to be in our same county and only 46 miles from Ridgecrest. The Preserve, already a diverse bird species habitat, worked with Ducks Unlimited in 2022 to install a series of culverts in an old irrigation ditch to provide water to a 354-acre dormant old dried grass field belonging to California Fish and Wildlife, but adjacent to the Preserve (Fig.1). Within a year this former grazing land became a Cattail riparian habitat, a ripe location for migratory Pacific Flyway waterfowl.

The culvert project was completed by January 2023, and fortuitously the 2022-2023 winter storms provided a much larger than normal irrigation supply to the new Fay Wetlands through their allocated water rights. This likely increased the speed of the transformation from dead grass to wetland, with resounding improvements in both species richness—number of species observed, and abundance—number of birds observed (Table 1). 

According to the Preserve Manager, this new wetland water is absorbed into the shallow aquifer in the area, and it flows farther underground to the downhill forest, providing an increased climate resiliency to the trees. This strategy of habitat restoration and aquifer recharge must be seriously considered by community groundwater authorities struggling to balance the water budget during increasingly longer drought periods and urban/agriculture demands. A hydrologist recently studying this issue in California found that only 1% of Groundwater Sustainability Plans required by Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014 are sufficiently protecting their groundwater-dependent ecosystems such as springs and riparian habitats (Rohde et al., 2024). 

My own local groundwater authority is facing this struggle, without consideration for loss of aquifer water impact on IWV springs. The success of this ecological restoration and water recharge project inspires me to get further involved in our own local efforts to balance our water budget. The IWV Groundwater Authority needs to more fully consider our valley’s habitat health and I hope to be a part of this resolution to minimize the ongoing riparian degradation Mojave Desert springs are experiencing (Parker et al, 2021).

Leadership and Action

This last section highlights the establishment of a local conservancy and associated website, along with a discussion of my leadership and authorship projects, all with the intention of opening the doors of collaboration between a variety of IWV conservation organizations. 

Project 5 - The IWV Conservancy and IWVConservancy.org. 

I established the IWV Conservancy in April of 2023 with the express purpose of providing a collaborative, community-based approach to promote conservation and environmental resilience in our valley by partnering with established nature-focused groups. My aim with this organization is to act as a facilitator to shared ideas, public awareness and education, community projects, and to promote volunteerism with many of our local conservation groups. A couple examples of helpful pages from the IWV Conservancy website include the IWV Nature Story Map built in Google Earth (Fig. 2) and the Connect tab which offers a listing of all local conservation organizations/websites. Since publishing the website in April 2023, the site counter shows 307 visitors. Establishing this organization and website allows me the freedom to collaborate with all other conservation organizations in the area to pursue worthy projects which might otherwise be hampered by bureaucracy. I am hoping this group and website will become a hub to connect groups and achieve projects together as we find them mutually beneficial.

Perhaps the most important accomplishment to date, IWV Conservancy sponsored the first annual “Conservation in the IWV” public event held at the city of Ridgecrest’s Maturango Museum in April 2023. This leads us to my last project.

Project 6 - Leadership and Authorship projects - “Conservation in the IWV”. 

In April 2024, chosen as the month of Earth Day, I collaborated with the Maturango Museum to host a “Conservation in the IWV” event. This was the second project that I had undertaken through the IWV Conservancy organization, a group loosely supported by my friends vested in the environment. This leadership event was hosted on a “free Saturday”, open to the public, and brought together many of the local conservation groups of the area to share their knowledge with the community. It also provided an opportunity for these groups to ask questions of each other, collaborate, and hopefully gain new member volunteers. Advertising included the authorship of a newspaper article promoting the idea of our local conservation heroes and the work they do.

The event (Fig.1 - 5) was a resounding success, with over 150 people attending (normal “free Saturday” events have 50-70 attendees), and everyone polled stated they would like to return next year. The Kerncrest Audubon also commented they gained 11 new members, an amount not seen in years. 

Organizing this event allowed me to connect with many other conservation organizations and discuss environmental issues with the public to find out their volunteer interests or services needed in the community. I enjoyed the environmental discussions, something that does not seem to happen too often in our hometown. 

Conclusion

This conservation journey has been inspirational. Back in 2022, at the start of my Project Dragonfly journey with Miami University, life was just starting to return to normal after the COVID pandemic. People, myself included, were questioning and reassessing the direction of their lives. After almost twenty years in teaching, I was ready for change. My life-long passion for science, animals and nature evolved during my graduate studies to a deep love for conservation, restoration, and grassroots teamwork to find solutions to help nature.

The people I met along the way—fellow students, caring professors, impressive conservationists, local guides—in Belize, Costa Rica, Guyana and at home in California—really are conservation heroes. The lessons in which I was immersed from the Belize Zoo’s wildlife corridor project, to Costa Rica’s Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) and disappearing Cloud Rain Forest, to Guyana’s indigenous ecological knowledge, including agroforestry, are unforgettable. I learned that when stakeholders build a foundation together and are passionate about their environment, they can forge great community relationships which inspire much-needed grassroots change in public awareness about the environment. Here at home, many of these tropical habitat conservation examples reflect common issues we face such as cyclical periods of drought, climate change impact of unreliable weather, habitat loss, ensuring our remaining wildland habitats are preserved, and living a sustainable lifestyle.

Looking back over my Master Plan goals, I am proud of my achievements and connections I have made with local conservation groups—the heroes. Going forward I will continue to work through the IWV Conservancy platform to host the annual "Conservation in the IWV" event, and hope to start a new series of programs for sustainable backyard habitats and nature-connection-awareness opportunities. My focus on our local water conservation issues and maintaining healthy habitats for birds will be interwoven throughout these new programs, putting my three research projects to good use. One day, I hope to earn my place in the ranks as a local IWV conservation hero too.

Acknowledgements

Family support: Meghan and John Branson, Dennis and Ellie Knight

Expert statistician advice: Diane Miller

Unlimited friend support: Laura Miller, Gail Bunch, Jessica Wilson, Marie Johnson, Holly Adams, Terry Jorgenson, and the Six Musketeers: Carol, Julie, Megan, Maggie, Kris and Kathy.

Conservation heroes: Audubon Kern River Preserve (Reed Tollefson), Aguabonita Flyfishers, Desert Tortoise Council, Ducks Unlimited, Eastern Kern County Resources Conservation District, Kerncrest Audubon Society, Maturango Museum, Mohave Desert Ground Squirrel Council, Quail Unlimited, Ridgecrest Community Garden, the staff at Project Dragonfly, the Belize Zoo, Costa Rica’s PES program managers and the indigenous-run Rupununi and Iwokrama River Preserves of Guyana.

References

Amel, E., Manning, C., Scott, B., & Koger, S. (2017). Beyond the roots of human inaction: Fostering collective effort toward ecosystem conservation. Science, 356(6335), 275-279. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aal1931

Branson, M. (2022). Habitat Factors Determining Bird Species Diversity in Chaparral Riparian, Woodland Riparian and Lake Ecosystems in the Mojave Desert Ecoregion. [Unpublished paper as partial requirement for Masters of Arts, Biology, Miami University, Ohio]

Branson, M. (2023). Changing bird populations and correlating environmental factors in the Indian Wells Valley, CA. [Unpublished paper as partial requirement for Masters of Arts, Biology, Miami University, Ohio]

Branson, M. (2024). Eco-restoration and water recharge at the Fay Wetlands managed by the Audubon Kern River Preserve in Weldon, California. [Unpublished paper as partial requirement for Masters of Arts, Biology, Miami University, Ohio]

California Department of Water Resources. (2024). Sustainable Groundwater Management Act 2024. https://water.ca.gov/programs/groundwater-management 

Donnelly, J. P., Naugle, D. E., Collins, D. P., Dugger, B. D., Allred, B. W., Tack, J. D., & Dreitz, V. J. (2019). Synchronizing conservation to seasonal wetland hydrology and waterbird migration in semi‐arid landscapes. Ecosphere, 10(6 p.e02758-). https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2758

Kerncrest Audubon Society. (2023). Christmas Bird Counts 1953-2022. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQIlNZHsDR-Ew5owOIwufLs_FYwFG3J8PcQTugWjzK0/view

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Parker, S., Zdon, A., Christian, W., Cohen, B., Palacios Mejia, M., Fraga, N., Curd, E., Edalati, K., Renshaw, M. (2021). Conservation of Mojave Desert springs and associated biota: status, threats, and policy opportunities. Biodivers Conserv 30, 311–327. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-020-02090-7

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Biography

Melanie Branson is currently a high school biology teacher in the central Eastern Sierra Nevada region of Ridgecrest, California. As she spent her childhood overseas in Japan, England and Australia while her father was in the U.S. Navy, she enjoyed exploring the world’s diverse nature in mountain trails, moors, and Indian Ocean coral reefs. After graduating from University of California, San Diego with a degree in Animal Physiology, Melanie joined the U.S. Navy. Learning management skills through mission planning and staff work, she also enjoyed the teamwork and camaraderie built during the many adventures around the world. After twenty years, it was time to move on, and apply her passion for mentoring people to the high school where Melanie was able to also focus on her love of science and the environment. She started to pursue her Masters of Biology in 2022, and readily found her niche in the conservation organizations of the Indian Wells Valley, focusing on birds, water conservation and xeric gardening. Melanie currently serves on the boards of the Eastern Kern County Resource Conservation District and the Kerncrest Audubon Society, along with serving as club advisor for the Burroughs High School Environmental Club. She enjoys her spare time exploring the Sierra foothill canyons, traveling, backpacking, gardening, working her small livestock farm and birding with her daughter and other long-time friends.