Rare Care Monitoring Weekend 2025
The weekend of June 5th-8th, 14 Rare Care volunteers traveled to the Okanogan Highlands in the Tonasket Ranger District of the Colville National Forest and surrounding Bureau of Land Management land for our annual Monitoring Weekend. Almost every person found and surveyed our target species for the weekend – northern blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium septentrionale). Six of the ten populations surveyed were larger in size than reported in the 90’s, some 10-100 times larger. The volunteer teams also found healthy and larger than previously reported populations of Snake River cat’s-eye (Oreocarya spiculifera) and yellow-flowered crazyweed (Oxytropis campestris var. gracilis). Additionally, a population of hair sedge (Carex capillaris) was relocated. All in all, we completed 16 monitoring reports that we will send to the managing USFS and BLM botanists to inform their future restoration and conservation work.
