On a heat October morning, I joined biologist Kevin Manajerro and researcher Melanie Davis to load the truck with area gear earlier than heading to a survey web site overlooking the Salton Sea. The temperature had already reached 90 levels, and it was solely 7:00 a.m. After unloading our gear, we traversed the desert panorama with two distinct mountain ranges in view—the Orocopia Mountains to our proper and the Santa Rosa Mountains to our left. Following six transects (set routes used to survey an space), we searched the bottom for tracks and scat left by the Flat-tailed Horned Lizard (Phrynosoma mcallii), a small reptile with multiple adaptations for camouflage that help them minimize their shadow. Recognizing the lizard introduced a second of pleasure: it was the primary documented on the web site since Kevin started collaborating within the surveys. Between transects, I caught up with Kevin to find out how he discovered his manner into this organic work.
Kevin is a 2026 Salton Sea Management Program (SSLP) alum, and Melanie was one of many program’s visitor audio system. With the 2027 program simply across the nook, I spent three days with three alumni, together with Kevin, to be taught in regards to the fieldwork they’ve been doing since graduating.
Every year, over the course of 4 months, a cohort of 10 native residents participates within the Salton Sea Leadership Program to find out about environmental matters straight from researchers, engineers, and environmental organizations within the Coachella and Imperial Valleys working to guard the areas vegetation, animals, and people share.
Throughout our dialog, Kevin shared that he’s gaining school credit score by way of the Faculty of the Desert’s Work Expertise Program with UCR’s Heart for Conservation Biology.
When requested how he got here to hitch the Heart for Conservation Biology, Kevin stated, “I met Dr. Lynn Candy by way of my work at REI, however beforehand I met Melanie Davis by way of the Salton Sea Management Program”. The Salton Sea Management Program isn’t only a lecture sequence. It’s an academic internship taught by native researchers, engineers, and environmentalists, giving members alternatives to fulfill the folks doing on-the-ground work. Every year, Melanie presents her work with the endemic Salvia greata (Orocopia Sage) and encourages members to pursue work in conservation even when their instructional backgrounds aren’t in science. Since his commencement, Kevin has grow to be a lab assistant in Dr. Sweet’s lab, helping with “wildlife surveys in numerous places across the Coachella Valley, just like the Coachella Valley Wildlife Refuge”.
Kevin isn’t the one alum who has been busy conducting analysis within the area. Later, I reconnected with 2025 alum Amanda Bautista, who got here to us with an in depth background in volunteering on Audubon hen surveys. After creating the primary Salton Sea hen information for her capstone challenge, Amanda went on to the Pacific Northwest Analysis Station, the place she carried out woodpecker telemetry surveys to map their nesting season habitat and helped lure small mammals, together with flying squirrels, as a part of her work for the analysis station.
One side of the SSLP is sustained alumni engagement in group outings and job search help. By way of her continued engagement, Amanda was employed as a seasonal survey technician with the College of Idaho’s Yuma Ridgway’s Rail analysis challenge on the Sonny Bono Salton Sea Nationwide Wildlife Refuge. There, she assisted with recording morphological measurements and amassing samples to research selenium buildup within the rails. When requested about her time on this challenge, she recalled, “In Arizona, the hen sounds had been actually quiet, I can hear [the Rails] splashing within the water. On the Salton Sea it’s so loud with all of the birds and biodiversity”. Her expertise strengthened a central lesson of the Management Program: the Salton Sea helps and sustains an abundance of life.
The Salton Sea is a chosen Essential Chook Space (IBA) and serves as a stopover for greater than 300 species of birds alongside the Pacific Flyway.
Earlier than parting methods so she may go search for a Blue Jay so as to add to her life listing, I requested Amanda what the SSLP meant to her. With numerous cohorts, this system has meant various things to every scholar, however to Amanda, SSLP felt like “a household”. She continued, “It gave me a secure place to be part of, and now it has grow to be a giant a part of my life. I can depend on my SSLP folks to make me really feel higher being in the identical area and being a girl within the area”.
Amanda now works as an environmental biologist with a consulting agency, surveying for reptiles, birds, and small mammals to make sure development websites are in compliance with environmental necessities.
Whereas on the highway with a automotive filled with SSLP alumni on the hunt for uncommon birds blown in by a current storm, I spoke to a different 2025 alum, Ciara Taylor. Once I consider group within the Coachella Valley I consider Ciara. I first met Ciara on the Salton Sea Chook Pageant in January 2025 after unknowingly, on the time, sitting behind her at an Oswit Land Belief lecture some months prior. Throughout her time in SSLP she was a cohort rallier, serving to transfer area journeys alongside within the area and turning into somebody we may all lean on for group. Since then, she has grow to be a monumental determine within the native out of doors areas. Alongside her “accomplice in nature,” Judy Gill, Ciara runs PS Take a Hike, a “mountain climbing membership” that’s now “rising into a bigger group, to get outdoors and get different folks to hit the paths”.
When requested about her time as an SSLP scholar, Ciara said this system was “a stepping stone to entry the group and find out about issues which can be utterly out of my wheelhouse.” Like many others in this system, Ciara doesn’t come from a standard science background, which many individuals assume you could must do conservation work. Combining her background in design and keenness for the outside, she developed an interactive community-based capstone challenge the place she “may apply design pondering and a design lens to think about how you can create consciousness, or how we’d work collectively to unravel a bigger problem with totally different backgrounds”.
Now Ciara, Judy, and PS Take a Hike are getting ready for the primary annual Take a Hike Fest on November 14th on the Francis Stevens Park in Palm Springs. Take A Hike Fest is a “free group occasion celebrating mountain climbing tradition, wholesome residing, and conservation. By bringing collectively a bunch of nonprofits, together with Audubon, and out of doors golf equipment and organizations which can be out in Coachella Valley”. Alongside the fest, Ciara is curating a “full week of on-trail programming with totally different native golf equipment and organizations to encourage folks to get outdoors”.
Kevin, Amanda, and Ciara aren’t the one SSLP alumni reaching nice issues in conservation. Throughout this system’s first two years, 22 alumni have continued increasing their expertise—from main Spanish hen walks in the neighborhood and growing new Indigenous-led nature-based programming to turning into coastal stewards by way of the UC Cal Naturalist program and transferring to Universities to proceed working in direction of biology levels. A number of SSLP alumni even just lately traveled to the State Capitol to advocate for the birds and the safety of the locations they name dwelling.
The Salton Sea Management Program will return for a 2027 cohort. The appliance window will open in November to any native residents excited by constructing group with others, networking with science professionals, and studying about Audubon California’s work and the Salton Sea.
