Scott Hoffman Black, Xerces Society

Scott Hoffman Black is executive director of the Xerces Society, an international nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the diversity of life through the conservation of invertebrates.

Crank day! No, I am not talking about drugs (except maybe lots of caffeine). I am talking about a marathon workday here at the Xerces Society. This is the brainchild of Mace Vaughan, the staff entomologist at the society. He was looking for a way to move forward on one of our big projects without waiting until a week before the deadline and having to spend five "crank days" to finish it up. Instead he and Xerces Aquatic Programs Director Jeff Adams will spend one long day each week in hopes that May 15, our big deadline, will not see us walking around like sleep-deprived zombies.

We are working on a CD-ROM and a companion aquatic-invertebrate-monitoring field guide. The guide will lead people through the process of using bugs to monitor water quality in their local streams and rivers. One of the best methods of assessing stream health involves monitoring what tiny aquatic animals (such as mayflies and stoneflies, snails, worms, and other invertebrates) are present or absent. For example, some aquatic invertebrates are very sensitive to increased temperature and decreased oxygen in the water, and some are particularly sensitive to metal contamination. By noting the presence (or absence) of these invertebrates, people can evaluate watershed health and recommend changes to improve it. So Mace and Jeff are "cranking" through the CD- ROM and field guide. Jeff is writing the section on how to identify the insects and Mace is pulling together text and photos for the field guide. I am supposed to be helping them today by drafting one section and editing others, but I have been pulled away to work on several other issues.

Matthew Shepherd (editor of Wings, our magazine) and I went down to check on the photos for our upcoming issue, which will be devoted to slugs and snails. Our magazine always showcases great photographers, and this issue is no different. To ensure the highest quality, we take the photographs for professional color separation. After some minor touch-ups on a few of the photos, we gave the okay for the next step -- sending the photos and text to John Laursen at Press-22 for his layout wizardry.

As soon as I returned, I met with a freelance writer about an article she is working on for a noted conservation journal about the challenges of protecting unpopular species. She is interested in writing about a project Xerces worked on several years ago to protect an important area for native bees in Costa Rica. In the end, Xerces was able to this protect this area, which is adjacent to the Lomas Barbudal dry tropical forest biological reserve. This area is critical to the long-term ecological viability of this reserve, because the large, solitary bees that nest there are major pollinators of many tree and vine species in the adjacent forest.

Once that was complete, there was more work to do on the issue of pesticide spraying for Mormon crickets in southern Idaho. Mainly, this work entailed reading through exciting documents such as Grasshoppers: Their Identification, Biology, and Management and the U.S. EPA's Malathion Registration Eligibility Document: Environmental Effects and Fate. Not good bedtime reading, unless you really want to fall asleep fast!

Crank day continues. I'll work late, accompanied by pizza and maybe even a beer. Next week this will all start again. I am not sure what the week will bring -- except lots of work! But I cannot ask for a better job: doing what I feel is important with people I like. I really could not do it without Xerces's dedicated staff and the volunteers who help us protect the small things that grace our world.