To the Rescue

WORKING TO PRESERVE THE UNIQUE LIFEFORMS AND ANCIENT HERITAGE OF THE JOSHUA TREE’S HABITAT

THE LONG VIEW MOJAVE DESERT LAND TRUST SEED BANK

Since 2016, this organization has collected seeds and spores from more than 500 Mojave Desert species to provide an insurance policy against the plants’ extinction. Specimens are harvested, cleaned, documented and stored in refrigerators. The group has already deployed seeds from the depository in restoration projects, including in places where wildfires have destroyed wide swaths of vegetation.

DNA DELIVERANCE THE JOSHUA TREE GENOME PROJECT

As climate change threatens to eliminate the Joshua tree, these scientists are working to sequence the plant’s genome. With help from citizen scientists and local conservation organizations, the project has also planted thousands of Joshua trees at four different sites that represent the climatic range spanning the Mojave. By monitoring these plants, scientists hope to pinpoint the genes that help seedlings survive.

SAFEGUARDING HISTORY NATIVE AMERICAN LAND CONSERVANCY

This group works to protect and restore sacred sites within the ancestral territories of the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave and Serrano peoples of Southern California. Recently the conservancy acquired Coyote Hole, a petroglyph-filled area at the northwestern edge of the park that has been continuously occupied by indigenous peoples for thousands of years.

TRICK THE RAVENS HARDSHELL LABS’ TORTOISE PROTECTION TECHNOLOGIES

A major threat to the Mojave’s desert tortoise, listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 1990, is a population boom among ravens. The birds hunt juvenile tortoises, whose soft shells offer little protection. Biologist Tim Shields founded a nonprofit that fields realistic “techno-tortoises”; when attacked, the 3-D printed replicas release methyl anthranilate, a non-toxic substance, derived from grape juice, that repels ravens—and conditions them to let baby tortoises be.