2026 Conservation Intern Mid-Year Update Ashley Johnson

As an intern with Denver Mountain Parks Foundation and Denver Zoo Conservation Alliance, I was given the opportunity to learn some of the most important aspects of grassland ecology, wildlife management, and Colorado’s natural history.  The opportunities include tending to the Medicine Wheel Garden in Daniel’s Park, Bison training, plant species composition within grazing habitat, building rock dams and t-post enclosures and bird surveys.  We also got to work with educational groups in connecting some of these hands-on practices to field conservation and indigenous culture.  Most of our work in the Great Plains occurs at Daniel’s Park.  One of the most moving parts of this internship has been the Medicine Wheel project.  DZCA collaborated with Lewis Tallbull at DMP and Denver Mountain Parks Foundation to create a healing garden that represents a significant, long-standing indigenous concept that the land, the water, the Bison, the rocks, are all connected.  Planting some of the native flowers that are currently blooming and picking up gardening skills along the way has been a fulfilling piece of this internship.

At Daniel’s Park, we’ve spent a significant amount of time doing plant species composition to determine if Rejuvra, an herbicide, is effective in encouraging native plants to grow.  This process helped me develop the skill of identifying grasses and Forbes through their defining features while in different vegetative states.  Observing dozens of plots with different species composition has helped me understand the important role that grazers play in the grassland ecosystem.  One of the most significant pieces of Daniel’s Park is the engineers that allow grasslands to thrive – Bison.  Our team was fortunate enough to help with recall training leading up to the Bison reintroduction in the Highlands Ranch Backcountry.  Witnessing the opening of the gate that connects Daniel’s Park to Highlands Ranch Backcountry, where bison have not roamed for over 150 years, has inspired me to restore and protect this special ecosystem.  Leading up to this reintroduction, we spent about an hour each day training the herd to respond to a whistle by throwing treats from the truck at the exact moment the whistle was blown.

In addition to Daniel’s Park, we spent each Monday at Mt. Blue Sky spreading predator urine around high traffic areas and checking camara traps that we set up earlier this season.  While doing this, we had the opportunity to educate people visiting Mt. Blue Sky on how DZCA is working to minimize conflict between humans and wildlife.  Visiting the alpine tundra each week brought up another area of interest – alpine plant conservation.  Seeing the changes in the grasses and flowers each week has given me a great appreciation for how these plants have adapted to such a harsh environment.

This role has solidified my passion for conservation and protecting wildlife.  Learning about the world of grasses of forbes has made me feel like I’ve been given a key to a whole new community that I’ve never met before.  A community that quietly works underground to store carbon, nourish the land and teach us how to protect it.  My goal is that when this internship concludes, I can connect grassland ecology and Colorado’s natural history to the education team to engage zoo guests in what the field conservation team does to protect wildlife from peaks to prairies.