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Washington LEAF intern Tiana Cruz. Photo © TNC

Tiana holds a geoduck at Taylor Shellfish Farms.

Day 22

On their last week in Washington, our NYC LEAF interns visited the biggest shellfish farm in the United States to learn about Washington’s shellfish industry and how it is affected by water quality and conservation. They also put on hard-hats to visit Fisher Slough, where the Conservancy is partnering with farmers, communities and the local government to restore salmon habitat.

Oh, and we put them to work!

Here are their dispatches:

8-2-11

On this day we visited another Conservancy preserve, where we were attacked by mosquitoes. Soon after we headed out to Fisher Slough and Conservancy staff member Kris Knight gave us a tour of the property and explained the purpose of it and told us what it should become of in the next few months. We had lunch at Joelene’s then headed to Taylor Shellfish Farms, the biggest shellfish farm in the U.S., for a tour. We learned a lot from the 2-hour tour that we didn’t know before about oysters, clams and geoducks. Today was a very interesting day. — Khadijah Michael

8-3-11

One this day, we met the Skagit Valley Land Trust and worked on trail maintenance. The trail was on the backside of Sauk Mountain. As I worked with Russ, pushing logs out of the way, the others worked cutting branches and weeds or clearing away anything else that was blocking the trail. Later Tiffany and Khadijah went with Russ to put up a “no ATVS” sign. ATVs are a problem the Land Trust has had before. After that, everyone got ice-cream at the Cascadian Farm’s ice-cream stand. We said our good-byes once we were done and headed home. —Tiana Cruz

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About This Blog

New York residents Tiffany Smith, Tiana Cruz and Khadijah Michael are spending three weeks in Washington as part of The Nature Conservancy’s LEAF program, which provides paid internships to high school youth. You can read about their adventures in this daily updated blog.