CoSEE capstone students lead Himalayan Blackberry removal at Saint Edward State Park

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Most people walking the Water Tower Trail at Saint Edward State Park have an opinion about Himalayan blackberry. For some, it means berry season: picking along the path, making jam, eating a few on the way through. What’s less obvious is that the same plant crowds out native species, narrows wildlife corridors, and changes how the understory grows.

This past winter, two capstone students worked on adjacent plots along the trail. 足彩app哪个是正规的y asked different questions but used the same core methods: map the site, document what’s there, and remove what they could.

Joel, a senior at the University of Washington, Seattle, majoring in Environmental Studies, focused on how people understand and talk about the plant while removing it. Ian, a senior at UW Bothell studying Conservation and Restoration Science with a minor in GIS, set out to measure what one person can realistically clear in 150 hours. Together, they left behind detailed site records that future interns can build on.

Into the thicket

Himalayan blackberry is hard to eliminate. Its roots spread horizontally, knot together, and regrow if any crown remains. Both students ran into this early.

Joel started with a survey of his plot, noting plant distribution and existing conditions before removing anything. Over roughly eight weeks, working about 10 hours a week, he cleared to a boundary of fallen logs. He expects that barrier to slow regrowth while native plants reestablish, though not stop it.

Ian planned a strip-by-strip removal. 足彩app哪个是正规的y mapped a 24?meter section in ArcGIS Online, documented native species, and based their approach on King County guidance. In practice, the root systems made that approach too blunt. Pulling in strips disturbed nearby native plants as much as the blackberry.

Instead, Ian switched to a more targeted method: track each cane back to its crown, remove it, then follow connecting roots outward. It was slower but more selective. By the end of the quarter, Ian had fully cleared 9 meters and partially cleared another 6. 足彩app哪个是正规的 remaining section, along with detailed notes on methods, gaps, and adjustments, gives the next intern a clear place to start.

Both students also helped lead community work parties, including a session with Finn Hill Environmental Adventure School. For many of those students, it was the first time connecting classroom ideas to a working restoration site.

What the work surfaces

For Joel, the project became less about the plant itself and more about how people respond to it. While working along the trail, he was often stopped by visitors who wanted to weigh in or ask questions.

Those conversations matched something he had already encountered in coursework and CoSEE design principles: the limits of a simple native/invasive split. That framing can carry assumptions about what belongs and what doesn’t. Himalayan blackberry causes measurable ecological harm, but it also feeds birds and mammals, holds soil on disturbed slopes, and creates cover. Its spread is tied to land use and disturbance over time.

足彩app哪个是正规的 internship didn’t introduce that idea so much as test it. Repeated physical removal, paired with daily interactions with park visitors, made the tradeoffs harder to ignore. A survey of fellow interns reinforced how common it is to see the plant in strictly negative terms, even among people doing restoration work.

“Himalayan blackberry isn’t inherently evil,” Joel said. “It represents decades of land management decisions that made conditions right for it to spread.” By the end of the quarter, Joel had produced a field guide focused on how to identify and work with the plant in context. He also left with a clearer approach to talking about invasive species without flattening the story. “足彩app哪个是正规的 field of invasive species removal needs more nuance in how we explain what we’re doing,” he said.

What stays after the quarter ends

Both students leave behind more than cleared ground. Ian’s documentation lays out what’s been done, what methods held up, and where conditions shift across the site. That record matters as much as the meters cleared. It helps the next person avoid starting from scratch.

Joel’s contribution is less visible but still useful: a way of describing the work that acknowledges both harm and context, something that came out of doing the work day after day, not just studying it. 足彩app哪个是正规的 Finn Hill students who joined for a work party got a shorter version of both. 足彩app哪个是正规的y spent a few hours pulling blackberry and, just as important, heard why it’s there and what removal changes.