Audrey Mechtenberg
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audrey-mech.bsky.social
Audrey Mechtenberg
@audrey-mech.bsky.social
Conservation Biologist | Pollinator Specialist 🐝🐝🐝| Agro + Urban Ecology | Habitat Restoration | Community Stewardship |
In Washington 🌧️

https://audreymech.wordpress.com/
@Americorps is a cornerstone of conservation and community services in this country. DOGE cancelling grants, ending programs, and terminating members’ terms and scholarships is cruel and intolerable.
#americorps #DOGE
April 28, 2025 at 11:47 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
April 19, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
I can't emphasize enough that the most important thing journalists can do right now is publish exactly this kind of article
April 16, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Did you know?

There’s a directory of Black farmers: “The Black Farmers Index.”

Buy and uplift local. Many are small-scale specialists and located in urban areas. I found an organic resource in my area that I will definitely check out.
February 28, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Tomorrow is the
ECONOMIC BOYCOTT

I won’t be making a single purchase.
Who’s with me?
February 27, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
El Capitan displays a massive American flag upside down—the traditional signal of distress or extreme emergency.
February 23, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
This week, approximately 200,000 federal workers have been let go.
February 14, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Across the government, probationary employees and Schedule A workers—including individuals with severe physical, psychiatric, or intellectual disabilities, as well as veterans—are being let go.
February 14, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Call your Reps: Two Senators & a Congressperson. Doesn't matter what party they are in. Put their number in your phone. Seriously you can do it every day. "I'm from [zip code] and I don't want this." Waiting in line for a coffee? Call. About to reply to a post? Call. www.congress.gov/contact-us
www.congress.gov
January 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Reminder:
Yes. And 1.5C isn’t a “tipping point” beyond which all is lost. If we can’t hold warming to 1.5 we try for 1.6. If we can’t hold warming to 1.6 we try for 1.7. If we
"every fraction of a degree matters" is true as hell. In the same way that releasing CO2 hurts people and planet, avoiding its release saves us from potential harm

This isn't some saccharine 'hopeful' message: it's the hard, inarguable physical reality.

www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/w...
January 10, 2025 at 3:43 AM
The most important part about traveling across the country is to #iNat your journey so you can see your observations fill in the map.

I’m fairly new to @inaturalist.bsky.social so I got a lot of work to do!!
January 4, 2025 at 1:45 AM
2024 plant recap; I could add a thousand photos to this post but here’s a random selection of some of my favorite Appalachian species. #NativePlants
December 31, 2024 at 10:46 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
It’s hard to stay for multiple years as a field assistant when your contribution to the research isn’t reflected in published work. And field assistants need a way to bridge that experience to permanent positions.
December 4, 2024 at 7:50 PM
Finallyyy seeded the first project I started in this position- here’s to hopefully a successful wildflower meadow 🤞
November 20, 2024 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Another starter pack, this time attempting to capture the folks working in #ecology and #fieldBiology in (especially southern) #Appalachia.

Happy to add folks to the list who I missed!

go.bsky.app/BfudV1S
November 17, 2024 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders?

(Bringing back a 2018 Twitter hit): Keeping honey bees to save the bees is like keeping chickens to save the birds. They're a managed species and not at risk of extinction. The bees at risk of extinction are wild species.
What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders?

Ants often act like inefficient goofballs. They got lost, accidentally drop their good and walk in circles trying to find it but eventually give up and go home, half of the ants in a nest just sit there 24/7 and do absolutely nothing.
What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders?

A lot of people in positions of power got their promotions because they were behaving badly.

In sexual harassment cases, institutions use promotions as a way to retain the perpetrator and separate them from their primary victim.
November 18, 2024 at 10:44 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Lots of new people joining Bluesky, and lots of great starter packs floating around, so here’s another idea: if you work at the intersection of food/agriculture, nature, and climate, introduce yourself and what you do below so folks can keep connecting. Who’s here now?
November 17, 2024 at 6:56 PM
Reposted by Audrey Mechtenberg
Starter Packs are great, but they favor well established individuals (understandably so). To help prop up new voices, here is a set of early career ecologists (self defined) who are, or would like to become, active on BlueSky

Please reply if you would like to be included!

go.bsky.app/Di74bDy
November 16, 2024 at 10:54 PM
I can self-report that amateur macro-photography is a GREAT way to learn your plants and insects in an unfamiliar ecosystem. Pretty much all I did last summer.
November 17, 2024 at 2:12 AM
Hello! I’m here for bugs, plants, conservation, and everything in between. Currently in Appalachia 🌸🐛🔍.
November 13, 2024 at 5:41 PM