Connie Rutherford (16875592061)

Connie Rutherford, Plant Recovery Coordinator
Credit: USFWS
Connie Rutherford, Plant Recovery Coordinator, Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, Ventura, Calif.
Who is your Female Conservation Hero or Mentor?
So hard to choose just one! Botanist Kate Furbish (1834-1931) was amazing because she embraced the intuitive, creative, and exacting aspects of her being. She produced an 11-volume Flora of Maine with her own paintings of each plant, after hiking around the state - frequently by herself. And for me, making baskets and playing music is a nice balance to writing technical documents.
Where did you go to school?
UC- Santa Cruz (B.A.) and Humboldt State University (M.A.) where I studied plant sciences.
How did you get interested in conservation?
Taking camping trips with my family all over the western states when I was a kid. After taking a field biogeography class with Ray Collett at UC- Santa Cruz, I was so inspired by the beauty of the native landscapes that I changed my major to Plant Sciences. Then, when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Haiti, I saw how heavily they used their natural resources - there was little opportunity to conserve any wild areas! When I got back to California, I realized that we DO have a better chance to conserve our wildscapes, and I wanted to be a part of that effort.
What’s your favorite species and why?

Probably one of the most architecturally amazing plants I ever found was moosedung moss (Splachnum luteum), which only grows on moose and caribou dung. It is also known as umbrella moss, because of the prominent “umbrella” that skirts the spore-bearing capsule; it emits an odor that attracts flies, which then spread the spores to other dung piles. At the time, I was in Alaska tromping through the tundra doing plant surveys for the Bureau of Land Management. The wildlife biologists in my field camp didn’t seem to appreciate it, but I have it framed in my office – a reminder of the beautiful complexity of life.