6 Ways to Protect Your Local Watershed

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Fresh water is arguably humans’ most precious resource. It is vital for our life and that of the natural world around us. In spite of its vitality, fresh water makes up less than 1% of the global water supply. Therefore, it is imperative that we make every possible effort to conserve and protect the freshwater resources in our communities. Listed here are six easy ways that corporations can help protect the freshwater resources in their local watershed.

    1. Garden Smartly
      Creating green spaces on your property is a great way to accommodate local wildlife, but if created incorrectly they can also pose a risk to your local water supply. Fortunately, this is easy to prevent. To begin gardening smartly, you should opt for using native plants, which do not require as much water or fertilizer as non-native plants. When fertilizer is necessary to maintain your garden, avoid using pesticides or chemical fertilizers, as they can contaminate local ground and surface water supplies. Instead, consider alternative strategies such as amending the soil with nutrient-rich compost. Additionally, consider using a layer of mulch around your plants so that they retain moisture for a longer period of time.
    2. Be Mindful
      Be mindful of unique ways that your corporation can conserve water as part of its daily operations. For example, hotels have made an effort to conserve water by offering guests the option to reuse their towels to avoid washing them daily. Similarly, some restaurants have begun asking customers if they would like water rather than automatically providing it.
    3. Reduce Impermeable Pavement
      Impermeable  pavement can be very problematic for local watersheds, particularly in areas with large amounts of pavement. As an impermeable surface, it forces rain water and melting snow to run-off across its surface and down storm drains, rather than being naturally absorbed into the ground. When runoff occurs, ground water supplies fail to be replenished, the risk of flooding increases, and the soil is unable to act as a natural filter for pollutants found in precipitation . Therefore, when constructing pathways on your property use alternatives to pavement whenever possible. When paving an area is necessary use porous pavement to mitigate the negative consequences of asphalt.
    4. Modernize Plumbing
      Each year, trillions of gallons of water are lost to leaky pipes. To prevent this costly waste of water, invest in updating your plumbing systems. In addition to patching leaks, consider modernizing appliances by upgrading to those that use less water. For example, you can save high volumes of water each year by replacing toilets installed before 1992 with new low-flow models. Also, think about switching to drip irrigation to water your gardens.  Drip irrigation reduces water usage by applying water directly to the root zone of plants, eliminating runoff and evaporation that occur with traditional sprinkler systems.
    5. Enhance Riparian Habitat
      If your property is located on a river, stream, or lake, consider constructing riparian zones.  Riparian zones are a natural vegetated buffer between land and a body of water.  They protect the water source they border by reducing erosion, providing flood control, and filtering sediment and pollutants from stormwater before it enters the water body. Additionally, riparian zones provide valuable habitat for wildlife.
    6. Teach!
      Make an effort to teach your employees and community members how they can conserve water at home. Doing so will help make water conservation a community effort. In addition to many of the water-saving tips above, some ways that water can be saved at home include reducing shower times or using low-flow shower heads, using grey water when possible such as when watering plants, and only running the laundry machine and dishwasher when full.

Conservation of the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore by Restoring Habitat at Praxair Burns Harbor

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On April 22, 2016, Praxair Burns Harbor Industrial Gases hosted 20 volunteers from ArcelorMittal and a variety of other companies and conservation organizations to tackle the removal of invasive species from a small, wet pin oak woodland and sedge meadow located on the Praxair Burns Harbor Plant property. Volunteers came from the Wildlife Habitat Council, the Gary Conservation Team, the U.S. Forest Service, and members of the Indiana Coastal Cooperative Weed Management Group (including Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Coffee Creek Watershed Conservancy, and Shirley Heinze Land Trust).

WHC is the recipient of an Indiana Coastal Management grant from the Indiana DNR Coastal Program and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to develop early detection and control of invasive species projects on coastal industrial facilities. This grant has allowed us to reach out to several companies in the Lake Michigan coastal region of Northwest Indiana and develop on-the-ground programs that engage employees in the control of invasive species and expand their participation in conservation programs organized by members of the Indiana Coastal Cooperative Weed Management Group. Companies participating in this ongoing collaborative effort include ExxonMobil’s Hammond Terminal, ArcelorMittal’s Burns Harbor, ArcelorMittal’s Global R&D, and Praxair’s Lakeshore Plant.

During the April 22 cooperative workday, volunteers focused on removing two non-native, invasive species that are common invaders of Midwestern forests and oak savannas: honeysuckle and oriental bittersweet. The volunteers used a technique known as the “cut-stump method,” in which the shrubs are cut down and herbicide applied directly to the stump to prevent regrowth. Also on the agenda was to review with Praxair a site conservation plan that includes management of the pin oak wetland and the open spaces outside operations, as well as the creation of native and pollinator-friendly landscapes on the large berms created during the facility’s construction in the 1970s.

Click to enlarge.

Click to enlarge.

The group also shared their common knowledge and experience of working on site and in proximity to lands owned and managed by the National Park Service’s Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Indiana Dunes is celebrating its 50th anniversary and the National Park Service is celebrating its 100th anniversary. (Happy Centennial to the National Park Service!) By managing private conservation lands around the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, companies like Praxair are making a direct contribution to the biodiversity of the coastal region and the ecological health of public lands.

Multi-partner workdays like those at Praxair’s Burns Harbor demonstrate the power of collaboration in habitat conservation. When companies, agencies, and conservation organizations work together to restore native habitats, it helps everyone enhance the conservation value of their communities.

If your company would like to participate in our cooperative efforts in Northwest Indiana, we would be proud to have you participate! Please send us an email at dgoldfarb@wildlifehc.org to learn how your company can contribute to conservation efforts in this region.

Peregrines: Not Your Average City Dweller

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One of my favorite bird species is the spectacular bird-of-prey, the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus). This bird can be found on six continents around the world, though it does not occur in large numbers in most areas.

This bird is amazing because not only has it recovered from the brink of extinction in North America, it is now thriving in many regions because it has adapted really well to urban settings. It naturally nests on ledges high up on cliffs, easily out of reach of most predators. With the increasing growth of cities with tall buildings and abundant prey in the modern era, peregrines have found new nesting opportunities on the roofs and ledges of skyscrapers and other tall structures like water towers, power pylons, and bridges.

At WHC’s main office in Silver Spring, we routinely see the resident pair of peregrine falcons soaring high above us and hunting the city’s numerous pigeons. Peregrines and other falcons are aerial hunters, meaning they catch their prey while in flight. Peregrines use a swift dive, or “stoop,” that is spectacular to watch. A peregrine’s stoop can reach over 200 mph (320 kmh), making it the fastest animal on earth!

These birds are known for using their speed and agility to prey upon a wide variety of birds, mostly medium-sized birds, including several species that can be a nuisance in urban settings like pigeons and starlings. Although falcons won’t eliminate the pigeon or starling population in a city, they can certainly help to keep it in check.

A nest box like this one at DTE’s River Rouge facility is a common way to enhance habitat for peregrines.

A nest box like this one at DTE’s River Rouge facility is a common way to enhance habitat for peregrines.

If you want to help peregrines at your corporate facility, one of the best ways is to work with your state wildlife agency to implement the appropriate measures for your site. These birds are still protected by law and can be very defensive of their nests, so before taking any actions it will be important to consult with the agency about things like safety precautions or requirements related to their protection. A common and often successful project is the installation and monitoring of a nest box for peregrines. This kind of structure provides a secure, ledge-like nesting location that provides some protection against the elements, and many facilities use a nest cam to monitor the nest with minimal disturbance to the birds. Discussions with your wildlife agency will also help determine if other projects such as artificial raptor perches, banding of peregrine chicks, or release of captive-reared peregrines would be appropriate for your facility.

Migratory Species are Blind to Borders, But We are Not

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Migratory species from sandhill cranes to polar bears travel thousands of miles each year as the seasons change. Without the aid of GPS technology they find their way with an instinct as old as each species itself. This instinct allows them to traverse both natural and man-made landscapes effortlessly without regard for state lines or international borders. Despite migratory species’ remarkable navigational skills, their journeys are not always safe, and their destinations may no longer exist in their natural forms upon their arrival.

When it comes to protecting migratory species, thinking within the boundaries of your own backyard is not enough. If the bald eagle enjoys safe refuge in Alaska during the summer months but finds their habitat devastated by human activities when it migrates to California for the winter, their life is still in grave danger.

International law has begun the expansive process of protecting migratory species. Globally, states that have ratified the Convention of the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) recognize that they are the protectors of migratory species that live within or pass through their national boundaries. Therefore, member states seek “to conserve the habitat of migratory species that would significantly benefit from international cooperation.” These conservation efforts are required to include trans-national coordinated conservation and management plans. North American countries are not a part of the CMS agreement, but they do work to conserve migratory birds through enforcement of the U.S. Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This treaty declares that killing, selling, and possessing migratory birds is a felony punishable by federal fines and imprisonment.

In addition to acting in accordance with conservation laws, corporate conservation teams can play an active role in protecting migratory species in other ways. For example, by using the free IPaC planning tool, it is possible to learn what species’ habitats are on your property and if those species are migratory. If any species are migratory, you can find out where they migrate to and contact corporations working in that region. The point of this contact should be to initiate a joint effort to protect and conserve your common migratory species. This communication could prove valuable to both corporate teams and wildlife, as the conservation effort could allow you collaborate with other corporations, while also ensuring the presence of both the summer and winter habitats needed by migratory species.

We cannot protect wildlife by thinking like a human. Instead, we must be willing to look at the world through the eyes of the migratory species we wish to protect, looking beyond their borders, and spotting new opportunities for connection.

Read more WHC blogs.

The Nature of Fire

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By now you’ve almost certainly heard about the massive wildfire that has devastated Fort McMurray, Alberta, nicknamed “the beast” by local firefighters. This wildfire has so far destroyed about 10% of the city of Fort McMurray, as well as hundreds of thousands of acres of native boreal forest in the surrounding area. As of this writing the fire is still not under control and additional evacuations have been ordered. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

Fires in nature act as a clearing mechanism for accumulated organic debris, and in some ecosystems fire is actually required to release seeds from pinecones or to stimulate seed germination. In North America, naturally-occurring fire regimes historically ranged from frequent, low-intensity fires that cleared the understory every few years, to infrequent, stand-replacing fires every few hundred years. However, the former is much more common, with many species in fire-adapted ecosystems able to withstand these low-intensity fires.

However, policies that result in the total suppression of wildfires in many areas has led to the accumulation of fuel on the forest floor – dried leaves and pine needles, branches, etc. If a fire burns through areas with this kind of accumulated fuel, the fire burns hotter, taller, and faster than the forest can withstand, leaving little unburned. You can see in this video from the Guardian the flames in the Fort McMurray wildfires were sometimes so tall and hot they engulfed entire mature trees.

Dry conditions like Alberta experienced this winter and spring increase the likelihood that fires will start from lightning strikes or other ignition sources. A dry fuel load and low humidity exacerbate the intensity of fires that do ignite.

One effective compromise between the need for fire to maintain fire-adapted ecosystems and the desire to protect homes, businesses, and wildlife from uncontrolled wildfires is to use controlled burns, in which land managers intentionally set, contain, and manage a controlled, low-intensity fire.

For more information about the Fort McMurray wildfire and the role of wildfires in ecosystems, I encourage you to read this article by Leyland Cecco, which uses the Fort McMurray wildfire to provide an in-depth analysis of the conditions that lead to the destructive power of these kinds of wildfires.

Read more WHC blogs.

Going Native in Your Urban Garden

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Many corporate facilities are located in urban and industrial areas, where wildlife habitat tends to occur in small, isolated patches. In areas such as these, projects like native gardens are all the more important for the conservation of pollinators, birds, and other native animals.

Urban gardening with native species is suitable to a variety of settings, from urban corporate landscapes to home gardens. Like urban tree planting initiatives, native gardening projects provide multiple benefits for urban neighborhoods. They can help to revitalize urban neighborhoods by improving visual aesthetics and providing a place for people to reconnect with nature and with their neighbors. Urban gardens also contribute to cooler urban temperatures, produce oxygen, filter rainfall, and improve infiltration. In addition, urban gardens that include native plants can provide habitat for pollinators, songbirds, and other urban wildlife.

Not sure where to begin? Whether you’re starting from scratch with a new garden or revamping an existing garden at your facility, it will be easiest to first decide what your goals are for the garden. Do you want lots of colorful, delicate butterflies, or maybe zippy little hummingbirds? Try planting some colorful nectar-bearing flowering forbs, vines, and shrubs. Or maybe you’d rather attract birds that will fill your garden with their songs? You’ll want to plant shrubs that produce lots of berries and forbs that produce seeds, as well as trees for nesting if you have the room. Or perhaps you’d prefer to manage stormwater runoff with your garden—you could plant native vegetation that can tolerate occasional flooding to create a rain garden.

We’ve got a number of articles and other resources in our Knowledge Center to help you learn about native gardening – check out some of these to get you started:

If you’d like specific recommendations on how to design your urban garden for wildlife, don’t hesitate to contact us at WHC@wildlifehc.org.

Read more WHC blogs.

Bats and Birds Will Eat Your Mosquitos

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Hate mosquitos? You’re not alone! Although they are an important part of the ecosystem, too many mosquitos can create quite a nuisance. They buzz in your ear and leave red, itchy welts when they bite, and some even transmit diseases like West Nile Virus and malaria.

You wouldn’t know it from their cute faces, but these little brown bats are voracious insect predators, and can eat thousands of mosquitos in a single night. Source: USFWS.

You wouldn’t know it from their cute faces, but these little brown bats are voracious insect predators, and can eat thousands of mosquitos in a single night. Source: USFWS.

Luckily, nature has provided us with many natural mosquito predators to help keep them under control.

Bats in temperate areas of the world tend to be insectivorous, with voracious appetites for mosquitos and other flying insect pests. A single bat can eat about 1,200 insects an hour, and about 6,000-8,000 insects a night. Female bats that are nursing young may even eat up to their weight in insects nightly.

Insectivorous birds like purple martins, swallows, eastern kingbirds, and yellow warblers are also known for eating flying insects, including mosquitos, though to a lesser extent.

So if you have a problem with mosquitos and other flying pest insects, try enhancing your site’s habitat to attract these natural insect predators. You could install artificial structures that provide nesting and roosting habitat, such as nest boxes for birds and bat houses or other artificial roosts for bats. You should also make sure the surrounding habitat provides the resources and complexity needed by the species you want to attract, including plenty of native vegetation that will provide additional food sources and cover habitat. Not only will you contribute to conservation of these species, you’ll also be helping yourself!

It’s important to remember that none of these species will provide a singular solution to controlling mosquitos in all locations. Rather, attracting natural predators is an important step in long-term planning for reducing mosquito numbers in your area.

Read more WHC blogs.

Cooperative Work Among Companies Creates Ecological and Community Connectivity in Northwest Indiana

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On Thursday, January 21, about 15 volunteers from a diverse group of companies and conservation organizations, including WHC and members of the Indiana Coastal Cooperative Weed Management Group as well as the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, ExxonMobil, ArcelorMittal, PRAXAIR, the Coffee Creek Watershed Conservancy, and the Shirley Heinze Land Trust, joined up to tackle the removal of invasive species from upland areas at ExxonMobil’s Hammond Terminal.

It can be difficult to find larger tracts of dune and swale habitat in natural or even semi-natural conditions in Indiana’s coastal region because of heavy urban and industrial development. The 77-acre Hammond Terminal property includes a large amount of this critical Lake Michigan coastal habitat, so although former industrial uses left their mark on the site more than 50 years ago, it remains one of the most important tracts of shorebird habitat in the region and is key piece of the conservation and landscape connectivity puzzle.

The focus of invasive removal at last week’s workday was buckthorn, a non-native, invasive shrub that is a common invader in Midwestern forests, prairies, and oak savannas. The volunteers used a technique known as the “cut-stump method” in which the shrubs are cut down and herbicide applied to the stump to prevent regrowth. Also on the agenda was laying the ground for a new trail that will be used by East Chicago students and bird watching visitors.

During the workday, the group shared their common knowledge and experience of working on site and along the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, and learned that slag had been deposited on-site as far back as the 1940s and since then, a succession of native habitats developed throughout the site. The spread of invasive plants such as buckthorn, phragmites, purple loosestrife, and many others have impacted the ecological quality of this site over the past 10 years. Efforts to develop an ecological restoration partnership between the Indiana DNR, ExxonMobil, and BP have provided a unique regional example of how companies and natural resource agencies can work together to increase conservation in urban-industrial areas.

A volunteer applies Pathfinder herbicide to a buckthorn stump. The herbicide is dyed blue to help volunteers see which plants have already been treated.

A volunteer applies Pathfinder herbicide to a buckthorn stump. The herbicide is dyed blue to help volunteers see which plants have already been treated.

This cooperative workday at the Hammond Terminal is part of a larger ongoing collaborative effort, funded by Sustain Our Great Lakes Program and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to the Indiana DNR, to control invasive species and restore native habitats on public and private properties areas along the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal. Other companies involved in this invasive species control partnership include BP and Valero. WHC is also working with ExxonMobil, ArcelorMittal, PRAXAIR, and Kinder Morgan on developing invasive species control programs on their working facilities under a grant from the Indiana DNR Coastal Program and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). Working collaboratively like this helps companies enhance the conservation value of their projects by aligning them with broader goals for the region. It also helps teams learn from one another by providing opportunities to share information about what worked and what didn’t.

For more details on how your company can contribute to conservation efforts in your area, contact WHC for tailored help or check out our Project Guidances for guidelines on designing and implementing conservation and education projects.

Read more WHC blogs.

LS_field_Unimin - big bluestem

The Carbon-Sequestering Power of Soils

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This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about soil.

Earlier this year, scientists announced that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere had reached a record high of 400 parts per million (ppm), more than 120 ppm higher than pre-industrial carbon levels. It seems fitting, then, that I end this blog series with a post about the carbon-sequestering power of soils.

Carbon sequestration is the process by which carbon dioxide is moved from the atmosphere into a non-gaseous form, such as plant matter. Plants do this well, using sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into sugars and other compounds that ultimately turn into plant tissues. When more carbon is absorbed then released, the system is considered a carbon sink; the opposite, when a system releases more carbon than absorbs, is considered a carbon source.

When plants die, they decay and become part of the soil. Over time, this process allows soils to store large amounts of carbon and serve as carbon sinks, especially in soils where the decay of organic matter back into carbon dioxide is slow, such as colder regions and areas with low soil disturbance.

Prairie soils can be particularly good carbon sinks. Prairie grasses and wildflowers develop deep, extensive root systems; some prairie plants grow roots up to 15 feet deep! As these root systems decay, organic matter in the soil builds up relatively quickly. In fact, prairies can store more carbon underground than forests can store in trees aboveground.

Corporate conservation programs can help contribute to soil carbon sequestration in a number of ways. As mentioned above, planting native vegetation that is good at sequestering carbon, including trees and deep-rooted grasses and wildflowers, is a great way to do this. Teams can also manage existing habitats in ways that reduce soil disturbance and erosion, improve soil structure, and increase soil organic matter.

So the next time you hear about atmospheric carbon levels, consider how the soil under our feet is so closely linked to the air above our heads!

Read more WHC blogs.

6 Tricks for Better Species Identification

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Learning how to identify plants and animals–especially when you’re first starting out with a conservation project—can be seem pretty daunting at first. Once you get the hang of it, though, I promise it gets much easier! Here’s a list of six tricks I use all the time when I’m trying to identify wildlife in the field.

  1. First, get yourself some handy identification tools.

There are so many species, how could one possibly learn what they all look like?  Answer – you don’t.  Instead, you learn how to use tools like field guides that will help you figure out which species you’re looking at.  Field guides are generally designed to be small enough to carry around while also providing an identification tips for a group of species like birds.  There are also numerous apps for your smartphone that can supplement or replace field guides, like Audubon’s bird guide app and LeafSnap.

  1. Take photos!

Take photos of the animals and plants you see, especially if you aren’t sure what species it is.  You can then examine the photo in detail and zoom in on your computer’s monitor, and take as much time as you need to compare it to books and online guides.  You can also submit photos to a variety of experts online who can help with difficult identifications, such as BugGuide.net or a local naturalist.

  1. Get expert help in the field.

In addition to getting help with identifying species you photographed, it can also be advantageous to have one or more experts with you in the field while you are monitoring your project.  They can give you hands-on training in implementing a monitoring technique for your project as well as with in-the-field identification.

  1. Learn how to “break it down” into manageable parts.

One of the best ways to keep from feeling overwhelmed by everything going on with the way a species looks or sounds is learning how to “break down” each plant or animal into a bunch of manageable “parts” that will help you identify it. So if you’re trying to figure out which bird you’re seeing, you can break down the visual observation into things like relative size, bill length, bill shape, tail shape, colors on various parts of the body, and distinctive markings.  Animal songs and calls can be similarly broken down into things like pitch, rhythm, melody and harmonics, complexity, tone, timbre, and mnemonic association.

  1. Use all of your senses to observe plants and animals.

The most common way to identify plants and animals is by sight, of course but your other senses can help you too.  Many animals sing, call, or make other noises, and with some practice it can be easy to distinguish many of the common bird songs, frog and mammal calls, and such.  Some species have a distinctive smell, such the lemony odor released by lemon beebalm when its leaves are crushed, or that very distinctively noxious odor when a skunk sprays to protect itself.  Touch and taste can also be useful for helping identify certain plants, such as rough tree bark or minty-tasting leaves (taste should be used with lots of caution, however, as many wild plants can be poisonous!)

  1. Consider your location.

Remember, species occur within specific ranges and habitat types.  The species you might find when you’re out on your company’s land will therefore depend a great deal on where you are in the world and what habitat you’re looking at.  You wouldn’t find a tropical marsh bird in a temperate desert, now would you?

I hope these tricks give you the confidence you need to go out there and try your hand at species ID!

Read more WHC blogs.