Success Story: The Wildlife Habitat Council

West Side High School students take inventory of species found
at Deep River Outdoor Education Center in Gary, Indiana.
Photo by Daniel Goldfarb, Wildlife Habitat Council.

 The Wildlife Habitat Council, a partner in National Environmental Education Week, is a non-profit, non-lobbying group of corporations, conservation organizations and individuals dedicated to protecting and enhancing wildlife habitat. Created in 1988, WHC (http://www.wildlifehc.org/) helps large landowners, particularly corporations, manage their unused lands in an ecologically sensitive manner for the benefit of wildlife. By creating volunteer-based wildlife teams of company employees, local schools, and area Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, WHC wildlife programs have successfully turned private lands into meaningful wildlife habitats.

As part of Earth Day 2007, the Wildlife Habitat Council joined with the Deep River Outdoor Education Center in Gary, Indiana, to launch a long-term sustainability effort in northwest Indiana. Teachers and students from West Side High School worked with the Shirley Heinze Land Trust, Sierra Club, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, U.S. National Park Service and conservation partners from northwestern Indiana to conduct the first biotic inventory of wetland habitats in the area. The inventory was the first step in the larger effort to enhance the native biodiversity of 74 acres of floodplain forests, wet prairie, wetlands and upland forests around the City of Gary.

The students learned about the cultural and natural history of the center as well as the ecological function of wetlands at the center. Key plants and habitats were mapped by students under the guidance of a GIS/GPS Survey Specialist from the Gary Sanitary District, and several uncommon native plants were found through the survey, including sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), swamp thistle (Cirsum muticum), swamp saxifrage (Saxifraga pensylvanica), and swamp goldenrod (Solidago patula). The highlight of the survey, however, was the sighting of a pair of rare black-crowned night-herons (Nycticorax nycticorax). These herons are unusual for the Indiana Dunes area of northwest Indiana, but they are making a comeback in the wetlands of nearby Calumet River.

The restoration project at the Deep River Outdoor Education Center is part of a Five Star Restoration Matching Grant facilitated by WHC and funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It will be expanded to include more high schools as a larger conservation education initiative for the Gary Community School Corporation, which manages the school system. This initiative is being funded by the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation of Chicago. WHC and U.S. National Park Service staff will train and work with student green teams at the center as well as create urban greenspaces on school campuses, such as rain gardens, native landscapes and constructed wetlands.

In early June, the students from West Side High School completed a detailed map of their inventory and observations at the center and will next create a management plan for the site and work on invasive species control. Go to more information on this and other Earth Day activities from the Wildlife Habitat Council.

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