Preserving the Family Farm, Planning for the Future
No one is more connected to or appreciative of the land than the families who farm it. When your acres have fed you and your neighbors, sent your kids to school and sheltered you, you want to do your best by that land. Sometimes the best thing you can do is ensure that things stay just the way they are.
Water Finding its Old Ways
Ghosts of the Great Black Swamp are still alive in a small hayfield in Paulding County. Water sometimes rises in ancient pathways, and heavy rains bring the waters of the Marie DeLarme Creek back to old haunts in the field.
Learning by Doing – and by Farming, Drawing and Wading
A big new classroom is being developed at Otsego Schools. It leaks a bit and can be cold in the winter but everyone is excited about it. The classroom in progress is 16 acres right across the street from the schools.
GIS = Very Cool Map System
Imagine that you have 650,000 needles in a haystack. In that pile are some great needles: needles that are very valuable and make many of the other needles more valuable, too. But to find the best needles, you need to sort out every single needle and compare it to every other one. Now imagine that you have built a tool that will do that.
ODNR Gives Huddle Project Update
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources included an update about our H2Ohio Huddle Project in its Winter 2022 Natural Areas Newsletter.
The Huddle Project, now called Rotary Riverside Preserve, is a 57-acre property near Napoleon, with more than ¾ mile of Maumee River shoreline within its 100-year floodplain.
Conservation Legacy: Peninsular Farms
Inside a deep and playful curl in the Sandusky River north of Fremont are about 500 historic acres that have been saved over and over again. They are saved for good but – much like the river itself – it has been a long and winding path.
Rotary Riverside Comes to Life
Even before the restoration is complete, wildlife is finding a home in the new wetlands of the Rotary Riverside Restoration Preserve in Henry County.
After a recent rain, frogs were jumping into shallow wet depressions recently dug out. Turtles will soon sun themselves on higher hummocks and woody debris placed throughout the site.
#GivingTuesday 2022: Nature Gives Us So Much
Our local wild places are a gift to all of us. Everything we do as an organization is to preserve and enhance the natural habitats for the benefit of current and future generations. It’s how we thank nature for misty mornings, sensational sunsets and the multitude of other gifts she gives.
Storybook Setting for a Storybook Trail
Once a farm, then a campground, and now a quiet lakeside park, the Dr. Robert L. Nehls Memorial Nature Preserve is 40 acres on the south end of Catawba Island’s West Harbor. The Nehls family owned and enjoyed the land for many years, using it as a family haven to enjoy nature. Following the death of veterinarian and nature lover Robert Nehls, his wife Norma decided to sell the land to Black Swamp Conservancy so it could be permanently preserved.
Grants Pay Off Big for Little Auglaize
For more than 25 years, a variety of caretakers have slowly and lovingly worked to restore the 226-acre Little Auglaize Wildlife Preserve in Paulding County, converting it from farm fields to a diverse and healthy habitat. Now, due to grants secured through the research and persistence of the Black Swamp Conservancy, restoration efforts there are taking a big leap forward.
