Conservation Grants and Wisconsin’s Best Places: News from the NRF

This post which began as one of several items for a “roundup” or summer notes, has grown into five separate posts, to be published one at a time these first weeks of August.

Help Fund Your Group’s Conservation Efforts With an NRF Grant

Each year the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin gives numerous small matching grants to local conservation groups that have a plan and a program for enhancing natural resources within their particular jurisdictions. There is still a bit of time for interested groups to apply for such a grant for 2016: applications are due by September 1st.

The Natural Resources Foundation is a partner to Wisconsin’s DNR. It was created in 1986 and ever since, it has dedicated itself to its stated mission: boosting “private sector investment and involvement in state managed natural resources: our waters, lands, and wildlife.” There are two specific grants that can be applied for now, before the September 1st deadline. The first, the C.D. Besadny Conversation Grant Program, was founded in 1990 as a tribute to the former DNR Secretary “Buzz” Besadny, who had a distinguished 42-year career at the DNR.

Over the years this fund, now 25 years old, has granted $420,000 to more than 500 groups, representing every county in the state. “On average we get about 50 applications for the Besadny Conservation Grant each year,” I was told by Lindsay Mayer, NRF’s communications director. Many of the grants arrive at NRF close to the Sept. 1 deadline, she added. (So, if you are part of a group with a project in need of financial assistance, yes, there’s still time to make an application for funding!)

The second type of grant available is the Teachers Outdoor Environmental Education Fund (for public school, K-12, teachers). This grant was founded in 2010 by Pete Oslind in memory of his wife, Sue Spaeth, a 30-year veteran elementary teacher, who harbored a particular commitment to environmental education. To date this fund has generated nearly $10,000 in giving, to more than a dozen projects.

It’s important to emphasize that all of these funds have been given as small, matching donations – no single grant is more than $1,000. They benefit local conservation groups and projects. You can see, at this link, the full list of grants given for 2015. Here are three examples: the Navarino Nature Center in Shiocton received a grant for boardwalk signage at Glen’s Pond; the Catholic Multicultural Center in Madison received a grant for a community environmental program; and the school district of New Berlin, WI, received a grant for its comprehensive recycling program.

Natural Resource Foundations Members Identify Wisconsin’s “Best Places”

Just announced by the NRF:  the “Best of the Best” in Wisconsin for all your outdoor recreation pursuits.  In July the Foundation surveyed its members for their opinions on the best places for running, hiking, biking, canoeing, kayaking, swimming and canoeing.  Devil’s Lake State Park claimed two of the honors: the best place to swim, and to hike. Visit the NRF blog, for the other results, great photos of  the top choices.

Camping, Kayaking, or Canoeing? Wisconsin’s got great places for that, and more. (A Badger & Whooping Crane photo)

 

Considering Cairns (Or Stop that Rock-stacking)

[This is another post in the Summer in Wisconsin series. What began as one of several items for a “roundup” of summer notes, has grown into five separate blogposts, published one at a time in this first and second week of August. You can access all the Summer in Wisconsin series by clicking on those words; they are listed among the categories at the end of each post.]

 

How do you feel about cairns?

I’m asking about those piles of rocks that seem to be intentionally arranged and left as some kind of message, by someone who preceded you down a path on a beach or marking a fork in the road. Would it surprise you to learn that they are the cause of strong feelings and differences of opinion among those who love the natural world?

I have not considered cairns much past a mild curiosity about a particular cairn whenever I’ve encountered one. But then I haven’t encountered that many, while apparently others have, and they see them as a problem that is multiplying. Here is a link to “Stop the rock-stacking”  [ http://www.hcn.org/articles/a-call-for-an-end-to-cairns-leave-the-stones-alone ]     published at the High Country News early in July. In this opinion piece the writer, Robyn Martin, distinguishes between people arranging them for some sort of personal intention, and “true cairns, the official term for deliberately stacked rocks.”

Two rock cairns on a Lake Michigan beach near Jacksonport, WI, in a photo taken August 25, 2013. (From the photo stream of @wewon31 at Flickr)

“Those of us who like to hike through wilderness areas are glad to see the occasional cairn, as long as it’s indicating the right way to go at critical junctions in the backcountry,” she writes. But she calls many of “problematic,” because they can lead “an unsuspecting hiker into trouble, away from the trail and into a potentially dangerous place,” if they are just set in a random place. She is seeing a growing number of them on public lands, and believes they often serve only as “mementoes from other people’s’ lives.” Kind of like leaving graffiti, she says.

“Pointless cairns are simply pointless reminders of the human ego,” she concludes.

Her words seemed a bit harsh, I thought, but quickly found out she’s not the only one with harsh words for cairns. When her article was shared on the Door County Land Trust’s Facebook page, it quickly garnered 29 comments and the majority – 18 of them – were clearly opposed to the practice of building and leaving cairns.

Here are a representative few:

“Not a fan.”

“Intrusive, narcissistic, thoughtless destruction of natural places.”

“Do we as humans need to leave a mark everywhere we go? What about ‘Leave No Trace’? Several said “Leave only footsteps.”

Though a clear majority of commenters were opposed to cairn building, it was not unanimous. In addition to the 18 commenters opposed, I counted 6 neutral comments (“they don’t phase me”), and 5 that were positive about this phenomenon. Like this one:

“Interesting conversation, actually!” I have loved the stone cairns out at the back-pack sites for 20 years.”

It certainly is interesting to see the wide variety of expressions that individuals can hold about things that affect the natural world, and our place in it. What do YOU think? I would love some more feedback on the subject of cairns from readers here.

In Search of Monarch Butterflies and Waystations

[This is another post in the series, Summer in Wisconsin: Woodlands, Wetlands, Monarchs, and Rocks.” What began as one of several items for a “roundup” of summer notes, has grown into five separate blogposts, published one at a time in this first and second week of August. You can access all the Summer in Wisconsin series by clicking on those words; they are listed among the categories at the end of each post.]

Is This a Better Year for Monarchs?

It’s the height of summer in Wisconsin, and this is the perfect time to look for Monarch butterflies. I plan to visit soon, two special Door County locations that may currently be hosting numerous butterflies (more about these later).

According to my own, completely unscientific survey, Monarchs seem more plentiful this summer – even in small parks and back yards, than in recent summers. My own observations seem to be bolstered anecdotally by others I’ve talked to as well.

 

Monarch feeding on the swamp milkweed at the Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge in South Dakota. (USFWS photo by Tom Koerner)

However, Julie, the naturalist at the website, LakeLedgeNaturalist.com, cautioned me that when it comes to Monarchs, “the answers always tend to be complex and multifaceted.” And no wonder, when you consider with Monarchs, you are dealing with millions of individual butterflies – big numbers, yet this is a population commonly understood to be in decline.

From the NWF: The “Battle for the Butterflies”

The National Wildlife Foundation is a good source for stories about the plight of the Monarchs, and I found this one, “The Battle for the Butterflies,”  [ http://www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2015/Battle-for-Butterflies.aspx ]  from March 30th, this year, to be very helpful. A 2014-15 survey of their winter territory in Mexico, produced a count of over 56 million butterflies, “up 69% from the previous year’s survey, when the insects’ numbers fell to historic lows.”

While that’s welcome news, it is still a low count, according the scientists who study this. “The continent’s monarch population has declined more than 90% from its peak of nearly one billion butterflies in the mid-1990s,” this article states.

Monarch caterpillar on common milkweed; this phase in the life cycle of the Monarch butterfly is solely dependent on the Milkweed plant for life. (USFWS photo by Courtney Celley)

There does seem to be a robust and growing response to this threat to the species. One important part of that response, I believe, includes efforts to cultivate Milkweed and the nectar plants required by the Monarch population. Efforts on the part of private citizens, wildlife management professionals, and various public entities have resulted in thousands of such plantings that have come to be known as Monarch Waystations. As of May 31st this year, Monarch Watch, [ http://monarchwatch.org/waystations/ ], a butterfly research program based at the University of Kansas, reports they have registered 10,584 Monarch Waystations.

Where to Look for Monarchs

Efforts to turn the meadow adjacent to the nature center at Peninsula State Park into a Monarch Waystation were described this past November, by Kathleen Harris, naturalist at the park. Providing suitable space for milkweed and other native plants, the meadow is a positive response for Monarchs, Harris wrote in the Peninsula Pulse  [ http://www.ppulse.com/Articles-Outside-in-Door-c-2014-11-05-118683.114136-For-the-Love-of-Monarchs.html ], adding, “In addition to planting diverse native species, park staff and volunteers have also removed unwanted plants.”

A milkweed planting by Swallowtail Garden Seeds  [https://www.flickr.com/photos/swallowtailgardenseeds/15615830469/in/dateposted/ ]

In addition to visiting the meadow at the nature center, and hoping to photograph Monarchs, I also plan to visit Bayshore Blufflands Nature Preserve, a property of the Door County Land Trust. Early in July, the Land Trust posted on their Facebook page, that Bayshore Blufflands had become “a Monarch haven! Fields are filled with Milkweed and buds that are just beginning to bloom . . . You can clearly see where caterpillars have been munching on leaves . . .”

The public can visit Bayshore Blufflands preserve at any time. You can find it at 5454 Bayshore Drive, 10 miles north of Sturgeon Bay.

 

Summer in Wisconsin: Woodlands, Wetlands, Monarchs & More

[This is another post in the series, Summer in Wisconsin: Woodlands, Wetlands, Monarchs, and Rocks.” What began as one of several items for a “roundup” of summer notes, has grown into five separate blogposts, published one at a time in this first and second week of August. You can access all the Summer in Wisconsin series by clicking on those words; they are listed among the categories at the end of each post.]

A Walk in the Woods Can Change Your Mind

We’ve always known this, intuitively, right? A walk in the woods, or on a path next to a stream or lake, is good for us, and good for our mental health. Now a research project at Stanford University seems to offer the science-based truth of this common sense belief.

I found the news of this all over Facebook – in my own news feed and at pages I often visit such as Wisconsin Wetlands Association, Door County Land Trust, and Gathering Waters. For those who may not have seen it, I pass it on.

 

 

     [The author of The Badger & The Whooping Crane has been lucky, this year, experiencing a number of really wonderful woodland walks. Here are photos from four favorites – beginning in Wisconsin’s Door County, January 3rd, at the North Bay Preserve – left, and below.]

 

 

 

Published in July in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study by a team of Stanford researchers asserts that there is a growing body of evidence that links urbanization – or “decreased nature experience” with the “development of mental illness.” Wanting to know more about that, the team focused on a negative thinking pattern commonly known as “brooding,” – described by cognitive scientists as “morbid rumination.” Others studies have shown that such thinking can be a precursor to depression and is more common among city-dwellers than people outside urban areas.

 

     

 

[On the left, Spanish Moss hangs from the trees on one of the many loops of  the Hiking Nature Trail that extends nearly 40 miles through the Myakka River State Park. This Florida state park is nine miles due east of Sarasota.  Below right, the trail runs through a marsh. Both the hike and the photos were taken March 30, 2015.]

 

 

 

 

In this just-published study the research included brain scans of 38 healthy, urban-dwelling volunteers who had spent 90 minutes walking; half walked in a natural setting, and the others spent their time walking in an urbanized, heavy traffic area. The part of the brain associated with brooding – the sub genual prefrontal cortex – showed less blood flow, therefore less morbid rumination activity, among those who had spent their time in the natural world.

 

 

[On Memorial Day weekend I joined one of the many field trips sponsored by the Natural Resources Foundation, and spent a morning getting to know the ecology of Moonlight Bay’s bedrock beach (pictured below, right), and hiking through the adjacent State Natural Area.]

 

 

It may seem like a “no-brainer,” but really, discovering how a part of the human brain reacts to this natural remedy – getting outdoors for a long walk – is news that could potentially be used for the good of everyone by other professionals; pros like architects and urban planners, perhaps.

 

 

[This was a beautiful summer day in mid-June, and a hike to Mosquito Beach (see the trailhead, left) at the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was followed by a stop at the Miner’s Castle Information Center and Overlook, where the photo (below right) featuring a glimpse of the Miner’s Castle rock formation, was taken.

 

To read more about this study linking nature walks with good mental health, you can visit the link above (to an item at the New York Times) or at this one to The Atlantic. The Times includes a link to an abstract of the study itself. The Atlantic has a link to a long-ago article in its archive by one of its authors who described the benefits of the natural world over the developed one. And you probably can guess the name of that author: Henry David Thoreau.