Conservation

Finding ways to connect and collaborate during the coronavirus pandemic is challenging. Organizers of a recent environmental cleanup think they might have come up with a way to combine getting good work done with giving people a chance to connect.

Over the last decade, Milwaukee County Parks has carried out 5,000 bird surveys and documented close to 370,000 birds throughout the system.

That work contributed to Milwaukee County Parks’ recent designation as an Important Bird Area (IBA). It is granted by a group called the Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative.

We're not talking about Dorothy's ruby slippers or the Wicked Witch of The West. This is a story that started 10 years ago, when a small group of volunteers devoted to conservation in Ozaukee County designed a day of exploration called the Treasures of Oz.

Dogs are extremely good at sniffing things out. Mequon Nature Preserve decided to take advantage of  the canine skill and brought on Tilia, the first on-staff conservation dog in Wisconsin.

One of her trainers is Kathy Hatch. The day I visited, she had been busy hiding several plants amidst tall grasses outside the preserve.

Today, Pope Francis took the unprecedented step of issuing a formal opinion on the environment. 

His encyclical, titled On Care of Our Common Home, states humankind has a moral obligation to radically change its behavior, in order to protect the planet for future generations.

Over the next five years, thousands of volunteers and professionals will track down birds that breed and raise their young in Wisconsin. The data will be distilled into the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas II.

Data will be shared with federal and state agencies, and it might help drive comprehensive conservation measures - at least Bill Mueller hopes so. He directs the Western Great Lakes Bird & Bat Observatory.

The Conservation Stewardship Program has helped offset costs for farmers, who use conservation practices, since 2002. The passage of the 2014 Farm Bill brings change to the federal program.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund, according to Dick Steffes is “probably the most important land protection program that people have never heard of.”

Despite its name, there’s nothing ordinary about the common loon. For starters, it’s an ancient species – with a wingspan of five feet, and it’s related to the penguin. It’s the only loon nesting in northern Wisconsin.

The Shady Lane Natural Area in Ozaukee County celebrated its grand opening Saturday. We glimpse at its fern-carpeted canopy and learn about the preserve’s unusual history.

Aldo Leopold was a legendary environmentalist and forester. He spent almost two decades working with the U.S. Forest Service in the Southwest. Throughout his life Leopold loved observing, journaling and sketching his surrounding. That didn’t change when he transferred to work in Madison, Wisconsin.

Nina Leopold Bradley was a young girl in 1935, when her father Aldo invited his family on the adventure of a lifetime. A ramshackle farm caught his eye near the Wisconsin River, not far from Baraboo.