Multiple Bird Species Are Now Thriving in the Leopold-Pines Conservation Area
For nearly 20 years, Steve Swenson, program director for the Aldo Leopold Foundation, has led the foundation’s staff and neighbors toward improving the health of the land so that multiple species may thrive.
“Through active conservation measures—such as sustainable forestry and wetland and prairie restoration through plantings and prescribed burning—we have quantifiably improved the habitat for breeding birds, bees, and butterflies,” says Swenson an ecologist by training.
However, the journey to getting results has involved conservation dilemmas at times.
“While it took courage and effort to expand our landscape restoration footprint, we are proud of how we welcomed the possibility to be wrong, how we learned with the land, and moved forward with more effectiveness. Today we are seeing tremendous results. We continue Aldo Leopold’s legacy of learning from our experiences.” —Steve Swenson
By the early 2000s, Swenson and staff had planted over 100 acres of high-diversity prairie plantings. These newly planted acres added to the already hundreds of acres of open grassland prairie and marshes.
At about this same time biologists with the Important Bird Areas program were identifying critical habitats across Wisconsin for bird conservation. Because the foundation’s property is adjacent large conservation properties, the area was identified and surveyed for verification, primarily in hopes of finding that the grasslands were providing critical habitat for declining populations of grassland birds. The results were equal parts validating and alarming.
For years the Leopold Foundation team worked hard to restore prairie and savanna. “It was clear from the bird survey data that the grassland-savanna birds of concern were not using our restored prairies,” said Swenson. “While this was initially very disappointing, the data also revealed the solution. We began to shift our approach.”
CHANGING CONSERVATION COURSE
Given the lower than anticipated rates of attracting the desired birds, the team decided to take a different approach: concentrate land management on the spaces in-between the high-quality grassland restorations. The restored areas were not functioning as parts with a greater sum.
“While it took courage and effort to expand our landscape restoration footprint, we are proud of how we welcomed the possibility to be wrong, how we learned with the land, and moved forward with more effectiveness. Today we are seeing tremendous results. We continue Aldo Leopold’s legacy of learning from our experiences.”
PARTNERS WITH SHARED PHILOSOPHY, ADAPTIVE MINDSET
Aldo Leopold’s legacy also lives on in the harmony-with-nature philosophy of conservation the foundation practices on what is now 4,000 acres (six square miles!). Through close collaboration with the Phillip and Joan Pines family, the Foundation stewards the Leopold-Pines Conservation Area (LPCA), a collection of culturally and ecologically significant properties along the Wisconsin River in Baraboo, Wisconsin.
A process of adaptive management—which relies on repeated cycles of planning, executing, and evaluating to improve future efforts—runs deep in the LPCA partnership. It was Aldo Leopold, who in the early 1930s, documented the critical role of habitat in supporting wildlife populations and implored private landowners to see how their actions could support their livelihood and benefit wildlife.
SPOTLIGHT: KEEPING ‘WOODIES’ IN CHECK TO FOSTER CRANE HABITAT
In the 1930s, Aldo Leopold estimated no more than 20 pairs of greater sandhill cranes remained in Wisconsin. Certain he was witnessing the extinction of a species, he wrote “Marshland Elegy.”
The cranes were hard put, their numbers shrinking with the remnants of unburned meadow. For them, the song of the power shovel came near being an elegy. The high priests of progress knew nothing of cranes, and cared less. What is a species more or less among engineers? What good is an undrained marsh anyhow? —Aldo Leopold
Conservation efforts of the time began to “rewet” marshes, and crane numbers rebounded. Today, within earshot of Leopold’s famous Shack, every fall 10,000 sandhill cranes gather during migration.
Sandhill cranes are extremely sensitive to disturbance when selecting their roosting site for the evening. In this location, they are seeking sand islands within the Wisconsin River which offer wide open lines of sight and obvious protection from terrestrial predators. These traditional staging areas are long-duration stops, pre-set into their migration plan, where they can effectively “bulk-up” prior to long-distance travel to Florida.
In the past, large flood events with the associated prolonged inundations of floodwaters drowned encroaching shrubs and trees and kept these islands open. Today, the extremes of flood events are mitigated through upstream dams and resulted in the need for the foundation’s land stewardship crews to manage these islands for crane roosting habitat.
Through prairie restoration and by restoring part of the Wisconsin River as preferred habitat for Sandhill Cranes the Aldo Leopold Foundation has made tough choices in conservation. And for having done so, is seeing results in critical species protection and conservation.
If you are interested in learning more about the Leopold-Pines Conservation Area, please contact:
Steve Swenson | Program and Communications Director
The Aldo Leopold Foundation was founded in 1982 with a mission to foster the Land Ethic® through the legacy of Aldo Leopold, awakening an ecological conscience in people throughout the world.
"Land Ethic®" is a registered service mark of the Aldo Leopold Foundation, to protect against egregious and/or profane use.
