The Fawcett Center riverside site serves an array of purposes for the university and the Olentangy watershed. For example, on Saturday home games proud alumni set up large tailgating parties on the edge of the site to cheer on the Bucks. Throughout the year, plants, animals, and microbes exchange chemicals and energy to live and reproduce. These anthropological and biological interactions make the area great for man and microbe. However, like much of the modern landscape, the Fawcett site demonstrates the hallmark symptoms of an ecosystem out of equilibrium. Invasive plants dominate the understory and floor of the riverside forest. Litter comes from the river and the occasional trash bag. Wildlife must decide whether to travel through the thick brush of the Fawcett site or the bustling bike trail across the river.
The University handed the site over to the Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed to steward for a time. After some tree planting and some invasive removal, the dry Columbus summer and water access hindered much of this first ecological restoration. Many invasive plants took over the site and competed successfully against the native plantings. The Environment and Natural Resources Scholars came to take on the site from FLOW and the University in 2015. Passionate college students could maintain the site and access it readily. This second restoration project would and will succeed.
When Shane Jones, Luke Feist, and myself sought to take on this restoration, our coordinators sought a semester-long involvement project. Seeing the potential of the site and the role ENR Scholars could play, we took up a decade-long view into the future of the site and opportunities for our successors. We hope to remove invasive plant species and replace them with native species to create a layered deciduous forest. We hope to bring more birds and mammals to the area with housing and food sources. We hope to beautify the area for birdwatchers, casual walkers, and the general college student. Our official goals are listed below:
• Remove the thick stands of honeysuckle and callery pear
• Document and remove less conspicuous invasive species
• Plant native species to replace removed plants and rebuild ecosystem
• Install nut and berry trees for wildlife nutrition
• Install flowering native species for pollinators
• Recruit Scholars labor to complete the above aims in a timely manner
In addition to these listed goals, I personally wish to share the visual progression of the site as we continue along.
A later post will cover work up to this point, but future posts should match up with actual field work.
As always, I hope to be a resource and a pupil to anyone interested in environmentalism and the natural world. Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or connections.
The first ecological restoration can be thought of as the French attempt at the Panama Canal: conditions weren’t favorable to any ongoing success. We hope the second restoration currently underway will continue well beyond our graduations.