Habitat Corridors in the Beanblossom Creek Valley and Your Own Backyard

by Daniel Layton, Land Preservation Director

I vividly recall the wonder I felt the first time I visited Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve in Monroe County. I think most people who visit this special preserve have a similar sense of surprise at the vibrant bayou-like habitat hidden amidst the typical corn and bean fields. It’s no wonder that it’s our most popular trail for visitors and also the center of our conservation efforts. Since the first tract of Beanblossom Bottoms was acquired in 1995, Sycamore and its supporters have managed to protect over 2,400 acres in what we now call our Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area (BCCA). We have chosen to focus on the area for many reasons, not least because it allows us to resurrect vanishingly scarce wetland habitat, but also because it has allowed us to create an extensive habitat corridor.

Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve. Photo by Kate Hammel

Perhaps you’ve heard this term “habitat corridor” and have wondered what exactly it means or why you should care about them. To answer that question, we have to think about the combined effects of a rapidly warming planet and unchecked human development. The warming of the earth means that species will need to move north in order to find the conditions they need to survive. Northward migrations like this have happened many times throughout earth’s history due to warming, most recently only a few thousand years ago when the miles-thick glacial ice covering most of our state started to recede. So no big deal, right? Well, when plants and animals try to move north this time, there will be a few obstructions in the way, such as over four million miles of roads and eighty-two million single-family houses sitting on thirty-two million acres of manicured lawns with mowers buzzing over them on a weekly basis. And that’s just in the U.S. So unfortunately yes, it is a very big deal.

A habitat corridor, then, is an unbroken series of natural lands that avoid these human-made obstructions and land uses hostile to wildlife. Our efforts in the BCCA seek to create a long habitat corridor by stitching together our preserves over time and creating habitat in between where there currently isn’t any. 2024 has already seen two additions to this corridor. First, we acquired the 26-acre John Allen England Nature Preserve, which connects our Restle Natural Area, the Restle Unit of the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge, and Beanblossom Bottoms. Shortly after, we received a generous 61-acre donation from Bill and Kathleen Oliver located only about a thousand feet south of Beanblossom Bottoms and which connects to a formerly isolated 20-acre parcel we own. Both properties will now be allowed to transition from agriculture to wetland, increasing the size of this growing habitat corridor.

These are important victories, but we also have to be clear-eyed about how dire the long term situation is. As I write this, we are in the midst of an unprecedented June heatwave, and unprecedented weather has already become commonplace. At current projections, warming is proceeding so rapidly that a major extinction event is all but inevitable in the coming centuries. But this cannot be an excuse for apathy. If we do not change our behavior, the outcomes will be far worse. On the contrary, it must be a call for action. Your support makes it possible for us to give wildlife a fighting chance by protecting the interconnected land that plants and animals need for the challenging times ahead.

At the same time, habitat isn’t something that only exists “out there;” it needs to be something right outside of our windows too. As I mentioned above, we have over thirty million acres of lawn in this country: that’s enough to cover over fifteen Yellowstone National Parks. Lawns that are regularly mowed are ecologically only a small step up from asphalt or concrete. Now, imagine if all of those lawns were instead prime wildlife habitat: it would be the greatest habitat corridor of all! Even if you can’t get your neighbors on board to create a fully fledged habitat corridor, your yard absolutely can become a habitat oasis. If you replace all or a portion of your lawn with native grasses and wildflowers, you will be amazed at how quickly birds and other wildlife will show up. If you add a simple shallow wildlife pond, (no need for a filter if you don’t add fish, which are bad for other aquatic pond life anyway) the results will be even more dramatic. If you appreciate wildlife, why keep a boring lawn that you have to mow every week when you could have your own wildlife sanctuary?

Being part of the Sycamore Land Trust community means that we can pool our small efforts together to make big changes. With our many supporters’ help, our staff is empowered to continue building big habitat corridors in the Beanblossom Creek valley and elsewhere. But don’t forget that if you have a yard, that’s your own little nature preserve, and if enough of us become good stewards to them, it can add up to something big too!

A native restoration project to restore habitat at home. Photo by Daniel Layton

This article is from the Summer 2024 issue of The Twig, “The Habitat Issue.” Read the full issue at sycamorelandtrust.org/twig.