A Successful Winter Habitat Improvement Program (HIP) Season

Dedicated volunteers improved many acres of crucial habitat!

Dedicated Ice Age Trail volunteers helped improve crucial plant and wildlife habitats across three Ice Age Trail Alliance-owned preserves: SwampLovers (Dane County), Hartland Marsh (Waukesha County), and Steenbock (Columbia County). A total of 158 volunteers donated 2,136 service hours.

Winter, offering both challenging AND perfect conditions for the Habitat Improvement events, didn’t deter hardy sawyers, swampers, and brush haulers. Invasive trees and shrubs were removed from more than seven acres, allowing for the expansion of native prairie and oak savanna.

Table Bluff Segment, SwampLovers’ Preserve

January 19

A snowstorm canceled the originally scheduled event, but 9 volunteers came out a week later, donating 91 hours to clear invasive brush from oak savanna habitat. With almost two feet of snow, temperatures just above zero degrees, and steep topography, this hardy crew cleared nearly an acre of brush.

These efforts will help promote more native species, like oak trees, hazelnut shrubs, and Jacob’s ladder, to flourish!

Hartland Segment, Hartland Marsh Preserve

January 12 and 13

Warmer weather melted more than a foot of snow, allowing 79 volunteers to donate 1,042 hours and getting an incredible amount of work done. Volunteers cleared four acres of buckthorn from the oak woodlands on the Alliance-owned Hartland Marsh Preserve.

This work keeps the property’s mature oaks healthy, creates space for younger oak trees to grow, and allows native forbs like shooting stars and wild columbine to reestablish in the understory. Maintaining this habitat is critical for migrating and nesting birds, which depend on these large oak trees.

Gibraltar Rock Segment, Steenbock Preserve

February 9 and 10

Melted snow provided excellent conditions for removing invasive brush and trees. Donating 1,003 hours, 70 volunteers cleared 2.5 acres, helping restore the property’s remnant bluff prairie. Skilled sawyers demonstrated their felling skills, taking down eastern red cedar, elm, and cherry trees that had invaded the prairie. Following in their wake, an army of dedicated brush haulers carefully hauled the debris to burn piles.

Invasive species removal brings sunlight to the ground, reestablishing even more prairie. Endangered insects and declining grassland bird species rely on this ever-expanding habit.

The Habitat Improvement Program helps restore land, increase habitat diversity, and enhance hiker experiences.