Resilience

This article was sourced from the Arc’s 2023-2024 News Magazine.

When someone mentions Hocking County, grasslands and Henslow’s sparrows are not the first things that come to mind. But then most people have not yet visited Resilience, the Arc’s new preserve in Hocking Hills. There is a story to tell about the creation of this preserve, and although the story ends well, it has a shaky start.

To be truthful, when the property showed up on the real estate listings, the only reason it attracted our attention was its size and location. Just about every human disturbance known to occur in Ohio had taken place on the property sometime in the last 200 years - farming, logging, oil drilling, and strip mining for coal. The latter had managed to level its ridgetop.

From our research, we knew the strip mining that had taken place in the 1980s was the most destructive of those activities. The ridgetop was literally turned upside down to access the coal beneath. The bedrock that was once configured in orderly layers above the coal was now a jumbled mix of rock through which rainfall percolated like water through coffee grounds. As the waters moved through the high surface area afforded by the broken rocks, it picked up natural minerals in unnaturally high concentrations, including such things as aluminum, sulfuric acid, manganese, copper, lead, arsenic, and mercury which carry right into the property’s run-off waters and eventually into the streams. Upon completion of the coal harvest, the land was “reclaimed” in an effort to minimize mining’s impact on the watershed but were only somewhat effective.

This property was obviously far from pristine, but we decided it would nevertheless be at least interesting to take a look.

When Arc representatives visited the property we saw the expected precipitates in the streams. It wasn’t the worst acid runoff we had ever seen in Ohio, but far from good. As the waterways flowed downstream, they dropped various hues of precipitates on their winding journey – colorful, but deadly to life. First to drop out were the silver-gray precipitates of aluminum compounds, and the next were the signature reds of iron. Resilience’s trajectory from strip mine, to hunting and rangelands, to nature preserve, was not going to be a simple straight line, if it were to happen at all.

The rest of our day at Resilience, however, was a complete turnaround. The biggest surprise was the uplifting beauty of the strip-mined highlands. The vast rolling fields felt and looked more like a Colorado alpine meadow than an Appalachian Ohio field. Barn swallows wove air-tapestries around us as we strolled, taking advantage of the insects we kicked up. To our utter astonishment, we heard the familiar “tss-sliep” songs all around us, and we realized we were surrounded by the largest breeding population of Henslow’s sparrows we had ever witnessed - anywhere from 30 to 50 pairs of them!! It was clear that despite the property’s past ravages, nature hadn’t given up here. The land, you might say, was resilient.

The flanks that surrounded the ridgetop and dominated the acreage of the property were entirely wooded with oaks, hickories, and maples. Invasive plant pressure varied from place to place but was relatively low in the deep woods. We admired literally thousands of healthy, mature, towering trees on the property. Occasional flipped rocks (carefully replaced) revealed the presence of a vital salamander population - a good sign. We strolled by showy orchids in bloom, cascading colonies of mayapples, and carpets of Canada lilies. On the interface between forest and field, groves of Virginia scrub pines grew, boasting yellow-breasted chats and pine warblers.

Ironically, the numerous catch basins on the property - built to slow down acid run-off and contain its precipitates - had long ago been bypassed by the streams. This spelled bad news for the streams’ water quality. But because the basins had filled up instead with fresh rainwater, they had become vernal pools, teeming with wood frog tadpoles and spotted salamander larvae. Graceful newts hunted silently in their rich tea-colored waters. Wherever these pools and marshes received enough sun, the rare, acid-tolerant netted chain fern grew in large colonies. Many aquatic plants proliferated in these wetlands, along with thick mats of sphagnum moss.

As a forest protection endeavor, Resilience’s forest was premier, and so was its location. Fortuitously, the property’s owners were very interested in conservation. As part of the negotiated purchase contract, they agreed to wait for the next Clean Ohio grant cycle. And because it would likely take a year to close on the property, it required a great deal of trust and patience on their part. How desperately we wanted the grant to be awarded in order to not disappoint the owners, and to succeed in preserving the land!

Because of the project’s large size, however, it would be the most ambitious Clean Ohio grant the Arc had ever pursued. The project would require the entire pot of money offered in a district that covered multiple counties and typically attracted highly competitive applications. If we didn’t score in the very top position, all would be lost. Accustomed to collaborating with our conservation colleagues, being on the very top and “taking it all” was an uncomfortable goal, but by now we were committed. If it were to be sold on the open market to anyone but us, it was nearly certain that the property’s beautiful million-dollar forest (we knew its value precisely because we had the timber appraised) would be logged. We decided we had to do our very best to be “number one.”

Understanding the challenge of the task before us, we called on John Howard, one of southern Ohio’s most respected naturalists. We knew we certainly wouldn’t win the grant on the basis of water quality, so our focus would have to be solely on the splendid biodiversity of its forest community. John offered to organize a bio-blitz for the property. A bio-blitz is usually a two-day event with field researchers representing all kinds of disciplines, who together set out to see how many species of dragonflies, flowers, trees, mammals, birds, moss, fungi, ferns, reptiles, and amphibians they can find and record. We knew the bio-blitz would not only produce helpful biological data, but if we were lucky enough to find species that were rare, threatened, or endangered, we would score extra points on the grant.

On the appointed date in mid-June about 20 field researchers came to Resilience with various tents and recreation vehicles and set up camp. They then swept across the property like locusts - searching, testing, camera trapping, and flipping rocks. For two days and into the night the search went on.

By the end of the first day, we were exceptionally pleased with the health and the diversity of the forest their findings illustrated. But because forests are Ohio’s most common habitats, discovering rare species proved elusive. After a full day of inventorying, we were a tiny bit disappointed we couldn’t add another interesting species to our riveting Henslow’s sparrow story.

Present for the bio-blitz was Laura Hughes, a field biologist who, among multiple skills, was knowledgeable in firefly identification. Thanks to the recent publication of the first firefly book for Eastern United States, authored by Laura’s friend, Lynn Faust, nature lovers in Ohio were starting to be able to recognize firefly species in the field. Exciting new discoveries were popping up all over the state. The biggest news, much of it contributed by Laura, was that the famed synchronous firefly of the Smoky Mountains had been found right here in Ohio. The fireflies have always been here, of course. it’s just that no one was looking.

No one was looking harder for them than Laura. Laura is indefatigable, and she commonly continues her field pursuits deep into the night. One night, deep in southeastern Ohio at around 1 a.m. (a good two hours after any respectable synchronous firefly should have flickered out for the night), she found a synchronous firefly population in peak display. Further field research confirmed more late-night populations in the region. Maybe, she mused, “A lot more undiscovered populations are out and about in Ohio, and we’ve just been sleeping through them!”

And so, when most of the others had gone to bed at Resilience, Laura and a few of her colleagues stayed up. Around 1 a.m. they ventured into a nearby glen and saw the holy grail – a well-established synchronous firefly population giving off their distinctive sic-light flash train. Later that morning we celebrated the news around breakfast. We had our second charismatic species! By the end of the bio-blitz, we had recorded over 651 species.

That fall the Clean Ohio grant was written and submitted, followed by presentations to the scoring committee. The most nerve-wracking part of the whole process then began - waiting. Two months later we learned we had secured the top score on the grant application! It was clear that the Clean Ohio scoring committee members were deeply pleased to be able to facilitate saving such a large forest. We were jubilant and felt blessed to have had such a supportive field biologist community at our back who were in large part responsible for making this grant award possible.

Winning the grant was just the first step, however, in securing the preserve. Recording a deed conveys the legal rights to ownership, but to truly be an owner in rural Ohio one must have boots on the ground. If there is not some visible form of possession, the land is considered vacant and others feel free to use it as they wish.

A primary challenge at Resilience was restricting access to off-road vehicle enthusiasts. The Arc installed and secured gates, erected signs, and established a human presence with volunteers associated with the Arc’s deer management program. The latter addressed two parallel issues on the property: four-wheeler traffic and an extremely high white-tailed deer population that was causing significant browse damage.

Long term, the Arc plans to install a parking lot and hiking trail system at Resilience, funding for which is currently being sought. Once developed, special nighttime permits will also be offered, not only to allow people to watch fireflies, but to allow them to listen to whippoorwills and watch the preserve’s many bats zig-zag below a blanket of stars. Resilience’s meadow is one of the state’s most exceptional locations for dark sky stargazing. Here, one can see a panorama of the Milky Way so vast that a single glance can’t take it all in.

Every preserve has its own unique story to share. Here at the Arc, we are honored to actively listen, inquisitively watch, and doggedly discover what the land and its natural communities wish to reveal to us. Most of us have been taught since we were children that we stand alone, but a trip to Resilience reminds us that we are inexorably tied together with all of Life. Nature’s pain is our pain. Her healing, endurance, and magnificent resurrection are ours as well. Resilience is a living demonstration of the indefatigable nature of life. Resilience is here to plant seeds of hope in the hearts of her admirers.