Science & Outdoors
Photo courtesy of Gregg Jennings
Society of Ecological Restoration officers display trays of native prairie plants that will help foster the Karner blue butterfly’s habitat.
Society of Ecological Restoration receives grant
Science & Outdoors Reporter
Last week, Paul Cigan, president of the Society of Ecological Restoration, was officially notified that the organization was awarded the C.D. Besandy Memorial Grant administered through Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin. The grant will be used for a Karner blue butterfly habitat restoration project planned for the Little Plover River fishery area.
The money can only be used for ventures on state lands or a community outreach, according to Cigan. The advisor to the Society of Ecological Restoration, Dr. Michael Demchik, gave suggestions to Cigan on effective ways to write the grant. After Cigan wrote the grant, he asked Society of Ecological Restoration members for feedback.
The grant was submitted in mid-January, 2009. In early March, Professor Diane Lueck, a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point lecturer and grant committee member of the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, notified Cigan that the Society of Ecological Restoration would be awarded the grant. Only 11 applications of the 75 submitted were selected to receive the grant. The Society of Ecological Restoration’s grant ranked number one and received $1,000, the most of any of the organizations.
The grant will fund research at the site that will involve designing a research project, implementing it, documenting it, and continued monitoring into the future, as well as expanding habitat for Karner blue butterflies and other “prairie guild users.” This will be accomplished through more plantings of wild lupine and other native forbs. The last part of the grant is to put on a community outreach program.
The outreach program will be for area residents, their children, Boy Scout groups and high school students. They will be encouraged to visit the Little Plover River restoration site, participate in extracting lupine seed from pre-collected seed pods, planting lupine seeds and taking a tour of previous plantings at the site. Packets of lupine seeds will be given to participating community members to take home. The hope is they will plant them on their property and allow the Society of Ecological Restoration to do follow-up monitoring.
Planning sessions have already occurred and the project is anticipated to continue after 2009.
“The project is very exciting,” Cigan said. “We think that this opportunity is kind of unique for the College of Natural Resources.”
