SPRING/SUMMER 2017 VOLUME 2 : ISSUE 2 HAPPY ACCIDENTS OF NATURE Surprising life thrives in the Valley New Central Visitor Center Coming Inspiring Lifelong Learning Plan leaps forward with purchase of Zielenski Court Hands-on at the Environmental Education Center WELCOME CONSERVANCY MAGAZINE Spring/Summer 2017, Volume 2 : Issue 2 A LETTER FROM THE CEO & PARK SUPERINTENDENT CONTACT US 2017 marks a new beginning for the National Park Service. It’s the start of the next 100 1403 West Hines Hill Road years for an agency that has helped shepherd the protection and restoration of our Peninsula Ohio 44264 330-657-2909 country’s most precious places. forCVNP.org We’re grateful for Conservancy members’ support during last year’s NPS Centennial EXECUTIVE STAFF celebration. Through targeted marketing, publicity, and outreach, the Conservancy Deb Yandala Chief Executive Officer helped CVNP welcome over 15,000 visitors to the park for five special Centennial Janice Matteucci events. Park volunteers and Conservancy staff went above and beyond to make sure Chief Operating Officer John P. Debo, Jr. CVNP celebrated the centennial with events focused on engaging our northeast Ohio Chief Development Officer community. Katie Wright Director of CVEEC Now, we’re building on the success of the centennial and planning for the future. Katrina Haas Chief of External Affairs The park’s new Boston Mills Visitor Center project is under way—the biggest capital project the Conservancy has ever undertaken. The Conservancy is working closely with BOARD James Nash, Chairman NPS staff to create a better experience for local and out-of-state visitors. This year is Ellen Perduyn, Vice-Chair dedicated to planning and design, and construction will begin in 2018 (see page 14 for Dione Alexander Michael Byun more information about this exciting project). Pamela A. Carson Deborah Cook The Conservancy’s Board of Directors has created a new initiative focused on diversity, Tina Darcy equity, and inclusion. With this effort, we will strive to assure that the Conservancy and Harold Gaar Thomas E. Green the park are welcoming to all, and that our programs and services reach a diversity of Michael L. Hardy people. Matthew Heinle Emily Holiday Sue Klein This year, we’re also adding new programs at our Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Kathy Leavenworth Education Center to serve more children throughout the region. We continue to maintain Phil LiBassi Jeremy M. Long our strong focus on science and connecting children with nature, as well as building Shawn Lyden interpersonal and collaborative teamwork skills. This is the true benefit of overnight Stephen Metzler Michael Miller camps, especially in today’s environment: learning to get along, sharing meals, and Sandra Morgan working together to solve environmental issues. Dr. Liz Piatt Brett Reynolds Once again, we’re tremendously grateful for the support of Conservancy members, Rick Taylor Teleangé Thomas donors, volunteers, and advocates. You truly make our work possible. ©2017 Conservancy for CVNP DESIGN: Christopher Hixson / Incite Creative EDITOR: Emily Heninger, Grants & Communications Manager CORPORATE PARTNER: MAGAZINE SPONSOR: Deb Yandala Craig Kenkel Conservancy CEO CVNP Superintendent COVER PHOTO: Black-eyed Susans, Ed Toerek THE CONSERVANCY’S PROGRAMS INCLUDE: > Teaching children about nature at the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center. > Co-managing the park’s award-winning volunteer program. > Fostering a rich cultural arts program through music, art, adult education, & more. > Providing visitor services including event facilities, lodging, and stores. > Raising money for national park projects and programs. SCREECH OWL, PHOTO: RICK MCMEECHAN CONTENTS Our Vision Connecting you to your national park. Preserving it for future generations. GREAT BLUE HERON PAIR, PHOTO: ED TOEREK Happy Accidents A Story of 2 of Nature 14 Transformation Surprising life thrives in New visitor center to highlight unexpected places transformation of a river, a valley, and a community Inspiring Lifelong 11 Learning Profile in Giving Each week, children experience 19 A volunteer's legacy for magical moments at the Cuyahoga Cuyahoga Valley National Park Valley Environmental Education Center 10 Biomimicry: Learning from Nature 18 Social Media #CVNP 20 Featured Photo FORCVNP.ORG 1 PARK INSIDER EASTERN MEADOWLARK HAPPY ACCIDENTS of Nature by Joanna Richards 2 CONSERVANCY MAGAZINE SPRING/SUMMER 2017 ports fans with a history in Northeast Ohio know A cozy nest in the weeds the old Richfield Coliseum site, the arena between S Plona parks her official Park Service vehicle on the Cleveland and Akron that served as an early home for the shoulder of Route 303 West in Richfield Township, just NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Today, for anyone unfamiliar west of the Interstate 271 overpass. As we hike toward with the history, the site is easy to drive by without the center of the field, our boots crunch deeply into the noticing: just another empty space where a building used thick, icy carpet of fallen grasses. to be. After the arena and parking lots were demolished in But there’s much more going on in this apparent void, a 1999, the Park Service spread a grass seed mix here to 90-acre field now owned by the National Park Service. stabilize the soil. Over time, the thought was, the area This site is one of many in Cuyahoga Valley National Park would revert to forest. But in the short term, it quickly where a complex story has unfolded, of both tension and became a haven for invasive plants. collaboration between human activity and nature – and some strange surprises, too. “The Coliseum is a disaster as far as vegetation goes,” says Plona. “It’s totally dominated by non-native plants.” Park Service biologists refer to past locations of industry as “disturbed,” and for good reason. Their topography Still, the National Park Service has maintained this site as may be strange and irregular, their old topsoil stripped a grassland for almost two decades now, mowing areas away. They may be crowded with invasive species. To an in rotating sections each year. urban dweller or layman, they may present a veneer of That’s because of what Dwight and Ann Chasar welcome nature, but to experts, they can look pretty ugly. discovered here. Just a couple years after the buildings Managing these damaged areas is a fact and sometimes were demolished, the long-time birdwatchers and park a frustration for nature-loving scientists working in a volunteers wondered whether any ground-nesting National Park unusual in its history of heavy human birds might have discovered the site. These birds favor use. But there are also rewards. At some of Cuyahoga grassland and need big tracts of it to keep their chicks Valley National Park’s most disturbed sites, pockets of out of sight of hunting hawks perched in tree lines. This unexpected life have taken hold. Park Service Biologist has made them sensitive to habitat destruction from Meg Plona calls them “happy accidents.” development. On a cold afternoon in January, she leads me into the The nearest place the Chasars had seen these kinds of Coliseum site’s frozen field to show me one. birds in significant numbers was on reclaimed strip- mines in Jefferson County, a couple hours’ drive away. In May of 2001, though, they walked into the field where the Richfield Coliseum used to be. It was still bald in places Surprising life and patchy with weeds. They listened. “I’m-a-sah-VAAAAAN-ah,” Dwight sings, using a birdwatchers’ mnemonic to demonstrate what they heard (and sounding eerily bird-like himself). thrives in some “We said, ‘That’s a savannah sparrow singing!’ It was exciting for my wife and me, because we did not know other areas in the National Park where you could find of CVNP’s most those birds, and here they were, in a place that used to be the Coliseum!” Soon Eastern meadowlarks, bobolinks, and grasshopper challenged sites and Henslow’s sparrows had also been seen nesting FORCVNP.ORG 3 amid the growing tangle of redtop grass, Fuller’s and and know that you had – I had – some part in bringing it cutleaf teasel, phragmites reed, Canada thistle – all there.” invasive plants that make park biologists shudder. Standing in the frozen field in January, Plona reflects on Meg Plona says when the Chasars approached the Park the transformation. “It’s very unusual. I often say it’s a Service with their observations, “It was a great surprise... happy accident.” They certainly were the ones that alerted us to what was But while the birds’ initial appearance was a surprise, going on out here, because this was not an area where their flourishing here today, almost 20 years after we would normally have monitored.” they appeared, is no accident. It’s required active The Park Service ultimately agreed with the birders that management by the Park Service – the mowing to keep the site should be maintained as a permanent grassland. the forest at bay, and volunteer work to remove larger In 2004, the Coliseum nesting ground helped earn the invasive plants one by one. Now a plan is in the works whole park designation as an Important Bird Area by the to try a controlled burn, to see if it could help native national wildlife conservation group Audubon. grasses get a foothold. The Chasars now lead bird walks every November to see A mine full of tadpoles other species, too; migrating Wilson’s snipes and short- Plant ecologist Chris Davis is behind that prescribed eared owls have been recent visitors. Chasar says the burn plan for the Coliseum site. He’s had success using population is always shifting. But one constant – and his the technique to manage invasive species and preserve favorite experience at the site – is the male bobolinks in grassland at the two other highly disturbed sites we’re spring.