Arsenic and rocket fuel in our water. Gender-altering hormones and medications in our rivers and streams. PCBs, dioxins and pesticides in breast milk. Lead in children’s toys and women’s lipstick. Hazardous ingredients in air fresheners, development disrupting chemicals in plastic baby bottles and dangerous fumes from vinyl shower curtains. Our world is awash in chemicals and pollutants that pose health risks to our families, our communities and our environment.
Restoring Wildlife Habitat
Whether you live in urban, suburban or rural areas, you can make a positive impact on surrounding fish and wildlife populations. Our web resources are intended to give you the tools to manage your Piedmont lands and waters for greater biodiversity, productivity, and environmental quality.
What is the Connection Between My Home and My Drinking Water?
Although your property may not have a stream or pond on it, all land is a part of a watershed and has some effect on the condition of waterways. Land and water are intricately connected by the natural water cycle.
How Plants Fly
As my mother and I pulled up at the Jones Nature Preserve in Rappahannock, a brilliant bird dipped through the air—a rich tropical blue on delicate wings. They came in this week, Bruce Jones told me, the indigo buntings. He had led a bird walk over the weekend, and they saw 15 to 20 of these migrants, which flourish in the shrubby areas between his meadows and his woods.
Better Habitat: Water, Woods and Beyond
Learn about Wildlife Habitat in the Virginia Piedmont — what it is, why we care, what a landowner can do to improve it. The following PowerPoint presentations were given to members of the Orange County Hunt in March, 2012.
The History & Habitat of Amphibians
PEC's Sustainable Habitat Program Manager, James Barnes, wrote this article about our region's amphibians for the Spring 2012 issue of The Piedmont Virginian…
Making a Comeback
When Bill Sanford was a boy on Arrowpoint Farm in Madison County, at the confluence of the Robinson and the Rapidan Rivers, the fields were full of bobwhite quail. He could go out after school, he says, and find three coveys of birds in a field before he had to go inside to do his homework.
Enhancing Habitat for Birds
Check out the Bird Habitat Guide to learn how you can enhance bird habitat in your backyard.
The Piedmont is home to over 140 species of birds that breed in the area, but many of these bird populations have declined in recent decades due to loss of habitat and degradation.
PEC recently teamed up with the American Bird Conservancy to produce a Bird Habitat Guide that offers tips on how you can enhance bird and wildlife habitat on your property.
Whether you have a large farm or small backyard, you can help a variety of birds to thrive through simple changes such as leaving a fence row to grow unkempt or allowing part of your yard to grow up in native grasses rather than mowing.
Grasslands & Meadows
Converting areas of turf and lawn into native warm season grasslands increases the vertical structure and species diversity necessary to feed and provide cover for grassland birds such as bobwhite quail, grasshopper sparrows, meadowlarks, and loggerhead shrikes. Typical warm-season grass species include switchgrass, indiangrass, little and big bluestem, which can be mixed into a beautiful wildflower meadow filled with black-eyed Susans, partridge pea, purple coneflower, butterfly milkweed, and New England Asters.
Information on Important Crop Pollinators
Pollinators play a significant role in the production of more than 150 food crops in the United States, and studies have found that pollination enhances the yield and quality of a variety of important economic crops. The majority of this economic benefit is attributed to pollination by wild bees. Providing uncultivated land, or habitat, near field edges has shown to increase crop yield and profit. Piedmont farmers can benefit financially by providing adequate habitat for these little produce-friendly helpers.
Common Aquatic Invasive Species in the Piedmont
Invasive species are introduced to local waterways from other parts of the world. In the new environment and without natural predators, many adapt to the local aquatic environment, proliferate, and out-compete native aquatic species. Their often prolific reproduction causes ecological disruptions as well as problems with human use and enjoyment of waterways, including clogging water intake pipes and suffocating ponds.
The best way to help manage aquatic invasive species is to stop their spread by cleaning boating and other water equipment and by never releasing aquarium pets or plants into the wild.