Big Oak Restoration

Since 1997, community volunteers and students have been working to enhance the plant and animal diversity of Frautschi Point. Used as farmland and a hunting preserve for many decades before being acquired by the university in 1989, the abandoned fields quickly became reforested with a thick cover of native trees and an even denser non-native understory of honeysuckle and buckthorn, with dense stands of garlic mustard on the forest floor. These aggressively invasive species can have devastating effects on native species whose habitats they destroy, and to keep that from happening, this area has become the focus of a sustained effort to remove invasives to restore native biodiversity.

Lead Volunteer Steward Glenda Denniston (pictured below) has led students and other volunteers to create a delightful path through this part of Frautschi Point to connect two large old oaks that once stood as lone trees in these fields. (Look at the aerial photo menu of this map to see if you can find these trees in earlier decades). By the 1980s, invading shrubs and trees were beginning to shade out these grand old oaks, which would eventually have been shaded out and killed if no action had been taken to save them.

Cutting buckthorn and honeysuckle back farther and farther from the path, removing garlic mustard every year as its long-surviving seeds keep sprouting in the soil, nurturing and replanting native woodland and savanna species in their stead, Glenda and the volunteer students and community members who work with her have uncovered a rich topography of habitats. They have sought to identify young bur and white oaks and other native plants in need of special care, while at the same time, retaining non-invasive evergreens which, though not native to this area, nonetheless provide nesting sites for birds and diverse views for human visitors.

While doing this work, Glenda has collected a large library of photographs of the many birds, mammals, and insects that now inhabit these woods. Some of her best images can be found scattered elsewhere on this website, and even more can be found at the superb website maintained by the Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve.

If you'd like to get involved with this kind of restoration stewardship yourself, be sure to visit the "Get Involved" section of this website.

111706