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Wildlife HERO is getting ready for Spring 2018!

If you are a student at Delaware Elementary in Springfield, Missouri, and you are in 4th or 5th grade, you are eligible to join us for the Spring of 2018 Wildlife HERO!

 

 

We usuall y start the week after Spring Break, so in March be on the lookout for sign-up sheets.

 

This year we will focus on HERPS!  We love our toads, frogs, snakes, salamanders, and all members of the Herp family!

 

Activities will include examining a live snake up close, in order to help dispel some common myths and acquaint us all with the importance of snakes. 

 

We will also make the Delaware school yard more frog and toad-friendly in our efforts to create a more ecologically sound environment!

 

WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!!

Ways you can help our toads and frogs!

 

There are a few simple things you can do to help ensure the health and survival of our beloved toads and frogs.  These include:

 

  • Do not rake every leaf from your yard.  Create a small area where you can let some leaves overwinter.  This allows frogs and other critters a safe haven from the weather and predators.

  • Create a brush pile.  When limbs fall from your trees, stack them up in an area out of the way in your yard.  Frogs, toads, and other wildlife can use these brush piles to make their home or simply a safe place to rest awhile.

  • Do not use chemicals in your yard and garden.  Pesticides, herbicides, and other cheicals are dangerous to amphibians and are one of the major causes for their decline.  Make the transition to organic gardening practices - it is better for you and your family as well as for the planet.

  • Plant Native Plants.  They attract the bugs that frogs love!  For information visit the Grow Native website:  grownative.com

 

You can also build a Toad Abode!  This is so easy, and requires very little in the way of supplies or space in your yard.  You will be rewarded with biological pest control  - toads eat bugs and slugs!

 

Here are some videos that offer ideas:

 

How to Attract Frogs and Toads to Your Garden:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFPOZ-WKNNg

 

Toad Houses - Slug Problems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hInMd9V_DQk

Springfield takes the Monarch Pledge!

On Thursday, March 9, Springfield Mayor Bob Stephens made the Mayor's Monarch Proclamation.  Springfield will participate with other cities in Missouri and other states in the United States to create and maintain Monarch-friendly habitat.

 

The Mayor's Pledge is a guideline for communities to become aware of the plight of the Monarchs and follow basic steps to help alleviate the situation.  One of those very simple actions is to remove Milkweed (Asclepias spp) from the "Noxious Weed" list in the city ordinance.

 

NatureHood is committed to helping the city and citizens of Springfield in bringing this Monarch Pledge into reality!

All photographs Copyright Mary "Binky" McCarthy

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,
I keep it staying at Home –
With a bobolink for a Chorister,
And an Orchard, for a Dome.


~Emily Dickinson, c.1862

A new garden at the Dr. Bill Roston Native Butterfly House, Springfield Botanical Center

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