Volunteer Opportunities

Come be a part of the Western Wildlife Corridor’s efforts to make Cincinnati a greener place to live!

Western Wildlife Corridor is very active restoring wildlife habitat at several special preserves in the Ohio River valley. In our neck of the woods, this usually means removing invasive alien plant species like Amur Honeysuckle or Garlic Mustard so that the native plants and animals can prosper.

How do we restore our properties? Sometimes the biggest threat to our preserves is invasion by alien plant species. Plants such as Amur (or Bush) Honeysuckle, Euonymus and Garlic Mustard can produce such a dense cover of foliage that native plants cannot survive. We’ve been told that Amur Honeysuckle even secretes a toxin that kills native plants!Since our objective as an organization is not simply to limit development of the wooded hillsides in the Ohio River valley and nearby tributaries, but to also establish preserves where native plants and animals can thrive, it is essential that invasive alien plants be removed. Once the invasive aliens are removed, the native plants usually reestablish healthy populations. If not, we will replant as necessary to give them a helping hand.

We have two types of activities to accomplish this:

• The first is our group Volunteer Projects where we meet at different preserves usually on Saturday mornings for two or three hours. For these, you need to bring work gloves, plenty of water, herbicide squirter if you have one (we’ll provide the herbicide solution); wear work clothes and work shoes. We do not have any habitat restoration projects scheduled at this time, but we do organize impromptu projects if the weather permits. Please contact us if you want to be notified.

• The other activity is what we call our Preserve “Monitoring” Program. For this people “adopt” a particular preserve and help out with habitat restoration whenever they have the time.

You can visit the Calendar page for information and dates on upcoming projects. In addition, one or more of us usually winds up going to a preserve a couple of mornings during the week to take a walk and while they are there, they just can’t help whacking some honeysuckle. If you would like to join one of these walks, please call (513 922 2104) or email Tim Sisson and he’ll let you know the next opportunity.

Other Ongoing Volulnteer Opportunities

*Preparing bulk mailings

*Newsletter coordination/Editing

*Property inspectors for new land offers and current land holdings

*Website maintenance

Please contact Tim Sisson if you are interested in volunteering your time to support the Western Wildlife Corridor or for additional information regarding any of these opportunities. Tim Sisson (513) 922 2104 E-mail: tsisson@fuse.net