Audubon Society seeks participants for Certified Backyard Habitat program
Wanda Petersen and her husband were already into biodiversity. They’ve been working to try and reduce the amount of invasive species on their 10-acre property in Frazer.
The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania wants to work with local residents like the Petersens to make their backyards even more beneficial for birds, insects and other animals through its Certified Backyard Habitat Program.
“We enrolled last year,” said Petersen, 47. “We’d already been working on the invasives, but the Audubon people were able to identify a few others that we started working on, and they suggested some other native plants we could use in their place.”
Program participants will work with an Audubon staff member who can provide customized resources to satisfy five program categories: Native plants, natural products, wildlife stewardship, clean water, and education and engagement, according to Audubon Executive Director Jim Bonner.
“We have a discussion about what the homeowner is looking to achieve and what we can do to help them be successful,” Bonner said. “Every yard is different, and we have everything from simple containers on a condo patio to someone with acres and acres and a lot of opportunities to create habitat.”
Society members can enroll in the program for $60; non-members can enroll for $90, and the fee includes a complimentary one-year household membership to the society.
Western Westmoreland County is home to more than 30 certified backyard habitats, according to the society’s program map.
“We look at the map with the idea of trying to target some areas for more overall impact,” Bonner said. “We haven’t gotten to the level of targeting individual properties, but right now we’re looking at putting some additional effort into communities where we have people enrolled, as well as encouraging those folks to potentially bring their friends and neighbors on board.”
Launched in 2018, the program now has more than 1,000 participants across Western Pennsylvania.
“The diversity we see now is crazy,” Petersen said. “There’s a lot more different plants we see sprouting up.”
For more, or to enroll in the certified backyard habitat program, see ASWP.org or call 412-963-6100.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.