Wetlands Management

Wetlands are very productive ecosystems that are home to a wide variety of plants and animals.

Unfortunately, more than 90 percent of Ohio wetlands have been drained or filled for development and farming practices.

Because of these factors, high priority is given to preserving remaining wetlands and restoring lost wetlands within the parks.

Preserving our remaining wetlands consists of making sure these areas are protected from further development and removing invasive species as they occur.

Invasive species that threaten wetlands in our area include narrow-leaved cattail, Eurasian water-milfoil, purple loosestrife, and glossy buckthorn.

Ver­nal pools are a spe­cial type of wet­land found within some of our parks. They are defined as shal­low depres­sions that hold water for at least part of the year. Ver­nal pools are usu­ally forested, do not con­tain fish, and tend to dry up in the sum­mer months.

Frogs, sala­man­ders, fairy shrimp, and many other species depend on the sea­sonal flood­ing of ver­nal pools to repro­duce and carry out life cycles.

Many of these areas remain intact today because they were deemed too wet to farm or develop in the past.

Each year vol­un­teers and staff sur­vey amphib­ian pop­u­la­tions at these pools. Dur­ing the first few warm wet nights of spring many species of sala­man­ders and frogs con­gre­gate to repro­duce at these pools, often in sur­pris­ing numbers.

One-way mesh traps are placed near the pools and checked each morn­ing so that species found can be recorded and released.