WILD PEACE SANCTUARY
OUR WILDLIFE
Our native wildlife includes beaver, black bear, black-tailed deer, Roosevelt elk, raccoons, bobcats, bald eagles, owls, hawks, songbirds salamanders, rabbits, bats, frogs, snakes, and pollinating insects. The creek that runs through the land provides a seasonal home for the river otter, cut-throat trout, and the federally protected Coho salmon that come to spawn here. Surrounded by industrial logging practices on publicly and privately owned forests in Western Oregon, we provide a refuge for the wildlife that displaced by these timberland practices. Since we began implementing regenerative and rewilding practices with our small herd, we have seen an increasing diversity of wildlife here including nesting wild mallards, beavers, blue herons, and belted kingfishers.
We have BioBlitz days focused on developing, maintaining, and updating a biological inventory of the plants, animals, fungi, and other organisms that live here, and invite local ecologists and biologists to these events, as well as volunteer scientists, families, students, teachers, and other members of the community. Our aim with these events is to map the diversity of species on the land we steward and document changes over time, while empowering others to better understand the need to support and protect the native wildlife in their own natural home environment, and to gain knowledge and skills in how to do so. Find details of our next BioBlitz on our event calendar.
See the gallery below for photos and video footage of some of our native wildlife.
OUR PLANTLIFE
Some of our trees and shrubs on the land include Alnus rubra (Red alder,) Picea sitchensis (Sitka spruce), Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas fir), Thuja plicata (Western red cedar,) Tsuga heterophylla (Western hemlock), Acer macrophyllum (Big leaf maple), Salix lucida (Pacific willow,) Cornus sericea (Red Osier Dogwood), Mahonia aquifolium (Oregon Grape), Physocarpus capitatus (Pacific Ninebark), Spiraea douglasii (Douglas Spiraea), Cercocarpus ledifolius (Oregon Ironwood) Frangula purshiana (Cascara, buckthorn), Ribes sanguineum (Red flowering currant), Sambucus racemosa (Red Elderberry), Rubus parviflorus (Thimbleberry,) Vaccinium membranaceum (Huckleberry), Rubus spectabilis (Salmonberry), and Lonicera involucrata (Black twinberry).
Some of the wild forbs, legumes, vines, ferns, herbs, and other plants that grow here include Achillea millefolium (Western Yarrow), Fragaria vesca (Wild Strawberry), Plantago lanceolata (Narrowleaf plantain), Plantago major (Broadleaf plantain), Rumex obtusifolius (Broad-leaved dock), Equisetum (Horsetail), Echinocystis lobata (Wild cucumber), Aruncus dioicus (Goatsbeard), Matricaria discoidea (Wild chamomile), Urtica dioica (Stinging nettle), Stachys tenuifolia (Hedge Nettle), Polystichum munitum (Sword fern), Pteridium aquilinum (Bracken fern), Cirsium vulgare (Bull thistle), Cirsium arvense (Creeping thistle), Stellaria media (Chickweed), Dicentra formosa (Pacific Bleeding Heart), Claytonia perfoliata (Miner's lettuce), Tolmiea menziesii (Piggyback), Galium aparine (Cleavers), Rumex acetosella (Sheep Sorrel), Prunella vulgaris (Selfheal).
While it is important to restore native habitat to support a diversity of native insects that provide important food sources for native wildlife (native plants and insects co-evolved and over 90% of insects feed and lay eggs on the native wild plants with which they share that evolutionary history), we welcome the presence of many introduced species also. Many of these plants are helping to build a diverse ecosystem while meeting the needs of the land in some way and/or the needs of our grazing animals or human stewards. Some are edible and/or medicinal, or produce fiber or natural dyes. Often they are soil protectors, where the soil needs the minerals or the ground cover they provide until ecological balance can be restored, at which point they naturally retreat. We are currently experimenting with making liquid ferments from many non-native and/or invasive plants and spraying them over the areas where they proliferate to return these minerals in a new form.
One of our aims at Wild Peace Sanctuary is to cultivate a thriving, natural food forest and medicine cabinet for our resident herd, our native wildlife, and our human stewards. Many native and migratory birds, mammals, fish, and amphibians rely directly on thriving insect populations, native berries and seeds, or plants that provide nectar, such as hummingbirds. We are also introducing key regional forage plants to enhance natural habitat for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, in our pastures, forests, and woodland; and along fence lines, driveways, and adjoining roads to create edges and corridors that can increase the overlap between ecosystems. This creates valuable heat-gathering and wind-blocking microclimates to support sensitive plant and animal species, and creates habitat for species that have adapted to the in-between spaces. It is this mending of the interconnected web of plants, insects, birds, amphibians, fish, grazing mammals, and other animals, including humans, that is at the very heart of our rewilding and regeneration work.
See our gallery below for photos of some of our wild vegetation.
MAKING MEADOWS
Our small herd of wild horses and burros are ecosystem engineers creating a complex mosaic of dynamic, shifting habitats for our wildlife and plant life. Their beneficial presence on the land is helping to restoring balance where non-native and invasive plants have been able to dominate due to neglect and poor land management practices. By moving them across the land to facilitate the grazing of certain plants that we might want to discourage by prior to their going to seed, and other we want to encourage as they go to seed, they can help us to make biodiverse, pollinator friendly, harmonious habitat.
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair.
Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what
the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
~
Robin Wall Kimmerer