Fighting Invasives

A few years ago this area of the Cowles Bog in the Indiana Dunes was covered with cattails. After years of hard work pulling invasive plants out and replanting those plants that are native to the bog, the area looks completely different.

The diversity of the original bog provides the food and habitat for the wildlife that depends on the bog for survival. Frogs, birds, small mammals, and some plant species that are only found in the Dunes area are what all the work is about.

Signs requesting visitors to stay on the hiking paths and off of the paths into the bog that are used by volunteers and staff in removing invasives and replanting natives are placed so that tiny seeds picked up by hiking shoes are not carried back into the bog destroying the hard won habitat for the birds and other wildlife.