Ward Hollow Wildlife Habitat, Technology Park, South Charleston, WV

About the Program
First certified in 2007, the former South Charleston Technology Park was a 650-acre site with 125 acres developed as research, development and engineering facilities. In 2010, The Dow Chemical Company donated 258 acres to the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, retaining 321 acres now known as Technology Park - South Charleston, WV. A 20-acre portion of the property, called Ward Hollow, contains grassland, wetland and woodland habitats and is the current focus for wildlife habitat projects. The mission of the Ward Hollow Wildlife Habitat (WHWH) program is to expand and enhance environmental awareness on the diversity of plants, animals and natural communities within the property.

Practices and Impacts:

• The amphibian reintroduction project targets four native amphibian species — wood frog, mountain chorus frog, four-toed salamander and the spotted salamander — for reintroduction into vernal pools located at WHWH. Monitoring indicates that wood frogs are beginning to naturally reproduce, but so far, no mountain chorus frogs or salamanders have been found. 
• The education and outreach program brings employee and outside expertise to a wide audience by utilizing their Ward Hollow Wildlife Habitat as the learning environment. The site is used as a learning site for the West Virginia Master Naturalist Program, and the project team has partnered with the Kanawha County schools to utilize WHWH as an outdoor classroom for grades 6-12. Teachers use established curricula such as Project Learning Tree, Project WET and Save Our Streams to conduct on-site activities. During these trips, students learn about the site and participate in a number of activities that teach them about trees, the nature of fire, soil and water sampling, making paper and species identification.
• The team partners with students and professors from West Virginia State University, who visit the site to conduct biological surveys. This group identifies trees and records their locations using GPS coordinates. They additionally identify mushrooms on-site. 
• The project team began a new project in 2020 that focuses on conserving and enhancing the native fruit tree numbers and species on-site. Inventorying of the site found that paw paw, persimmon and black cherry were already plentiful at the site. Red mulberry, American plum, hackberry, and elderberry were planted in spring 2021. There are additional plans to add hawthorne and serviceberry in 2022. 
• Since 2011, approximately 160 bluebirds have fledged from the Ward Hallow nest boxes. The project team piloted nest box pairing test in 2020 by adding three new nest boxes to the backs of existing boxes to reduce competition between bluebirds and tree swallows. In 2021, seven more new boxes were added for a total of 20 boxes (10 paired boxes). The 2021 monitoring showed that 25 bluebirds and 40 tree swallows fledged, which is the most in one year for both species. 
• The project team added a variety of different native plants to the pollinator habitat, which focuses on attracting a variety of different native butterflies and bees. Four flats of milkweed plants were added to target monarch butterflies. Monitoring indicates that both monarch and viceroy butterflies have been seen each year.