Celebrating Bellingham’s Community Wildlife Habitat Certification

Bellingham became certified for natural habitat on March 17, as the seventh certified city in Washington State and the thirty-seventh certified city in the nation. Columbia Elementary School, certified on March 9, was the final individual certification needed for Bellingham to receive Community Wildlife Habitat Certification.

The recent Community Wildlife Habitat Certification will be celebrated at the annual Backyard Habitat and Native Flora Fair. The fair will be at the Fairhaven Village Green Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will include free kid’s activities, plant sales, tours of nearby habitat and various information booths. At noon, Courtney Sullivan with the National Wildlife Federation, will present Mayor Dan Pike with the official certificate for Community Wildlife Habitat Certification.

To receive certification cities must register with the National Wildlife Federation and set goals for the amount of certified wildlife habitat to be developed throughout the city. The scope of the goal depends on the size of the city.

Bellingham registered in 2005 and now has 283 homes, six schools, three businesses, six parks, five farms and City Hall individually certified. Each certified location is required to provide wildlife with food, water, shelter and space to raise young. The locations must also be maintained without the use of chemicals.

Creating Certified Habitat at Columbia Elementary School





Along the north fence of the Columbia school yard there are now 500 square feet of certified wildlife habitat. With the aid of Columbia students 22 species of native plants including snowberry, salmonberry, evergreen huckleberry and sword fern were planted in the habitat area.

Plans for creating wildlife habitat at Columbia Elementary School began in 2005 with a design process that included teachers, parents and students. Three teachers and one parent originally expressed interest in the project and the Columbia School Grounds Enhancement Committee carried it out. Gene Myers and Mardi Solomon, whose kids attend Columbia, spearheaded the project, Principal Missy Ferguson said.

Funding for the school yard habitat relied on a budget from the Columbia Parents Association as well as some donations. A series of workshops hosted by the Bellingham Parks and Recreation Department provided teachers and parents with information for the habitat development.

The students were very involved throughout the process. Beginning with the design, it was emphasized that the kids were the main stakeholders in the planning process, professor at Western Washington University Gene Myers said. The school also plans to keep the students engaged in the maintenance of the habitat.

Maintenance and upkeep has been expressed as one of the biggest challenges of the habitat. It requires that everyone involved with the school be informed so that it is taken care of and not destroyed, said Rae Edwards, volunteer coordinator at the Bellingham Parks and Recreation Department. Staff, parents and students all need to play a continuous role and communication is necessary to ensure that the vegetation does not mistakenly get sprayed or mowed as has occurred in the past, Edwards said.

“Another challenge with school yards is the balance between active play and vegetation,” Edwards said.

Especially during the establishment phase, stray soccer balls have posed a threat to the newly planted vegetation, but because the students helped with the planting they appear to be very considerate of their impact on the plants, Myers said.



Habitat Benefits Kids and the Greater Community

As an asset for Columbia Elementary School, the school yard habitat serves as an outdoor classroom and as an addition to the playground that offers unconventional options at recess. The habitat gives the kids an opportunity to interact more closely with their environment and understand how to take care of it.

The additional recess options benefit the kids by providing them with a diversity of environments and choices. This is beneficial to the kids who prefer quiet time or fantasy play rather than soccer, four square and other conventional activities outside the classroom.

“Kids learn in different ways and different kinds of kids need different things, some have energy to burn and some feel over stimulated in the classroom,” Edwards said.

It is believed that the kids who may feel over stimulated in the classroom need a break from organized activity. Imaginative play may be more beneficial to these kids, as is suggested to be provided by the wildlife habitat space, Myers said.

“If you give kids a natural area they are going to use it more creatively and more actively than a black top,” Myers said.

In addition to benefiting the students who have access to school yard habitat, certified wildlife habitat may also aesthetically and economically benefit property owners and the city as a whole. Certified wildlife habitat may make property more valuable, or at least more attractive, Edwards said.

“I’ve had people call me and say they want their yard re-certified so that they have a better chance to sell their house,” Edwards said.

Tourists, visitors, and potential residents are also drawn to areas with certified habitat. Bellingham is a location that particularly attracts people seeking an “outdoorsy kind of life” with the water, mountains and trails in the area, Edwards said. Certified habitat may serve as an additional draw.