St. Joseph Douro students building habitats for bees, bats, birds

May 9, 2019

Working with Kawartha Wildlife Centre staff, students at St. Joseph Douro CES built habitat boxes for bats, solitary bees, bluebirds, and screech owls during a school event on Thursday, May 9, 2019.

Spring for many local wildlife species is one of the most stressful times of the year as climate change, habitat destruction, invasive species, and land use changes continue to make it harder for feathered, winged, and buzzing wildlife to find a place to call home.

Kawartha Wildlife Centre is the proud organizer of “Homes for Wildlife! Built by Kids; For Mother Nature”. This program is designed to give students the opportunity to do hands-on habitat building for local wildlife.

Through this collaborative and community effort, the centre hopes to teach the next generation of wildlife ambassadors about nature and wildlife right outside the classroom window.

Once construction of the habitats was completed, students were to locate a suitable area (after researching what conditions are appropriate for each box) on the school property and install the homes.

Students will monitor their boxes to see what wildlife inhabits the box over the next two months of school and report these findings back to the Kawartha Wildlife Centre, which monitors populations of these species.