November
9, 2001
For
Peter Houlihan, a Day at MHC Is Often a Walk in the Woods
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NANCY
PALMERI
Peter
Houlihan (left), conservation biologist and Mellon postdoctoral
fellow, works with students to survey and certify campus
vernal pools.
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You will
understand why Peter Houlihan often wears comfortable jeans and
walking shoes to the office when you seem him trekking through
the unpaved areas of the MHC campus, taking water samples, identifying
habitat types, inspecting manure storage structures, or cradling
fish and eels as he records their statistics. There are cleaner
days of teaching and library research, of course, but the postdoctoral
fellow with the Center for Environmental Literacy (CEL) regularly
gets his hands dirty as he labors to assess and "map"
the ecology of the entire campus.
Through this
field work—part of a larger plan to integrate environmental
content across the curriculum—Houlihan is establishing a
campus environmental monitoring, assessment, and restoration (EMAR)
program that will help ensure the integrity of the diverse habitats
of the College's ponds, stream, vernal pools, marsh, shrub wetlands,
forested wetlands, open fields, and forests. "This campus
is a nature preserve in the middle of suburbia," said Houlihan,
"but it is threatened by human activities on and off
campus."
With degrees
in environmental studies, biology, wildlife conservation, and
zoology, Houlihan is a natural at the monitoring work that makes
up phase one of the EMAR program. That work includes tracking
water quality in the campus stream and lakes and mapping the location
of land shrubs introduced as ornamentals in the 1940s and 1950s
that have crowded out other plants and made unsuitable habitats
for breeding birds. After assessing Mount Holyoke's land and water
habitats, Houlihan will propose "best management practices"
(BMPS) to control threats to them.
To improve
water quality in campus lakes, for example, Houlihan has proposed
ways to minimize manure-runoff from the equestrian center. Currently,
manure mixes with rainwater and creates nutrient-rich runoff harmful
to the health of the lakes. A buffer of plants around the center's
manure storage structure and a roof to protect it from rain are
two small changes that could make a big difference in how much
contaminated water reaches the lake (and whether nutrient-loving
algae is able to choke off other plants and animal life). To improve
the biodiversity of the stream and lakes, Houlihan is working
to secure state and federal funding to build fishways on the campus
dams. The fishways would act as stepladders, helping several species
of migratory fish gain access to the Stony Brook watershed.
Similarly,
Houlihan has suggested ways to minimize visits by Canada geese,
whose populations have abandoned long-distance migrations in favor
of short hops between human-made ponds, including MHC's Lower
Lake. Although liked by many, the geese present several problems
by introducing nutrient-rich droppings into the water, carrying
disease, and creating a dirty lawn. Having investigated many solutions,
Houlihan is proposing warning signs and student patrols to discourage
the public from feeding the geese, removable fences that would
deter geese when they are caring for flightless goslings, and
a "goose dog" trained to follow geese into the water,
herd them into a cluster, and spook them away without disturbing
ducks and other wildlife.
This year,
Houlihan will work with volunteers, work-study students, and independent-study
students on these and similar investigations. Together they will
collect data on aquatic and terrestrial conditions, research restoration
and control techniques, and funnel all their findings into BMP
proposals and curriculum. Potential applications of this work
beyond science courses are limitless. An art history class might
compare the perceptions of turn-of-the-century Pioneer Valley
landscape painters with today's data, for example. A history class
might consider environmental transformation in light of cultural
shifts toward and away from agricultural lifestyles. "In
every case, students will learn in a way that connects them with
the place they live," said Houlihan. "They will take
field trips right on campus."
When he is
not collecting EMAR data this year, Houlihan may be found working
on his research on how one animal's activities change the natural
landscape, which, in turn, has an impact on other animal species.
For five years he has been studying beaver populations in the
Adirondacks of New York state, where beaver population growth
has resulted in thousands of animal-engineered wetlands and a
positive impact on the regional diversity of birds. The Wildlife
Conservation Society will release Houlihan's report on this research
this winter. Closer to home, Houlihan is interested in how suburbanization
and agriculture have changed the forested landscape along the
Connecticut River. Using Geographic Information Systems technology
to characterize the riverbank vegetation and a kayak and a pair
of binoculars to census bird populations, he will work to understand
how human activity influences landscape structure and the biodiversity
of birds along the river.
This profile
is one of a series that College Street Journal will run on the
staff of the Center for Environmental Literacy. For more information
on CEL's EMAR program, BMPs, and campus habitats, see www.mtholyoke.edu/proj/cel/green.html.
For more information on CEL's student workers and volunteers,
see www.mtholyoke
.edu/proj/cel/students/.
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