Send in the dogs!
In England, a popular park and hiking trail has been trampled by people and their pups until it’s a ‘degraded woodland,’ according to the wildlife manager, Dylan Walker. “We weren’t seeing any plants coming up. People were loving our urban nature reserve to death.”
Normally, dogs are not allowed off-leash, but the park devised a unique plan for the reserve: offering dog owners a chance to let their pups run wild with special backpacks filled with seed mix.
Pups scatter the seeds as they play. They even reach places humans couldn’t reach easily on the 25-acre reserve.
Inspired by a previous project in Chile in 2019 in which two women, helped by their three dogs, successfully planted seeds in areas across the country that had been devastated by wildfires, the Lewes put out the call to dog owners.
Now, less than five months later, tiny green shoots speckle the reserve.
“We’re seeing some early germination, and next year, we’ll see some flowering,” said wildlife manager Walker. “We couldn’t be more pleased. Our plant life is coming back.”
