Corporate Habitat of the Year award goes to Pfizer

On Pfizer Global Supply's 750-acre property in Portage about 1,772 acres are undeveloped. There a Wildlife Management Team of Pfizer employees and volunteers works closely with the Kalamazoo Nature Center's Community Wildlife Program to carry out wildlife management projects. 

 

The Wildlife Management Team works to involve employees in all projects by hosting "Lunch and Learns," Earth Week events, nature walks and offering volunteer opportunities.

 

Now Pfizer's efforts have received international recognition from the Wildlife Habitat Council. At the council's 24th Annual Symposium, Working for a Greener World, Pfizer received the Corporate Habitat of the Year award. The award goes to one company each year that demonstrates outstanding environmental stewardship and voluntary employee efforts.

 

A nest box program, initiated in 1995, is the centerpiece of the program. Roughly 40 employees volunteer to monitor 170 boxes along six trails on several Pfizer campuses. Fifteen volunteers are trained to monitor about 10 nest boxes weekly throughout the breeding season. The project fledges up to 350 tree swallows, eastern bluebirds, and house wrens each year. In March 2009, new trails were established in the hopes of attracting more eastern bluebirds. 

 

The team also monitors the extensive waterfowl populations on Upjohn Pond and osprey nesting on a platform created from recycled materials. In May 2012, the Wildlife Management Team witnessed the first set of osprey using the platform. 

 

In another project, Vicksburg High School students in partnership with the Kalamazoo Nature Center are raising the Galerucella beetle on the property. The beetle has proven effective in controlling the spread of purple loosestrife by chewing on the leaf and stem tissue causing depletion of foliage, which prevents flowering and seed production.

 

The team also is working to provide a habitat for pollinators, such as butterflies and hummingbirds and to produce a demonstration of native landscaping by restoring a portion of the site with plants of the tall grass prairie community found in the region in the 1800s. In 2009, the team planted two pollinator gardens totaling 2,000 square feet with native prairie grasses and wildflowers.

 

"The habitat project at Pfizer Global Supply-Kalamazoo facility is exemplary," says Margaret O’Gorman, Wildlife Habitat Council President. "It contains all the elements of the best Wildlife at Work projects--a deep understanding of the habitat needs of the region, a multi-pronged approach to habitat enhancement and, a deep engagement by employee volunteers."

 

Source: Lisa Panich, Kalamazo Nature Center

Photos courtesy Kalamazoo Nature Center/Captions: