FIND OUT WHAT LURKS IN WALLER CREEK
Event aims to gather baseline data as improvements come to urban waterway.
Walk along Waller Creek in downtown Austin and you might spot a blue heron fishing for lunch, a turtle perched on a log or a nutria out for a swim.
All those species have been documented along the urban waterway, which runs from near Highland Mall to Lady Bird Lake. Researchers want to know what else — other than the occasional plastic bottle, paper cup or discarded fast food wrapper — lurks in the overgrown landscape.
Last week, Amy Belaire, an urban conservation scientist and program manager at the Nature Conservancy, ducked into the thicket of greenery surrounding
the creek to place bait near a wildlife camera. Eleven monitoring stations track biodiversity and check air and water quality along the creek. And on April 28, the public is invited to participate in what organizers are calling a “bioblitz,” in which citizen scientists use a smartphone app to log plants and animals they spot in the area.
All the attention comes as the Waller Creek Conservancy works to create an urban greenway where people can get a nature fix in the heart of a growing city.
The Waller Creek watershed covers almost 6 square miles, including parts of downtown and the University of Texas campus. Buildings and pavement cover about 70 percent of that area. Officials envision a 1.5-mile chain of parks between 15th Street and Lady Bird Lake and hope the greenway encourages people to get outside and improves the natural ecology of the area, says Meredith Bossin, director of engagement for Waller Creek Conservancy.
Improvements have already lured more people to the stretch, once nothing more than an ugly ditch. Thousands of people come out each November for Creek Show, a set of lighting installations along the creek banks. Crews broke ground last September on 11-acre Waterloo Park, and plans are in the works to spruce up Palm Park, on Third Street just west of Interstate 35, turning it into a kid-centric destination.
That kind of work ranks high on the list of priorities for the Nature Conservancy; staff members say integrating nature into cities can do more than just make them prettier. Green spaces can help ease flooding, improve water quality, protect water sources and mitigate the effects of urban heat and air pollution. In Texas, where the population is expected to double from 25 million to 50 million by 2060, the conservancy is planning projects in every major city in which it operates.
The bioblitz in Austin is part of the broader City Nature Challenge, a worldwide competition to see which community can document the most species and get the most people involved.
Nature Conservancy officials hope data gathered at the event will serve as a baseline to track how the park and trail improvements affect the ecology and reconnect people with nature, says Laura Huffman, Texas state director of the Nature Conservancy and founding director of its North America Cities Program.
“The bottom line is big cities are getting bigger, getting hotter and getting more polluted,” Huffman says. “We’ve got to connect people to nature in new and different ways — where they live, in places close to home and school.”
During the bioblitz, scheduled for 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. April 28, facilitators will demonstrate how to install a free smartphone app called “iNaturalist,” and experts will lead groups into the urban wilderness to see what they can find. Participants can use their phones to photograph anything organic, and the “iNaturalist” online community will help identify it. Sightings deemed “research grade” by respected app users will become part of a body of scientific data.
Plus, it’ll be a fun way to explore the city, organizers say.
“It’s a time when anybody can get outside, enjoy nature and contribute to a body of scientific knowledge,” says Kelly Simon, an urban wildlife biologist with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, which is partnering — along with the Waller Creek Conservancy, local schools and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department — on the project. “It makes you more aware of what’s around you and the diversity around you.”