NWF Certifies Its New Hometown as Community Habitat - Reston, Virginia - Brief Article

National Wildlife, April-May, 2001

The 62,000 residents of Reston, Virginia, have proved their town a fitting site for NWF's new headquarters by creating 150 certified Backyard Wildlife Habitat[ordinal indicator, feminine] sites over the past two years. In recognition of their accomplishments, NWF has certified Reston as the nation's third Community Wildlife Habitat. The others are Alpine, California, and Zionsville, Indiana.

As in many growing communities, Res-ton is losing valuable wildlife habitat to development. Species of particular concern include the screech owl, wood duck, spotted salamander, bobwhite quail, box turtle, and pink lady's slipper orchid.

To qualify as a certified Community Wildlife Habitat, Reston, which encompasses about 7,000 acres, had to certify not only numerous residential habitats but also sites in schoolyards, businesses, apartments and public places such as parks and churches.

The town's initiative was led by the Reston Association, the second largest homeowners association in the country. It formed a Habitat Team, which sponsored a "How To" open house and made "backyard habitating" the theme for Reston's holiday parades and the nature center's annual Arbor Day event. Team members rounded up volunteers from local high schools to install a habitat at a senior citizens' home and worked with children to create a habitat on top of an elementary school.

"Excitement for this project was contagious," says Claudia Thompson- Deahl, the Reston Association's resource manager. "Lots of people jumped on the bandwagon to accomplish the goal of getting certified by NWF."