UW-Madison News Release--Preserving Leopold's Riley

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2/26/2008

CONTACT:  Janet Silbernagel, (608) 265-8093, jmsilber@wisc.edu

EDITOR'S NOTE: Aldo Leopold's connection to the town of Riley will be celebrated as part of the statewide Aldo Leopold Weekend in early March. The public event will take place on Sunday, March 2 in the Riley Tavern and will feature readings of Leopold's work and a presentation by Stanley Temple, UW-Madison professor emeritus of wildlife ecology and senior fellow of the Aldo Leopold Foundation. Presentations are scheduled from 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m., following the Riley Tavern's traditional Sunday pancake breakfast. Contact Janet Silbernagel for more details.

FOR PROFESSOR, PRESERVING LEOPOLD'S RILEY IS PERSONAL

MADISON - When Janet Silbernagel grew up playing along the banks of the Sugar River, near the town of Riley, she never imagined she was following in the footsteps of a famous naturalist.

"I explored the woods and built bridges across the river," says Silbernagel, now an associate professor of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "I appreciated it, but I didn't have any idea of the landscape's history."

It was only years later, after she joined the UW-Madison faculty, that Silbernagel learned her childhood home - one of a collection of farms that dot the hilly terrain southwest of Madison - had once been a laboratory for Aldo Leopold, whose writings have made him a cherished figure in Wisconsin environmental history. While a professor of wildlife ecology at UW-Madison, Leopold forged a unique arrangement in Riley with local landowners that allowed him to try out his theories about game management - as well as hunt a few birds.

Though not as well-recognized as places such as Leopold's Sand County shack or the UW-Madison Arboretum, the Riley landscape is just as much a part of the hallowed geography of Leopold's Wisconsin. His work there began in 1931 - four years before he began renovating his Sand County property - when he struck up a conversation with a local farmer while looking for a place to hunt pheasants. Soon after, Leopold organized the Riley Game Cooperative, in which local farmers agreed to maintain the marshy lands along the Sugar River as wildlife habitat and hunting preserve.

Eventually including 11 farms and some 1,700 acres, the cooperative survived until after Leopold's death in 1948. Leopold penned a journal article about the cooperative in 1940, and it came to influence his ideas about managing private lands to support native populations of wildlife.

"It represented a unique partnership between town and country to cooperatively manage a landscape," says Silbernagel. "It's an example of a different aspect of Leopold's work, which is what makes it exciting as a place for environmental education."

Since learning about the Leopold connection in 2002, Silbernagel has worked to raise awareness of the landscape's history, which she hopes will spark efforts to preserve it. Just 14 miles from Madison, Riley faces encroaching sprawl from Madison and its fast-growing suburbs, and land prices have recently been trending upward.

"I would say it's a semi-threatened landscape," says Riley landowner Bill Weber Sr., one of the founding members of First Weber Group Realtors, who owns one of the farms in the original cooperative. "Right now, it's easier to think about conservation from an economic standpoint than it will be when we've got more development pressure."

Because of these factors, the Riley area has been identified as a priority in Dane County's most recent parks and open space plan. The Natural Heritage Land Trust, a Wisconsin-based conservation group, has also done work in the area to encourage landowners to adopt conservation practices.

As both an expert in conservation planning and a Riley native, Silbernagel is a natural choice to help shepherd these efforts. While intensive agriculture has waned in the region and many landowners now enroll property in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, Silbernagel says she believes Riley can meet its conservation goals by reviving Leopold's cooperative spirit.

"I envision some sort of revival of the cooperative community in a modernized form," she says. "It would be rural landowners who are interested in the landscape and conservation working together with the larger community to continue the legacy and make it a great learning experience."

So far, Silbernagel has focused on meeting landowners and explaining the options available for protecting the unique landscape, which today is dotted by wetlands, meadows and tall stands of pine and spruce trees planted under Leopold's direction. But she also sees opportunities to share the story of Leopold's connection more broadly. She notes that the Military Ridge State Trail, which cuts through the heart of the old cooperative grounds, could become a focal point for educating the public about Leopold's vision for Riley. The group is exploring ideas such as creating interpretive displays along the trail or encouraging school groups to make field trips to the area.

A better understanding of Riley's place in history might have another effect. Weber says greater public awareness could trigger Dane County or other governmental units to protect the landscape by creating a park or a conservation zone, which would take some of the conservation burden off private landowners.

"The connection to Aldo Leopold makes this a very significant landscape," he says. "I think it's at least as significant, if not more, than some of the other places we're conserving right now."

But for Silbernagel, who can still fondly recall rambling along the banks of the Sugar River in search of adventure, that's only part of the motivation. "It's absolutely personal for me," she says. "There are many beautiful, special landscapes around the state. This is one I feel I can contribute to on a personal level. I kind of feel like I owe that."
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- Michael Penn, (608) 262-2679, mpenn@wisc.edu



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