Doyle Nature Area Restoration History

Over the past 10 years, neighbors, volunteers, scout groups, and NAP staff have made enormous progress restoring the woods at Doyle Nature Area to their natural beauty and diversity.

A neighbor, Kathy (McKee) Squires, was one of the first to recognize the biodiversity in these woods. When the Natural Area Preservation Division was established in 1995, Dave Borneman sponsored a botanical inventory.

Over the years, NAP staff have developed a management plan, established a series of prescribed ecological burns, and focused many hours of staff and volunteer effort here.

Perhaps the most significant year was 2000, when teenagers from the New School cleared a 100-yard swath along the north edge of the woods. The effect was dramatic. Neighbors and visitors could see a forest where there had been an inpenetrable tangle. people felt safer, visits to the woodland area increased, and wildflowers appeared in profusion.

The first prescribed burn was conducted south of the woods in March 1996.

Yours truly "discovered" this park at a NAP volunteer stewardship day on May 17, 1997. David Mindell led volunteers who moved trillium, mayapple and false Solomon's seal from a new trail in the southwest corner of the woods.

Other volunteer stewardship days were held on May 21, 2000, March 23, 2002, and other dates. Some have cleared shrubs south of the woods, and in the area near the Verle entrance.

The work started in the