Day family donates property to conservation board

The land belonging to Dorance Day, of Ventura, and his family is a very special place to them and it will now be left as it is forever.
Dorance loves the 4.82 acre parcel of land his grandfather purchased in 1900. Over the course of many years he transformed it into a special natural place for the wildlife. His work is now complete and he has turned its care over to the Hancock County Conservation Board and Mother Nature.
Located just south of Klemme on Taft Avenue, the property will be managed by the Hancock County Conservation Board as an inviolate refuge for the wildlife that flourish there.
Goldfinches, Red-Breasted Nuthatches, Northern Cardinal, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Great Horned Owl and many tracks and signs of other game and non-game species call the area home. Since the family wishes to have this area strictly managed as an inviolate refuge, no hunting, trapping or trespassing will be allowed.
The refuge is to be named the “D.S. Day Wildlife Refuge”.
The piece of land is part of a parcel purchased in 1900 by Dorance Day’s grandfather, William Smith. Since a young man, Dorance has had an avid interest in the out-of-doors, wildlife, hunting and fishing. When he retired in 1976, he began to plant several species of shrubs and trees with the idea that as they matured, they would provide quality habitat for area wildlife. This planting continued until 1991. Each was hand-planted, hand-watered and mowed around to give them a good start. Dorance, 91, and his son Gary, 71, have spent countless hours on this land and have hunted and fished together for 62 years.
The refuge contains mature row plantings of walnut, ash and maple trees, Colorado Blue spruce trees and shrubs atop it’s rolling uplands which are covered with brome and small traces of native grasses and flowers. A meandering creek quietly flows through a portion of the refuge’s bottomland. The Conservation Board plans to further enhance the uplands of the refuge by using controlled burns and seeding certain areas with a diverse mixture of native grasses and forbs. There is also a possible small wetland that could be created in the future.
It is with a great deal of pride for the Day family to turn this property over to the care of the Hancock County Conservation Board as a way of “giving back” and helping to perpetuate the wildlife environment.