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Enhanced Habitat For Migrating Birds

Near Completion In Hartwick Seminary

As a backhoe digs a pond in the background, state Sen. Jim Seward (blue shirt) and Bob Hickey, Cooperstown Fun Park proprietor, discuss an enhancement to wildlife habitat underway. (Jim Kevlin/allotsego.com)
As a backhoe digs a pond in the background, state Sen. Jim Seward (blue shirt) and Bob Hickey, left,  Cooperstown Fun Park proprietor, discuss an enhancement to wildlife habitat underway. (Jim Kevlin/allotsego.com)

By JIM KEVLIN • allotsego.com

Jeanine Harter, a soil conservation technician in the USDA's Phoenix Mills office, details the wildlife enhancement plan for Fun Park owner Bob Hickey, center, and Senator Seward.
Jeanine Harter, a soil conservation technician in the USDA’s Phoenix Mills office, details the wildlife enhancement plan for Fun Park owner Bob Hickey, center, and Senator Seward.

HARTWICK SEMINARY – State Sen. Jim Seward, R-Milford, hosted a press briefing behind the Cooperstown Fun Park here this morning to draw attention to a 14-pond wildlife enhancement project now underway.

The project was initiated by Fun Park owner Bob Hickey and his father, also Bob, who passed away in June, on 20 acres of former farmland between Route 28 and the Susquehanna River.

The project is a collaboration between the Hickeys, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Phoenix Mills office and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Upper Susquehanna Coalition and Ducks Unlimited.

When complete, all manner of aquatic wildlife is expected to congregate there, from migrating geese and ducks to bullfrogs and salamanders. As if to dramatize that, a blue heron took flight behind Seward, Hickey, USDA technician Jeanine Harter and others as they detailed and expected outcome.

Directed by Wetlands Biologist Jeremy Waddell of the Upper Susquehanna Coalition, bulldozers began work Monday, Aug. 4, on the ponds, and are expected to complete the work by next Wednesday.

Seward told Hickey his staff will seek to identify funding to build walkways and overlooks on the property, so the public can benefit from the project.

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