Photo by Paul Weihe
A Central College biology professor has spent the last three years exploring the wetlands of Iowa, and recently hit the major milestone goal for the project.
Paul Weihe is maintaining a blog called “99Wetlands” to start conversations about often unloved and misunderstood ecosystems, and has now made stops in all 99 counties in Iowa as part of the project.
“One of the taglines I use in the blog is ‘Wetlands at Your Service,'” he says. “So I want to hammer in over and over again the ideas that wetlands perform truly important, valuable functions that are helping to serve us. Wetlands are doing things that are important like cleaning the water, mitigating flooding, and providing recreation — they do those things 24/7 for us.”
Weihe says he’s having discussions around the state, especially about the different types of wetlands and why they are important. He says he’s enjoyed the various visits to sites, highlighting the variety of the ecosystems.