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In December 2024, in partnership with the City of Glendale Community Center, the student chapter of Audubon on Campus at ��ɫ��Ƶ received a $10,000 Audubon in Action grant for its initiatives to provide habitat areas for local bird species and education about them for community residents.

The FORBIRDS grant proposes four actions for local bird wildlife:

1. Create a habitat for Lucy’s Warblers (Leiothlypis luciae) (LUWA) by installing and surveying the use of nest boxes on the ��ɫ��Ƶ campus and in the Glendale community;
2. Create a bird habitat with native plants on the University campus and in the Glendale community;
3. Organize a fall Glendale community event to educate residents on urban threats to birds and offer solutions (e.g., bird window collisions) and convene Valley Audubon chapters, Fish and Wildlife Service, ASU’s Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve, and wildlife rehabilitation facilities;
4. Expose Glendale summer camp youth to birds and birding, culminating with a birding excursion to the Hassayampa River Preserve.

Less than two weeks into 2025, the chapter began fulfilling its grant mandate. With full support from the ��ɫ��Ƶ administration, assistance from the campus landscaping team, and generous donations from Native Resources International and ASU Associate Professor Dr. Thomas M. Cahill, the chapter hosted a planting event to improve Midwestern's existing Sonoran Desert habitat on the Glendale Campus. Sixteen students and faculty helped enhance the habitat with 35 plants that benefit urban wildlife, insects, and the campus community.

Two Hohokam agaves (A. murpheyi) donated by Dr. Cahill are particularly significant and important additions to the habitat. A. murpheyi was cultivated by the Hohokam Indians in the southwestern United States for thousands of years. This agave was an important sustainable source of food and fiber. Today, this agave exists in perhaps only two archaeological sites of the ancient Hohokam Indians. The Audubon on Campus chapter hopes to distribute pups to interested tribes and botanical gardens to help reestablish wild populations of A. murpheyi.

The Midwestern campus Sonoran Desert habitat was inaugurated on Earth Day in 2023. Biannually, dedicated students and faculty unite to create a space where animals, insects, flora, and people converge and coexist in the urban environment. Despite the habitat’s relative infancy, positive impacts already include a rock squirrel burrow, kangaroo rat sightings, visiting Anna’s Hummingbirds, a pair of bobbing Rock Wrens, the occasional bombing Cooper’s Hawk, a summer home for Lucy’s Warblers, and a refuge for overwintering birds like Lesser Goldfinches, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and White-crowned Sparrows.

Faculty advisor , D.V.M., M.Vet.Sc., DACVP, Associate Professor, Veterinary Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine/Animal Health Institute, reflects, “Students selflessly taking actions that benefit nature and wildlife is a beautiful thing. It gives me hope for the future.”

For more information about Audubon on Campus, contact Dr. Struthers at jstrut@midwestern.edu or visit the website.