Threatened Species

A major goal of the Utah Botanical Center is to recreate islands of native Great Basin habitat among the sea of urbanization. The habitats, including prairie, ponds, wetlands, and pinyon-juniper forest, will highlight an extensive program aimed at conserving native ecosystems for the benefit of the residents of the Wasatch Front and all of Utah.

Along with the great diversity of wildlife species that will inhabit the native habitats at the Utah Botanical Center, we hope to provide habitat for several Wildlife Species of Concern in Utah. Watch for species such as the Grasshopper Sparrow, Burrowing Owl in the Prairie habitat and American White Pelicans and Long-Billed Curlews at the Ponds and Wetlands.

Our philosophy of conservation was best described by Aldo Leopold’s vision for the Wisconsin Arboretum and Wild Life Refuge in 1934:

“It was not going to be just a collection of trees, like other arboreta, but ‘something new and different’- a collection of landscapes, a re-creation of the land as it once existed. It would be replanted not simply with individual species, but with entire plant communities: prairies, hardwood forest, coniferous forest, marsh”

Just as Leopold envisioned 70 years ago, the Utah Botanical Center will “serve as a benchmark, a starting point, in the long and laborious job of building a permanent and mutually beneficial relationship between civilized [people] and a civilized landscape.”