The Cuyahoga Valley National Park is home to a variety of ecosystems indigenous to this region including wetlands, meadows, upper forests, bottom forests and agricultural lands. Your sponsorship will help with enhancing public enjoyment and preservation of these ecosystems and the park in general. To learn more about these ecosystems, click on the type below.

Wetlands  |  Meadow  |  Forest  |  River Valley  |  Farmland

Wetlands

Wetlands are essential to healthy natural ecosystems, while also providing many benefits to human communities. They filter pollutants, moderate floodwaters, and support plant and wildlife diversity. Despite their importance, wetlands in northeast Ohio face threats from development and urban sprawl in the region. Thus, Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s wetlands are valuable both as park and regional resources. A recent park-wide wetland inventory found more than 1,200 wetland areas encompassing approximately 1,700 acres. Most are small, with only 35 larger than 10 acres.

The park’s wetlands vary and include marshes, wet meadows, scrub wetlands, and forested wetlands. Vernal pools, temporary wetlands found during the rainy spring season, serve as breeding areas for many amphibian species. Three great blue heronries are located in wetland along the Cuyahoga River.

While human activity is generally associated with harm to wetlands, watered remains of the Ohio & Erie Canal are actually associated with increased wetland size. Humans aren’t the only living things that influence wetlands. By damming free-flowing waters, beavers have affected the size and distribution of wetlands throughout the park, most noticeably at the Beaver Marsh along the Towpath Trail.

Meadow

Prior to European settlement, forests and wetlands dominated Ohio and the Cuyahoga Valley. Today, however, meadows are also common in the valley’s landscape. Some reflect the valley’s farming history. Meadows have taken over where farmers once tilled fields. As these meadows mature through the natural process of succession, they develop into thickets and eventually back into forests.

Other meadows reflect Cuyahoga Valley National Park’s effort to reclaim lands disturbed by development and industries. Usually the park plants grasses and then allows grasslands to mature in stages through succession. One exception where the park will keep a reclaimed site as grasslands is the site of the former Richfield Coliseum. There the grasslands have attracted unusual grassland birds including short-eared owls, Wilson’s snipe, grasshopper sparrow, savanna sparrow, the very rare sedge wren and Henslow’s sparrow, nesting bobolinks, and eastern meadowlarks.

Meadows are places of plant and animal diversity. Goldenrods and New England aster are both found in many old fields, serving as essential wildflowers for migrating monarchs. Other important wildflowers include common milkweed, Joe Pye weed, ironweed, and bull thistle. Bluebirds, sparrows, and many mammals including red foxes, coyotes, and striped skunks also frequent meadows.

Forest

Drier forests are found on the slopes and uplands of the Cuyahoga Valley. The trees common to forests depend on their age. White, red, and black oaks, a variety of hickories including shagbark hickory, beech, and sugar maples are common in more mature forests. Younger forests—those farmed more recently—are often dominated by bigtooth aspen, white ash, and tulip poplar. Wildflowers, including rue anemone, wild geranium, and round-lobed hepatica are most common in the spring before the leaf canopy blocks the light.

Each park ecosystem attracts a different mix of animals based on their particular habitat needs. Birds that find their nesting requirements met in upland forests include Canada warblers, hooded warblers, ovenbirds, blue-headed vireos, scarlet tanagers, broad-wing hawks, and wood thrushes. Other upland forest animals include grey and southern flying squirrels, raccoons, red foxes, and coyotes.

River Valley

Bottomland forests flank the Cuyahoga River and its tributaries and are commonly seen from the Towpath Trail. These are moist forests which can withstand periodic flooding. Sycamore trees, with their distinctive white trunks, and quick-growing eastern cottonwoods dominate these forests. Other key trees include box elder maple and, in slightly higher areas, black cherry, buckeye, and slippery elm.

River valleys provide nesting places for a variety of birds. Screech owls make their homes in hollow trees, and Baltimore orioles build their hanging nests. Other nesting birds include yellow-throated warblers, cerulean warblers, American redstarts, orchard orioles, and blue-gray gnatcatchers. Opossum, fox squirrel, coyote, long-tailed weasel, silver-hair bat, and Indiana bat join the birds in this habitat. Spring wildflowers can bloom profusely and include bloodroot, Virginia bluebell, white trout lily, skunk cabbage, and squirrel corn.

Farmland

Farmland has long been part of life in the Cuyahoga Valley, starting with American Indians who farmed the fertile floodplains of the Cuyahoga River. In the 19th century, farming dominated the valley. Historic photos show an open valley landscape dotted with fields, orchards, farmsteads, barns, and other buildings used in agriculture.

While nature has taken a strong foothold in the valley today, farmland remains an important part of the landscape. Cuyahoga Valley National Park emphasizes sustainable farming practices compatible with a natural environment. With support from a nonprofit organization, Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy, the National Park Service leases historic farm properties on a competitive basis. The farmers pursue small, diversified crop and livestock operations and target local specialty and niche markets. Pick-your-own berries, cut flowers and mixed vegetables, meat goats, heritage turkeys, and community-supported farmland operations are now part of the valley.