Wildlife Refuge in a Fragmenting Landscape

A Call to Preserve the Wild Heart of the Lehigh Valley

The Sanctuary at DAWE ESTATES is not only a legacy ecosystem — it is an active refuge in a rapidly fragmenting landscape.

In recent years, large portions of the adjacent hillside and farm meadows were razed for development. Generational trees were cut, fields were bulldozed, rock was blasted for drainage systems, and roadbeds replaced blooming meadows. The disruption was not only visible — it shook the hydrology, soil structure, and wildlife corridors that had quietly functioned for decades.

Yet, in the wake of that disturbance, something remarkable unfolded.

Displaced wildlife began arriving at The Sanctuary at DAWE ESTATES, joining the resident species that had already made this land home. What emerged is now a living refuge corridor woven across old farmland, forested slope, meadow, and spring-fed stream.

Today the sanctuary hosts families of Great Horned Owls and Eastern Screech Owls calling through the night, with Red-tailed Hawks and Cooper’s Hawks gliding overhead by day. Bald and Golden Eagles have been observed perched high in the trees on rare occasions. Great Blue Herons stalk the stream in solemn grace, while cardinals, blue jays, and pileated woodpeckers animate the forest. The air is stitched with the songs of chickadees, wrens, finches, goldfinches, and red-winged blackbirds.

Seasonal rhythms continue to unfold: flocks of over sixty robins foraging together in autumn fields, small groups of wild turkeys passing quietly through woodland edges, herds of whitetail deer moving between forest and meadow, groundhogs near the stream, and pollinators flourishing in native wildflowers. Once, even a young black bear appeared along a woodland trail — a reminder that the deep wilderness is never as far away as we think.

This is not coincidence. It is the natural world seeking sanctuary where it can still survive.

The sanctuary functions as a mosaic of former orchard soils, meadow succession, intact forest floor, limestone micro-habitats, and a spring-fed riparian corridor buffered by native growth. Neighbors have already worked together to establish a local no-hunting zone, reinforcing this land as a place of safety rather than pressure.

Yet this refuge cannot stand alone. The Lehigh Valley is at a tipping point, with thousands of new homes already planned and construction expanding into remaining farmland and woodlands.

At DAWE ESTATES, our commitment is clear: to steward this land not as a possession, but as a responsibility — and, in time, to seek permanent conservation status so that it may remain a protected Nature Refuge for owls, hawks, eagles, deer, bear, songbirds, native plants, pollinators, and the generations that follow.

Together with our neighbors and community, we believe the Lehigh Valley can grow without forgetting the wild places that make it whole.

Nature and Farmland Preservation Now.