Wildlife Thrives

Partnering With the Wildlife Habitat Council

Vulcan is home to dozens of Wildlife Habitat Council (WHC) certified sites, including its Pleasanton facility in California. 

Executive Assistant Kathleen Goulet is charged with overseeing Pleasanton’s bird box program, which provides nesting areas for birds built by a local boy scout troop.

“It’s special to me just because we’re giving back to our community and we are protecting our wildlife and our land for the future,” Goulet said. “How can you not love that?”

Vulcan and Goulet partnered with the Wildlife Habitat Council to further enhance the bird box program and earn the facility a WHC certification. 

“I was asked if I would be interested in it and I gladly accepted,” Goulet recalled. “The first couple of times I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, how am I going to remember all these different species?’”

Pleasanton Executive Assistant Kathleen Goulet also oversees the facility’s bird box program.

Along with birds there are now ruddy ducks, turkeys, geese, swallows, white-tailed deer, five-point bucks, rodents, white-tailed rabbits, cotton-tailed rabbits and most notable, bald eagles, which have become the mascots of the Pleasanton site.

Vulcan provides a safe haven for wildlife that thrive on the vast amount of land to hunt. Goulet makes frequent visits to the bird boxes, taking into account all the wildlife she observes and to log reports and photographs. Other members of the community get involved as well.

“We have school tours here so they’re able to take the information we give them about the wildlife that lives here at our mining sites and they’re able to take all that information and share it with their parents, other children, and that’s how it affects the community,” Goulet explained. “It trickles down from us adults all the way down to kids.”