Couple Saves Special Piece Of Land

Lloyd Morse had a vision for his special piece of land south of Spanaway, 53 acres that developers dream about. But he had a different dream and the parcel is being saved for wildlife and to help schoolchildren learn about the wild.

The piece of land is diverse - about 400 yards wide with a buffer of second-growth firs, a grassy meadow that once served as pasture and a marshy creek full of nose-high cattails. Neighbors say a beaver lives along a pond hidden from view.

“Special land like this is disappearing so fast in Pierce County, it kind of takes your breath away,” said Candy Stewart of the Tahoma Land Conservancy. “My first reaction to the Morse property was, this is just made to order.”

Morse, 75, a retired Navy commander from Allyn, and his wife, Maxine, recently worked out an arrangement with the Tahoma chapter of the Audubon Society and the Tahoma Land Conservancy to leave the land to the public.

They gave the land to the conservancy in exchange for the guarantee it will be preserved for wildlife in perpetuity. It’s now called The Morse Wildlife Preserve. And the Audubon Society agreed to manage the preserve for educational purposes.

“My mother always said we should leave this earth a little better than we found it. And, as a society, we’ve been doing it a great bit of damage,” Morse said.

“We wanted to preserve the land, but we didn’t just want to set it aside. We wanted to have it utilized in a constructive way.”