T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District is taking residents’ living Christmas trees off of their hands after the holiday season.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District is once again urging residents to donate their live Christmas trees.

The district is hosting its annual Holiday Habitat Program intending to help wild animals throughout the region. Belmont SWCD Program Administrator Hannah Ulrich said the program will be accepting live Christmas trees until Jan. 26, and they can be dropped off outside of the SWCD office at the Belmont County Fairgrounds.

“Our wildlife specialist will take them out to Egypt Valley Wildlife Area and Barkcamp State Park public areas to make brush piles for nesting for smaller animals like rabbits and squirrels,” Ulrich said. “It even keeps them safe from weather, so it’s cooler there in the summer and it’s dry and warmer there when it’s cold and rainy.”

She said she believes the program allows the community an opportunity to give back after spending the holiday season receiving presents.

Residents don’t need an appointment to drop off their live trees, they can just show up at the fairgrounds and drop them off.

She added that residents will first need to take all ornaments, lights, tinsel and other artificial materials off of the trees before dropping them off at the fairgrounds.

“If people need help unloading from their vehicles, we’re here Monday through Friday 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m., so if they need help with it that’s when they should show up,” Ulrich said.

She added that if residents don’t need help unloading their trees, they can drop them off whenever works best for them regardless if the office is open due to the trailer where they drop off the trees being outside of the fairgrounds fence.

“We have a trailer set up with signs directing people to drop them off in the trailer,” she said.

Recently Belmont Soil and Water Conservation District moved from St. Clairsville to the Belmont County Fairgrounds west of the city, which makes this the first Holiday Habitat Program not located in the city of St. Clairsville.

“Most of the year we passively take from the Earth every day,” Ulrich said. “This is a conscious effort to give back to nature just a sliver of what we’ve taken from it throughout the year.”

She added that she believes strongly in the project and feels that the majority of the community members who participate in the program enjoy the feeling they get from being able to give back to nature.

In addition to the trees being used to create brush piles for animals, the program also sinks the trees in ponds and lakes for fish habitats.

“A lot of fish use them for spawning and also for safety from predators as well, so we do also sink them as ponds as well as create habitats above water,” she said.

Ulrich said the fish will use the trees to create a nest of sorts to lay eggs.