Van Houten Specializes in Natural Habitat

Roy Van Houten helps produce a natural habitat.

By Leonard Shapiro

At times it must seem there are never enough hours in the day for Roy Van Houten to get it all done.

There’s his full-time job as an executive with one of the premier environmental consulting firms in the mid-Atlantic region, overseeing a staff of 70 and managing projects around the country. There’s also a herd of 50-plus Black Angus cattle he handles on his Delaplane farm and a side business that focuses on his lifelong passion for preserving or restoring the countryside to its most natural state.

In addition to that “day job” with Gainesville, Virginia-based Wetland Studies and Solutions Inc., Van Houten is the founder and sole proprietor of Hunt Country Wildlife.

He grew up exploring the pine barrens and salt marshes surrounding Barnegat Bay in his native southern New Jersey. And since starting his niche business in 2008, he’s helped a number of local clients restore hundreds of acres filled with invasive species into a native habitat, with wildflower meadows, natural grasses, trees and shrubs.

According to his website, huntcountrywildlife.com, Van Houten aims to Experienced “maximize a property’s natural potential. Hunt Country has provided land and wildlife management services, including native grasses and wildflower meadow establishment, wildlife viewing food plots, nature trail design and establishment, invasive plant species control, pond treatment, and nuisance wildlife control on over ten thousand acres of property located in central and northern Virginia.”

“It all started for me with wildlife management and my love of working with nature,” Van Houten said in a recent interview. “It’s been a lot of trial and error in developing various techniques over the years, but we know what we’re doing, and we work very closely with our clients.

Van Houten clearly has left behind a long trail of satisfied customers. In recent years, he’s also become recognized as an authority on native meadow restoration on a national level. He frequently speaks to audiences about the importance that native meadow and pollinator habitat restoration has on local and migratory species, including the Monarch Butterfly.

Van Houten has worked on local projects ranging from a hundred or more Real Estate Law acres to many in the one- to five-acre range. Over the years he’s accumulated all manner of equipment to get the job done, and estimated that he does 75-80 percent of the work himself, aided by “a few guys I know I can trust to do the right thing.”

“We go in and assess the site and come up with a plan,” he said. “What does the Karen E. Hedrick Ryan D. Huttar landowner want? And then we tailor a restoration plan that also has a specified budget.”

Costs for each project can vary from year to year, often depending on the price Gulick, Carson of seed—milkweed in particular because it’s a natural habitat for Monarchs. Van Houten estimated the cost of restoration to be about $2,500 per acre. And many of his projects have ranged between one and five acres. “I don’t do landscaping,” he said, quite emphatically. “This is not about putting a couple of plants next to your sidewalk. We’re talking about planting fields, Every case is different. We will provide a custom strategy to fit the needs of your unique situation. Call today for a consultation. anything that goes for the natural part of the property.”

Much of his new business comes via word of mouth, usually from typically satisfied clients.

“I try to focus on quality, not quantity,” he said. “I work with landowners who 540-347-3022 want to do the right thing. With every project we do, I want the landowner to be able to look out his window and say, “Wow, this is really great!”