(Photo provided by the Marietta College’s Slack Research Collection) The Kroger wetlands can be seen in this photo from 1967 as construction of Interstate 77 begins altering the eastern end of Marietta.

It’s clear to nearly everyone how important area rivers are to not only the people who live in the Mid-Ohio Valley but also the plants and animals that call the area home.

The Ohio, Muskingum, Little Kanawha, Hocking, Little Hocking and Little Muskingum provided early inhabitants important transport routes and current inhabitants a wide range of recreational opportunities.

The quiet sibling of the rivers — wetlands — performs an important function for the environment and some interesting opportunities for those lucky enough to live near one.

Wetlands are shallow bodies of water that host a delicate ecosystem.

In the lower 48 states there is an estimated 110.1 million acres of wetlands. An area the size of California, this may appear to be a lot, but it is around half of what it was here when European explorers started arriving in the 1600s.

Draining the wetlands to make way for development is a frequent cause of the loss, as is global warming, rise in sea level, pollution and sediment.

Wetland areas provide an important home for a wide variety of birds, but also things like turtles and frogs.

In Ohio, the number of wetlands has been greatly reduced since the arrival of European settlers in the late 1700s. The number of acres of wetlands has been reduced 90% from around 5,000,000 to less than 500,000 according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

We are lucky to have several wetland areas close by.

The Kroger Wetlands is a unique park in Marietta located, logically next to Kroger on Acme Street. A large shallow pond in the area is circled by a trail and offers a great place to view wildlife close to home. Before the Kroger complex was built the corner was home to an old restaurant and other buildings, but old photos of the area show the pond of the area looking pretty much as it does today.

In Williamstown, the low-lying land near DaVinci’s Restaurant is home to a variety of birds, turtles and other wild things.

The coves along the Ohio River, such as those at Leith Run and Newell Run on the Ohio side and at French Creek near Belmont on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River, along with the islands that make of the Ohio River Island National Wildlife Refuge, offer wildlife a home, and humans a chance to view them.

Coves on some of the smaller waterways in the area, such as the Little Hocking River, provide shallow water refuge for fish and animals.

There are also several wetland areas along the inflow creeks that feed Veto Lake.

Life in the wetlands tends to move slow both for the animals that live there and the humans who visit them. If you happen to visit one and see some guy that looks like the photo in my column with a camera around his neck and a goofy smile on his face, say hello.

They are among my favorite places to capture area wildlife.

Art Smith in online manager of The Times, contact him at asmith@mariettatimes.com