Bringing nature inside four walls

Today you're hearing from
Kristin Haider, one of
two AmeriCorps members working at our West
Virginia Field Office. 
She is finishing her master's degree in ecology from Penn State. Learn more about this AmeriCorps program.

Explore the inflatable bat cave. Watch a freshwater mussel lure fish. Stick your hand in a nature mystery box.

If you’d been with me over the past few months, you would
have had a chance to try all of these things.

This past September, I joined the team at the Service’s West Virginia Field Office as an AmeriCorps member. I was thrilled
to use my background in ecology and conservation, so I jumped right in and represented the Service at a number of outreach events this fall.

Flying squirrel fund helps protect rugged West Virginia national forest land

Thunderstruck, W.Va. Photo by Kent Mason, courtesy of The Nature Conservancy.

As part of the Thunderstruck Project, a decade-long effort led by The Nature Conservancy to protect nearly 2,000 acres of former commercial timber company land in West Virginia, a large swath of red spruce and hardwoods will be preserved as part of the Monongahela National Forest. 
 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service responds to Sandy in West Virginia

Greg Titus, division fire management office on assignment to respond to
Superstorm Sandy in West Virginia. Credit: Catherine Hibbard/USFWS

“This is more snow than I’ve seen in my entire life!” said Greg Titus while on assignment in West Virginia to respond to Superstorm Sandy.

Titus, a division fire management officer from St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, was one of several U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees deployed to snowbound West Virginia as members of the interagency Southern Area Red Type 1 Team.

Improving a WV river's health by bringing back endangered mussels

Did you think we were through with freshwater mussels? Never! Hear from Barb Douglas, an endangered species biologist with our West Virginia Field Office, on an effort to save endangered mussels from a bridge project and bring them to several sites in other states, including West Virginia. A Pennsylvania biologist shared her perspective last month.

It was a beautiful autumn morning, a perfect day to be out on the Elk River, my favorite river in the state, and doing something I love: restoring populations of endangered mussels.

WATCH THE VIDEO

The WCHS-TV crew tagged along the day these endangered mussels were released. Check out the Healthy Mussels Means Health Rivers eyewitness webcast.

The Elk River has the highest diversity of fish and mussels of any watershed in West Virginia. It’s home to 100 types of fish and 30 types of freshwater mussels, including four endangered mussel species. Populations of many of these species have declined because of poor water quality in the river.

One of those endangered mussels, the northern riffleshell, hadn’t been seen here for almost 20 years. Fortunately, the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania still has a large northern riffleshell population, and our partners there were willing to allow us to transfer some of their mussels out of the path of a new highway bridge and into the Elk River, near an area where they historically occurred.

Breaking sweat to protect W.Va.'s bats in Trout Cave

Today you're hearing from Devin Gill, an AmeriCorps volunteer with our West Virginia Field Office.

Trout Cave is one of Pendleton County’s best kept secrets.

Its large mouth beckons cavers away from a breathtaking overlook of the North Fork River as the river navigates its way through the mountains of Pendleton County. To the average passerby on U.S. Route 33, the steep trail leading to Trout Cave’s entrance is lost amidst the roadside greenery. But to cavers in the know, Trout Cave is a 200-foot, gut-busting climb up from the highway.

Early one hot July morning, employees from our West Virginia Field Office and the West Virginia DNR set out for Trout Cave with one goal in mind: to protect native bats.

Historically, Trout Cave was home to large populations of a variety of bat species. But the sizes and diversity of bat populations within the cave have declined in recent years, presumably due to increased recreational activity in the cave since the 1960’s. The once large population of little brown bats has dwindled down to only a handful. 

Nuggets for knotweed!

Puddles the Blue Goose with
Devin Gill. Puddles is the symbol of the
Service's National Wildlife Refuge
System. Credit: USFWS

Our West Virginia field office recently teamed up with McDonalds and the Potomac Highlands Cooperative Weed and Pest Management Area to educate Randolph County residents about the negative impacts of non-native, invasive plants like Japanese knotweed on their property and on broader landscapes.

"It was a great success!" says Devin Gill, AmeriCorps volunteer with the West Virginia office. "We spoke with many individual restaurant-goers at our booth, and informational hand-outs were passed out by the McDonald's staff on food trays and in to-go bags. They had extras at the end of the day, and I've heard that they continued distributing hand-outs on subsequent days until they were all gone. A successful event and a great partnership for our office!" 

Puddles cutting a stem of Japanese knotweed. Credit: USFWS

The local paper also covered the outreach event. 

Partnering to save endangered animals: West Virginia

We're so excited about the new interactive map highlighting endangered species efforts in each state across the nation. Each day we'll feature a state, partner and animal. Subscribe on the right to keep up!

The Appalachian Mountains rise thousands of feet along an ancient line dropping south from Canada to Alabama. Over centuries, unique environments developed along this line and gave birth to an rich variety of wildlife, including an amazing number of freshwater mussels. 

West Virginia, the only state completely enclosed in the Appalachian range, takes pride in the huge chunk of mussels that call its rivers and streams home. In many unpolluted streams, an experienced visitor can spot from 20 to 30 different kinds of freshwater mussels.