What is Ecological Services?

Our blog has been live for a short while, and we've put up several posts as examples of the work we do with partners to meet our mission--to conserve the outdoors for the future. We've also launched our new website (read about it here), which has a lot of neat information about what we do. But check out the blog post below for a short and sweet introduction to how we work for both you and Mother Nature.  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which falls within the President’s executive branch, is a mission-oriented organization. Our mission is to work with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. Ecological Services, a division within the Service, resides over a chunk of those responsibilities.

Almost every one of our responsibilities connects with people, from the use of natural resources for recreation and livelihood to the balance of those needs with the conservation of protected wildlife. Human demands on the outdoors can leave animals and plants vulnerable. We work as partners to balance that scale.

Where land meets water: Research continues to reveal the value of our wetlands

Wood frog laying eggs in Kettle Pond vernal pool at
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Thomas Tetzner

With American Wetlands Month, May, coming to a close, we’d like to take some time to recognize the importance of our Northeast wetlands and the work that our experts are doing to protect them. Wetlands act as the kidneys for our communities, cleansing water, filtering pollution and sediment, and regulating nature’s systems.

They are most simply defined as the vital links between land and water. Some of their characteristics, such as flooding and insects, earned wetlands a bad reputation in history, and people filled them for farming or building. Research revealed their true values—drinking water, flood control, buffers for extreme weather, different habitats and wildlife, and places for fishing and other recreation—and legislation, namely the Clean Water Act in 1977, marked our need to protect them.

Decoys lure birds to safety on Maryland's Poplar Island

The word "decoys" brings to mind images of turkey, waterfowl and other hunting. But on Poplar Island, decoys are used for a different purpose--to attract shorebirds to new places for nesting.

The last known nesting colony of common terns in Maryland is at Poplar Island's Paul S. Sarbanes Ecological Restoration Project. Common and least tern nesting sites have become rare in this part of the Chesapeake Bay because of changes in sea level, habitat availability and climate.

Chris Guy positions the decoys, which are mounted
on rebar stakes to anchor them securely in the sand
on the habitat islands. Photo credit: Ann Tihansky

 
At the site, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created sections of habitat where the tern eggs and chicks blend safely into the background. Unfortunately, the terns were also attracted to active construction zones, complete with large trucks, bulldozers and steam rollers that put them in harm’s way.

To solve the problem, biologists Pete McGowan and Chris Guy and biotechnician Robbie Callahan from the Service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office, are using decoys and audio recordings of active tern colonies to lure the birds away from construction zones to nest on the specially-created habitat islands.

A rare rabbit needs our support

This Bunny Needs Brush to Survive

This time of year, gardeners in the Northeast are all too familiar with the rabbits that have chosen their beds for buffets. But there’s a less abundant rabbit that you probably don’t know about, and that you would be much less likely to find in your garden. That cottontail, the New England cottontail, is the only one native to our region.