Conservation celebrity visits a home for New England’s only native rabbit

The national head of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Chief Dave White, visited an eastern Connecticut farm on July 14 in hopes of catching a glimpse of the rare New England cottontail.

The farm is owned by Tom McAvoy, a lifelong outdoorsman and the first partner for the New England cottontail under the new Working Lands for Wildlife program. The program, led by the NRCS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is an innovative approach to work with farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to restore and protect land for wildlife.

Service biologist Ted Kendziora talking with NRCS Chief Dave White and others at the farm. Photo courtesy of Tom McAvoy.

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. 

A creative solution to invasive plants problem at a Delaware park

Two new recruits are spending their summer at Brandywine Creek State Park tackling invasive plants by doing what they do best – eating.

Two river water buffalo, named Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger, are chowing down on invasive plants at a rate of 20 pounds per day as part of the park’s prescribed grazing project. By both eating the plants and crushing the root mat with their weight, the water buffalo are proving very effective for controlling invasive plants like canary reed grass.

Julie Slacum stands with one of the water buffalo. Credit: USFWS

Reviving a river: Checking in at Great Works Dam

Each week, our folks at the Maine field office are driving by to check on the progress of the Great Works Dam removal, part of the Penobscot River Restoration Project.

The contractor was able to get back to work late last week (hurray!). Check out the photos taken by the Penobscot River Restoration Trust.

Reviving a river: Checking in at Great Works Dam

Each week, our folks at the Maine field office are driving by to check on the progress of the Great Works Dam removal, part of the Penobscot River Restoration Project.

This graph shows that the water has remained flooded. It was at less than 7,000 cubic feet per second when it was breached and then peaked at 70,000 cubic feet per second. We're hopeful that work can start back up in another week.

Dammed once, restored now

Today you're hearing from Eric Schrading, private lands coordinator in our New Jersey Field Office, as part of our series on fish passage.

The expense of owning a dam can be quite surprising to a landowner. Dr. Calvin Shen owned a 220 acre farm on Pohatcong Creek in central New Jersey, and on that creek was an earthen dam.

In late 2008, Dr. Shen realized the unreasonable costs of maintaining that 80-year-old Class 2 dam. That’s when he reached out to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to explore ways to breach the dam and restore the Pohatcong Creek.

Partnering to save endangered animals: Maryland

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!

In Maryland and other states, bog turtles are most often found on private lands. These lands need long-term maintenance to maintain quality habitat for bog turtles; otherwise the vegetation growth advances or exotic species invade. 

On Deb English’s horse farm, the solution was grazing by sheep and goats. 

The abundance of bog turtles in pastured wetlands like those on English’s farm suggests that grazing has historically maintained the openness of wetlands needed for habitat. English and her family worked with the Maryland Bog Turtle Partnership to improve a section of their farm for the turtles. 

Partnering to save endangered animals: Pennsylvania

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!

We established the Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Pennsylvania in part to protect the federally threatened bog turtle. Pennsylvania state agencies all identified habitat loss and fragmentation -- mostly due to development -- as the main threat facing North America's smallest turtles. 

When the refuge boundary was established, Cherry Valley was experiencing a surge in residential development that threatened the turtle’s habitat -- wet meadows and other shallow, sunny wetlands, known as fens. Refuge Manager Michael Horne says the first parcel acquired for the refuge provided “promising wetlands in terms of bog turtle management.” Read more of the story.

Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: USFWS

From the Appalachians to the Adirondacks to the Rhode Island coast

One biologist’s contribution to conservation

Today, in line with our feature of endangered species work in Rhode Island, we’re featuring one of the folks who is making this type of work happen--Ryan Kleinert, a 2012 graduate of the University of Rhode Island, where he studied wildlife and conservation biology, and a biological science technician for the Service.

Over the past three summers, I’ve seen numerous piping plover, American oystercatcher, and least tern chicks grow feathers and fly, and I’ve also seen many not make it past the first week of hatching.

A successful field season takes an enormous amount of time, dedication to detail, consistent effort and devotion. But it’s hard to describe how gratifying it is to see that egg hatch or chick fly away.

The most challenging aspect that I face while monitoring and protecting shorebirds involves circumstances that are completely out of my control, such as when a nest gets over-washed by a spring high tide. I have to consistently remind myself that I did everything I could possibly do for that nest, adult bird, chick, and so on.

Partnering to save endangered animals: New York

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!

New York’s Long Island is home to more than 7 million people, two major airports, nine bridges, 13 tunnels, and one very rare plant—the sandplain gerardia. This plant with delicate pink flowers grows at a handful of sites on Long Island, where coastal grasslands have been crowded by development or non-native plants. 

A partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration led way to the protection of more than 100 acres for this plant and other wildlife. Read the rest of the story. 

Protection of the Sayville grasslands is critical to survival of
sandplain gerardia. Credit: Ed Sambolin

A day with the terns of Ram Island

Today you’re hearing from Brett Hillman, a biological science technician for the Service’s New England Field Office, as he recounts his work with shorebirds in Massachusetts. Brett assists the endangered species biologists and has the great pleasure of working with a wide variety of wildlife.

Before May 24, I never thought I could have so much fun and learn so much while being pooped on by hundreds of real-life Angry Birds! That all changed when I had the great pleasure of helping with some field work at a tern colony on Ram Island in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.

Partnering to save endangered animals: Vermont

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!

Just over 10 years ago, state and federal biologists didn't know that the endangered Indiana bat spent its summers roosting in Vermont's Lake Champlain Valley.

After tracking bats into the valley, they teamed up to learn more about its habits. The information they collected would become vital for protecting and conserving Indiana bats and their key habitat when the disease white-nose syndrome entered the picture years later. Finish the story.

Partnering to save endangered animals: New Hampshire

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!

Happy Pollinator Week! This week, we have a chance to learn more and recognize the little, hard-working animals that pollinate the majority of our flowering plants and crops.

Within this group of hummingbirds, bats, bees, beetles, butterflies and flies is the Karner blue butterfly, a small endangered butterfly found in oak savannas and pine barrens from eastern Minnesota to the Atlantic seaboard.

Reviving a river: Getting fish around those dams

Today, you’re hearing again from the head of our Maine field office, Laury Zicari. Last time we talked about the long history of native fish in Maine. Now, learn how we help get fish up and around those dams using fishways. 

 

Working to relicense hydropower projects while accommodating native fish is a challenge.

This past week, our team got together to do their annual compliance inspection. The team includes our Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hydropower relicensing biologist, Steve, the Natural Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) engineer Don, three fishway engineers from the our regional office, two NMFS law enforcement agents and hydroplant operators.
The inspection focused on compliance with fishway operating criteria and turbine operation protocols at the larger hydroelectric plants. 

Who’s talking about the Penobscot?

Hear, hear, make way for the fish! The joy for the Penobscot's future splashed all over the news, with more than 50 articles popping up over the weekend through yesterday.

Take a look at what they had to say:

"The dams will fall and the salmon will rise.

That may sound like prophesy, but it’s as certain as scientific predictions get these days, particularly in matters of ecological restoration." From a National Geographic blog

Which endangered animal calls your state home?

Find out what we’re doing to help. 

Today we’re excited to launch an interactive map where you can learn about efforts to protect your state’s wildlife in need. The Service developed the map to share stories of success and partnership built across America under the Endangered Species Act. 

The new, web-based interactive map has information about endangered species success
in every state. Find it at http://www.fws.gov/endangered.

Reviving a river: From the field

Yesterday, we celebrated the first step to removing the huge Great Works Dam on the Penobscot River. Today, you’ll hear from the head of our Maine field office, Laury Zicari. This office has done a tremendous amount of work to ensure that measures are taken to avoid, minimize, or compensate for the impacts on fish and wildlife from dams along the Penobscot.

Greetings from the Great State of Maine and the Maine Field Office!

I have worked in Ecological Services for about 22 years, transferring to Maine last year. This a great place to do the work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Any map of Maine will show you the long history connecting our state with fish. You'll see many marvelous fish-related names derived from the language of the Native Americans that lived here long before European settlers arrived:

• Cobbosseecontee – Abenaki for “plenty of sturgeon” 
• Kenduskeag - Abenaki for “eel place or eel weir place” 
• Passagassawakeag – Malecite for “place for spearing sturgeon by torchlight”
• Passamaquoddy – Abenaki or Micmac for “plenty of pollock jumping”
• Wassookeag – Abenaki for “shining fish place”
• Alamoosook – Anglicized Malacite for "at the fish spawning place”
• Mattamiscontis – Abenaki for “alewife stream”
• Mattawamkeag – Abenaki for “fishing place beyond gravel bar”
• Androscoggin – Abenaki for “place where fish are cured”
• Medddybemps – Passamaquoddy-Abenaki for “plenty of alewives”

(From Brian McCauley's "The Names of Maine – How Maine Places got their names and What They Mean," 2004)

Reviving a river

The Penobscot River Restoration Project

 

The Penobscot River, New England's second largest river system, once flowed freely for more 100 miles from Maine's North Woods to the sea. 

Over two centuries, more than 100 dams were built that crippled its course, obstructing migratory paths of sea-run fish like Atlantic salmon, shad, eels and alewives and diminishing the water's health and food for wildlife upstream.

Today, hundreds will watch as we begin a new era for Maine's largest river by dismantling one of those dams: the Great Works Dam, 1,000 feet of concrete, timber and cribwork. Its removal is part of a broad effort that will eventually include removing two dams, modifying a third dam and increasing fish passage at four other dams (see map).

Connecting rivers connects us

Has a river been an important part of your life?  If so, you’re not alone.  Rivers and their tributaries are literally in our own backyards according to Rebecca Wodder, Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Interior.  Wodder recently addressed over 300 participants at Fish Passage 2012, a conference at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst campus.

   

Water flows freely on Yokum Brook in Becket,

 Massachusetts following removal of the Ballou Dam.  Credit:

Jan Rowan/USFWS.

The return of Atlantic salmon to reaches of the Kennebunk River in Maine once blocked by a 164-year old dam made a deep impression on Wodder about the resilience of rivers.  “It gave me a sense of hope,” she said.

That sense was a common theme among participants at Fish Passage 2012.  Over a hundred presentations addressed biology, hydrology, and engineering topics with the hope that our rivers  continue to provide connectivity not only for fish and wildlife, but for us as well!

Our broken rivers affect fish…and you.

A devastating storm hit Vermont in fall 2011. It brought water levels rivaling the historic flood of 1927. Among the $1 billion of damage were 960 damaged culverts that led to floodwater and debris wiping out roads and homes.

What does this have to do with the Fish and Wildlife Service? Well, what we found out is that culverts, or road-stream crossings, that allow fish to pass through can also pass high waters and debris. Culverts that we helped design to pass fish withstood the storm. But these structures, typically tube- or square-shaped, are often undersized or placed at the wrong height for water levels.

The Service's New York Field Office used this bottomless
culvert, shaped like an arch, to simulate a more natural
environment for fish. The project opened 18 miles of
waterway. More images.

So having the right size, shape and placement is good for surviving extreme weather. But there are other reasons we want structures to allow fish to move up and downstream.

Fish are indicators of how healthy our environments and rivers are. They represent a natural water system. At one time, our nation’s fish populations were among the richest and most diverse in the world. But as we developed, barriers were constructed across streams and rivers—from dams for irrigation, power and drinking water to culverts under roads. Much of these prevented aquatic wildlife from moving between their natural habitats. Once abundant fish populations have declined or entirely disappeared due to these barriers.

The impacts reach beyond fish and affect the local communities surrounding these waters. Aquatic resources provide recreational, commercial and subsistence opportunities. Barriers cause water quality problems for people and wildlife. Boaters rely on free flowing rivers. Out-of-use dams are dangerous and a liability to owners.

America has more than 6 million of these barriers that range from dams to culverts and obstruct the natural flow of water and natural movement of wildlife. In the Northeast, many of our Service programs are involved in projects to correct this problem, from the National Fish Passage Program to the Coastal and Partners for Fish and Wildlife programs. Check back with us throughout the month for examples of how we’re helping free our region’s waters.

Videos: 

Importance of Fish Passage 

A River Couldn't Run Through It 

The National Fish Passage Program in Vermont

This is part of a series on fish passage. Read the other blog posts here.