Midwest Region, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Blog

Youth Hunt – A Mentor’s View

2010-09-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

We, the dog and I, arrived at Hamden Slough National Wildlife Refuge at 4:30 a.m. I had the honor of having keys, and the curse of having to get there earlier than everyone else so that the gates are open and lights on.

Before too long the parking lot is full of trucks. Piles of decoys, eager dogs, and people struggling into waders are silhouetted in headlights. At the last minute, warm clothes are exchanged for warmer clothes. Then, each group marches off in a different direction, swallowed up by the prairie darkness.

"Orion, the hunter, watches over us from his spot in the southern sky. It’s chilly, but not cold, with a light wind at our back."

After an eight minute walk, my group arrives at the edge of the cattails. Another fifteen yards and we’re at the edge of the water. I unshoulder the decoy bag and begin tossing decoys into the water. What is it about the sound of decoys splashing in the inky blackness of a marsh morning? By the time I’m done, the others have mashed down some areas a few feet back in the cattails and are in position.

There are eight of us hidden amid the mud and cattails, two youth hunters, two parents, two mentors, a photographer, and a mud colored Lab. This is my favorite part of the morning. There are as many stars in the sky as there are blades of grass in the prairie. Orion, the hunter, wa

tches over us from his spot in the southern sky. It’s chilly, but not cold, with a light wind at our back.

The eastern horizon is touched with rose-colored light as the black sky overhead resolves into cobalt. The invisible whistle of wings takes the shape of black silhouettes. Several teal land in the decoys, our mirror smooth water now rippled. Others land further out and paddle in. I know what my heart rate is right now, and I can’t imagine the surge of adrenalin in the kids. Finally, it’s two minutes to shooting time. They have asked several times in the last ten minutes. They are both allowed to load their guns.

There is so much to see on a marsh morning; mallards, green-wings, blue-wings, shovelers, woodies, gadwalls, canvasbacks. Greater yellowlegs repeatedly fly into the decoys. Common yellowthroats and marsh wrens dart among cattail stalks. As the air warms, thousands of swallows descend onto the wetland, hawking insects from just above the water’s surface.

Three hours later we have four ducks, two very happy kids, and a tired dog. Before we leave the cattails, I give everyone a quick lesson on aging ducks. We have two juvenile and one adult. That indicates a good year of reproduction.

We get back to the barn, and breakfast, by ten. Each group gets back at a different time, giving everyone a chance to tell their story individually. After breakfast, a lesson in how to clean a bird, and how to transport the birds legally. Trucks pull out one by one with happy parents behind the wheel and, I imagine, sleeping hunters in the back seat.

As they were leaving, several people thanked me. I say “you’re welcome,” but I’m really not sure why they are thanking me. To review… My dog was able to retrieve four birds this morning. We’ve been working with canvas bumpers for the last month, but cold canvas in the yard is no substitute for warm feathers in the wetland. I was able to see people I haven’t seen since the hunt last year and catch up. I was able to spend a beautiful sunrise in a duck blind. What’s that saying, even a bad day in a duck blind is better than a good day…where? Well, just about anywhere! I was able to talk to the next generation of hunters, duck stamps buyers and voters. As far as I’m concerned, all of this was done for purely selfish reasons. No altruism here. And there’s no need to thank me for being selfish.

-Mentor Greg Hoch, Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District

Biomimcry: The Mother Nature of Invention

2010-09-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

In the shimmering brilliance of the final product, the design process can fade, unnoticed and unappreciated, like pale yellow in the sun. There’s no denying that the design process is a labor intensive process, but in some cases, it is one that can be mitigated with careful observation of the surrounding environment.
Nature has many lessons to teach. Some of which are best practices of design. From the Greek words that mean life and imitation, biomimcry is the art of invention by employing design principles that imitate nature. In short, it is using nature as a model for the creation of the things we need to live, love and play. Many innovations have employed nature’s philosophy for efficient and effective problem solving. The most famous example is the invention of Velcro, inspired by an engineer’s observation of burrs stuck to his dog’s fur. Other examples include African termite mounds that inspired building cooling systems, butterfly wing influenced solar panels and higher efficiency turbines that feature designs sparked by the flippers of humpback whales. Mother Nature’s ability to so effectively and efficiently sustain the complex system of life found on Earth is inspiration in and of itself. For more examples of biomimcry, visit the following websites:
Coolest Biomimcry: http://brainz.org/15-coolest-cases-biomimicry/
Design Inspiration from Nature: http://inhabitat.com/2010/07/16/finding-design-inspiration-in-nature-biomimicry-for-a-better-planet/
Biomimcry: http://www.designboom.com/contemporary/biomimicry.html
How would nature solve green building challenges: http://www.asknature.org/
How Biomimcry Works: http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/evolution/biomimicry2.htm
Butterfly Wing Inspired Turbines: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/02/biomimicry-breakthrough-butterfly-wings-solar-panels.php .
--Valerie Rose Redmond
External Affairs

A Deeper Shade of Green A Deeper Shade of Green

2010-09-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

At last the wait is over. On August 7, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge flung open its doors to the public after a year of renovation with a grand reopening celebration of its Visitor Center in Bloomington, Minn. The meticulously planned and heavily anticipated event was a virtual who’s who of Minnesota, notably with Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congresswoman Betty McCollum on hand with Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius for the celebrations.
After a hiatus of more than 15 months, the visitor center for America’s largest urban national wildlife refuge (built in 1989) re-emerged with style—green style. While the efficiency project was retrofitted to a 21-year old building, it is without a doubt, sustainable architecture at its best, the new center features solar panels, a geothermal heating and cooling system, and halogens energy.
The 24 solar panels that top the penthouse of the center are not photovoltaic but are instead used to produce domestic water and to supplement heating. The panels produce 268.8 million BTUs per year. The hot water that is produced from this power heats the building. There are 60 geothermal wells that provide all of the air conditioning needs and provide heat when needed. An ice tank that is linked to the geothermal system and provides additional cooling needs on very hot days. "We put in an ice storage system which is composed of CALMAC," says Marie Niesen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Office lead engineer on the project. "It’s a one of a kind design for the region." Niesen who also worked on an Agassiz NWR project to repair the solar panel to heat the maintenance building there, estimates that the installation the state-of-the-art design at Minnesota Valley NWR will reduce the facility’s energy usage and subsequent costs by approximately 40%. Niesen worked on the Morris Wetland Management District renovation, as well.
The visitor center now also features high efficiency lighting system, an air curtain on the back door that reduces energy loss when door is opened and three energy recovery units that transfer energy from exhaust to fresh air when entering building. "We also put energy efficient lighting throughout the building. And in so doing, we enhanced the building’s appearance," Niesan notes.
The design was done by MEP Associates out of Eau Claire, Wis. The Construction was awarded to LS Black of St. Paul, Minn., says Niesen. She along with Tom Kerr (St. Croix WMD) and Roy Wassather (retired), worked on the requirements and reviewed the designs submittals as they were developed. "They could have just put in a conventional boiler system, but being the regional energy manager, I’m familiar with the energy requirements that need to be met in new buildings and major redesigns of existing buildings," Niesen says. She had to ensure that those requirements were being met by MEP’s design, she says. The sustainable renovation highlights has attracted the attention of the Minnesota Renewable Energy Society, a non-profit that promotes the use of renewable energies in Minnesota through education and demonstration of practical applications. MRES would like to put the refuge on its annual October solar tour (http://mnrenewables.org/solar-tour). Doug Shoemaker, Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of the organization, indicates that the typical sightseers on the tour are people who are looking for what they can do for their own homes. They subsequently become part of the tour themselves.
In addition to the energy reductions, the lobby was gutted and reemerged with a new theme. The new green style answers one simple question that may be on the minds of visitors who stopover the new center: "Who needs a refuge?"
Renovation highlights in supporting the new theme include a butterfly garden at the entrance, a lobby information kiosk displaying public usage to the tune of 250,000-275,000, a new exhibit area that features an eye spy turtle, a snake den, press to hear wood peckers, and a tiger salamander among other critters. As with the event itself, attention was paid to design detail, as even the leaves in the exhibit area have insect damage to enhance authenticity.
--Valerie Rose Redmond
External Affairs

Michigan Oil Spill Response

2010-09-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

As efforts to contain and clean up the Gulf Coast oil spill continue into the fall, the Midwest must now deal with its own environmental contamination crisis from an oil spill in Southern Michigan. A pipeline leak which occurred on July 26, caused more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil to leak into Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River, which ultimately flows into Lake Michigan. The pipeline belongs to Canadian oil company Enbridge, Inc. Over the course of several days, the spill spread 30 miles down the Kalamazoo River, but containment crews were able to respond in enough time to prevent the oil from moving into the Great Lakes.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service arrived on site within hours of being notified of the spill. Service employees have since worked tirelessly to recover compromised wildlife and kick-start damage assessment work.
Since late July, Service biologists, in partnership with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (MDNRE), have rescued more than 200 oiled animals, including mallards, muskrats, geese, and turtles from the Battle Creek, Kalamazoo and Marshall areas. Once captured, wildlife is brought to the Wildlife Response Center in Marshall, Mich., where animals are stabilized, cleaned and eventually released back into the wild. The Wildlife Response Center is operated by an Enbridge contractor, Focus Wildlife.
On August 2, five soft shell turtles became the first wildlife to be rehabilitated and released back into the wild. Since then, many more animals have been successfully cleaned and relocated to safe and suitable habitats.
In addition to assisting Michigan DNRE with wildlife rescue and recovery, Service officials are assessing natural resources to ensure the public resources for the damaged by the oil spill are compensated by the responsible party, and to ensure that the community’s lands and waters may one day be restored to their pre-spill state.
--Ashley Spratt
and
Katie Steiger-Meister

Minnesota Valley NWR Administrator Connie Grant

2010-09-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

In her job as Administrative Support Assistant at the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, Constance Grant is in a unique position. In addition to her administrative duties which include performing clerical, technical accounting, procurement, personnel, attendance and budgeting tasks, she also has the opportunity to shadow co-workers out in the field, which she says makes a real difference in her job. "This enables me to better respond to telephone inquiries from surrounding communities and curious individuals wanting to know what a refuge is all about," she says.
Upon her arrival to her new job last March , she was given two separate tours of the units. The first was with a park ranger and the other with a fire officer. Grant was amazed at the wide expanse of land. "I could not believe that we managed eight units from Bloomington to Jordan," she says.
What was great about the opportunity was that she was able to glean information from two diverse perspectives. "Both individuals had different views of what they were showing me," she says. She also had the opportunity to go out with a biologist in search of one of our native flowers: the Virginia Blue Bell. Several were found near the Bass Ponds trout stream and the biologist explained to her how they actually created fish ladders. The ladders are created for small fish that cannot jump over six inches of water to reach the spawning area. Grant says it was an awesome experience.
Also responsible for refuge visitor activities and events, Grant was on hand on August 7 for the grand reopening of the Minnesota Valley NWR Visitor Center. She guided some of the visitors (approximately 250 in total attended the event) through walking tours and helped with children’s activities.
A native of San Antonio, Texas, Grant says that she enjoyed taking Alamo River walks and looking at all the beautiful missions. Grant says she was attracted to the Service because of its involvement with environmental issues, climate change, and animal migration. "Although I am on the administrative side I enjoy the outdoors," she says. "I feel that the environment should be taken care of and protected for future generations to enjoy."

--Valerie Rose Redmond
External Affairs

Success for DeSoto NWR/Blair Community Schools

2010-09-01T07:54:00.001-07:00

Through the Blair/DeSoto Environmental Education Partnership, students meet curriculum standards in core and exploratory subject areas while learning in an authentic, place-based experience at DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge. In school year 2009-2010, students from Blair Community school’s fifth, seventh and high school environmental studies classes visited the refuges six times for programs integrated into classroom studies. This school year yielded 2,887 student visits to the refuge to participate in 79 programs. This partnership not only promotes academic excellence it also increases U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awareness and appreciation while increasing visitation to the refuge.
All students in Blair fifth, seventh and high school environmental science made six successive trips this year to the refuge where they garnered real life experience studying topics they learned about the in the classroom as part of their participation in the Blair/DeSoto Environmental Education Partnership. Class visits built upon visits that occurred during the fall semester.
Fifth graders have learned about adaptations and predator/prey relationship by studying the bald eagle. During this three hour program, students took part in an indoor presentation about the bald eagle and then a refuge tour to get to see bald eagles. Seeing the Bald Eagle nest on the refuge was a highlight for many students. The fifth graders have developed observation and critical thinking skills through a scientific inquiry program at the refuge. During this three hour program, rangers guided students through activities designed to help students use their senses like describing the smell of leaves or the feel of a deer jawbone. Students were then asked to use these skills during a one hour silent observation time on a refuge trail. For the fifth grade students, the year culminated with the all day Outdoor Education Day where students got to participate in a variety of outdoor activities including cooking breakfast over a campfire, fishing, canoeing, wetland investigation at Wood Duck Pond, and a snake encounter session. The fifth grade classes visited DeSoto NWR six times for three hour sessions throughout the year.
Fifth grader, Austen Churchill, summed up the year this way, "At first I didn’t know much about nature. That changed this year when I went to DeSoto. Nobody knows everything about nature, but I have learned a lot of things about nature. This summer, I plan to go back to DeSoto and walk on a trail. I might end up studying nature when I grow up."
For seventh grade students, their spring trip to the refuge included a little bit of everything they had been studying in the classrooms. Students participated in a bird migration game to learn the importance of stopovers and resting spots during migration and how DeSoto NWR helps to fill some of that need. Students spent some time in the woods looking for birds to observe. They also completed a math activity using proportions to estimate the total number of trees in the forest. These activities all tied back to concepts being studied in the classroom. Seventh grade classes visited the refuge six times for an hour and a half at a time furing the year.
Middle School exploratory technology students used the refuge to learn about digital photography. A pilot program this school year, students will be assisting the refuge in years to come with documenting habitat projects taking place on the refuge. Other potential projects are being discussed for this exciting new part of the partnership.
The high school environmental studies classes used the refuge to study soil quality, water quality and fire ecology. These are all lessons being taught in the classroom but with the refuge as an authentic learning experience helps the students make real world connections to the material learned in the classroom. Wildlife Refuge Specialist Steve Van Riper worked with these classes to provide students the perspective of a wildlife biologist on the refuge. High school environmental studies classes visited the refuge six times for an hour and a half each during the year.
The school year concluded with a teacher’s workshop for twelve Blair teachers and two administrators. The workshop focused on nature journals and was co-taught by DeSoto NWR Visitor Services Specialist Ashley Berkler and Prairie Wetlands Learning Center Instructional Systems Specialist Dave Ellis. Teacher evaluations rated the workshop excellent. One teacher wrote "It [the workshop] gave me many ideas to incorporate into my classroom. It gave me a chance to enjoy the outdoors."
Both the refuge and school district are committed to the continued success and growth of this partnership. Blair Community Schools Superintendent Jane Stavem said, "Outdoor education is a unique opportunity for our students to learn district curriculum in a completely authentic environment. It allows students to learn through experience, rather than a simulated situation in a classroom. I have seen the difference it makes and I think every student should have the opportunity to experience this type of hands-on, real learning experience. It is really the essence of what true learning is all about."
Next school year, the current grades and classes will continue to utilize the refuge with the addition of third, sixth, and eighth grade classes. Art and exploratory technology classes are also beginning to use the refuge for their studies several times a school year. The 2009-2010 school year yielded a total of 79 programs and 2,887 student visits by students in Blair Community Schools.
This is the fourth year of the Blair/DeSoto Environmental Education Partnership. The mission of the partnership is to create a sense of wonder through environmental education in an outdoor classroom, a partnership with the Blair Community Schools "Where all Students Learn" and DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge "Where Wildlife Comes First."
--Ashley Berkler

TURNING SEA LAMPREYS INTO TV STARS

2010-09-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

Sea lampreys are coming to a television station near you! Pete Mathiesen and Jeff Breitenstein, from North American Media Group, an independent filming company attached to Versus Television, are filming various activities of the Sea Lamprey Management Program for an upcoming TV special, likely in December 2010. The film crew is creating four 22-minute shows about invasive species in the Great Lakes and their species of choice are sea lampreys, round gobys, asian carp, and zebra/quagga mussels; they chose to do the show on sea lampreys first. Staff was both interviewed and filmed conducting adult trapping activities, electrofishing for larval sea lampreys using backpack gear, sterilizing adult male lampreys at the sterilization facility near Rogers City, Mich., conducting a TFM lampricide treatment on Albany Creek (Lake Huron), and most recently, treating specific areas with granular Bayluscide on the St. Marys River with a newly designed aquatic pesticide application boat. The TV special will highlight the success of the management program and emphasize the dedication of the people and the use of state-of-the-art technologies to control sea lampreys in the Great Lakes.
The Service’s sea lamprey management program continues to work closely with partners to control populations of sea lampreys in tributaries of the Great Lakes to protect the fishery and related economic activities in the basin (an estimated annual benefit of $7-8 billion/year to the region). The Service delivers a program of integrated sea lamprey control in U.S. waters of the Great Lakes as a contracted agent of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Michael Fodale
R3-Marquette Bio Station

Midwest Region CAD Team Leads FWS in ARRA Contract Execution

2010-09-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

Cheers may have echoed as the region learned it would receive $28.5 million for more than 70 ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) projects. Those may also have included some initial gasps from the soon to be formed regional team that realized the mountain to be climbed to get that bulk of projects contracted. The task would require sprinter paced turnaround times.
Those gasps have turned back to cheers again as the professionals from the Construction and Acquisition Division lead the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in climbing that steep mountain and moving the paper needed so the construction teams could focus on moving dirt.
With a seemingly overwhelming load of projects to bid and award, layered atop an already full load of the year’s regular projects, ingenuity was a key to success for the Construction and Acquisition Division team. Undaunted by the challenge, their staff worked long and productive hours to set the Service standard in awarding all contracts and grants for $28.5 million in ARRA projects.
"With an additional 70-plus contracts to design and award, and extensive review and oversight guidelines, like 5-page checklists atop the existing 6-page standard checklist, time didn’t allow for any slip ups," said Cathy Vanatta, Chief of the Construction and Acquisition Division. "We needed a strategy and I believe my team came up with a winning formula that we applied to handle the challenge." Regional Director Tom Melius concurred. "Time and time again, I see the people in this region face what might seem like insurmountable challenges at the time and take care of business in such an outstanding fashion" he said. "The value to this region from the ARRA projects is huge for the resource and our work with the resource, and the CAD staff put forth an equally huge effort to move this to the next hurdle toward accepting completed work from our contractors. Yet another job well done by those folks."
One of the key contract strategies used that allowed Vanatta and her staff to reach their goals was the use of MATOCs (Multiple Award Task Order Contracts). MATOCs are pre-placed contracts that are competed for and that successful contractors are pre-qualified for. This enabled an abbreviated solicitation and negotiation period in awarding each project.
Vanatta said, "We awarded 4-5 contracts per state to the most qualified firms and then could compete specific projects by price among those firms in the area. The result was quality competition for projects without the typical 51-day advertisement period."
Chris Jensen, Assistant Regional Director of Administration, said, "I’m so proud of the great work from our entire staff in leading the way for contract awards for the Service. With the goals of ARRA being to move quickly and stimulate the economy, really within a 13-month window, the effort meant about a 300 percent increase in the entire Service’s annual construction and acquisition workload. An amazing feat by our staff."
"The project rewards are many for the resource and the communities where these projects are located. Fancy desks aren’t important, the resource and tools to work with the resource are," said Vanatta. "There are the visible additions of new energy efficient visitors centers, additions of raceways at some of our hatcheries, habitat improvements, youth employment, private land partnerships and so much more. But just as important is the excitement and appreciation from the local people. It’s so touching when many have stopped by our field offices just to see the progress as the work begins. It’s just very gratifying to see that people are so happy after all the work that was involved to reach this point."
Vanatta noted that while leading the way in the Service in contract awards for the 70-plus ARRA projects, this really still signifies the beginning. "Now is when the real work begins," she said. "When shovels hit the ground and people are put to work in accomplishing the tasks laid out in each of these projects."
Yes, the work is begun, but Vanatta and her staff cleared many hurdles to help pass the baton to the people on the ground who would do that work. Awarding these contracts came with the unusual challenge of layers of reviews at the national level (looking at both new and existing rules), peer reviews, reviews within her own staff, and the potential for audits all along the way to project completion.
"We’ve just had many, many more hoops to clear, department review of anything over $1 million dollars, Service review if over $500,000, and any ongoing audit completion," she said. "But thanks to our own regional leadership trusting in our abilities and refraining from micromanaging our efforts, we were able to get an amazing amount of work done very quickly. And, despite additional reporting requirements for contractors involved, there was still a tremendous enthusiasm to be a part of making each of these projects happen."
The region’s success in these first phases of implementation of the ARRA projects was also a result of the enthusiasm of individuals and companies in the local communities who raised their hand to take part in normally time consuming aspects such as construction inspection.
"We had 34 people alone who sent in resumes from as far away as Neosho, Mo., for construction inspection. They not only brought with them some great credentials of work experience but they were obviously excited to be a part of this amazing initiative that benefits our resources. This saved on staff time and travel expenses as well," she said. "And with MATOC, we’ve been able to benefit from relying on known contractors who subcontract a great deal of the project in those communities, which keeps the money spent in that local community."
To put into perspective the effort of the regional contracting staff in completing the necessary work to move all of the ARRA projects through, Vanatta notes that this was the equivalent of completing over a year’s worth of contract awards within a tight 3-month window.
"There was a lot of strategy involved in meeting our requirements within the timeframe allotted. Each of the Service’s regions have some specific timeframes when construction work reaches its peak. Such as here where the cold weather season impacts what work can be done," she said. "And bringing in known contractors with those high credentials also freed up the local engineering staff, who were just as inundated with these additional projects, so they could focus more on the detail work."
It’s been a team effort, Vanatta pointed out, with close coordination by members of the region’s RAIT (Recovery Act Implementation Team), flexibility of staff members dealing with the normal turnover of employee retirements and those moving to new jobs, as well as the high level of enthusiasm and support throughout the way by regional management.
"Everyone is proud and will continue to be proud of the finished products. These are not inferior products. We’re talking about visitors centers with state-of-the-art energy efficiency and 40-50 year lifespan. The LEED certification, alone, means savings on operating expenses in a facility that will last a very long time."
Much has been accomplished and much remains to be done as the projects head further down the tracks toward completion. "We’ve met and exceeded the paper goals in leading the Service in obligating funds for the projects, and now we will see those benefits in terms of shovel to dirt and putting people to work. And we’ll remain very involved in making sure that all specifications for these projects are met as we accept each of the finished products."
Staff who contributed to the region leading the way in contract awards include: Craig Swedenborg, Sue Humphrey, Kim Maccani, Tiffany Breske, Pete Casillas, Elaine DeGroot, Carol Fix, Rick Hillard, Andrew McDermott, Erin McFadden, Marie Niesen, Lauretha Randle, David Swanson, Delores Aldinger, Jenessa Humphrey, Jamie Lewis, Meaghan Nelson, Dan Richardson, Jim Lindquist, Bill Wilson, Cheryl Schwartz, Scott Cadwallader, Terry Pennaz, Patrick Peine, Gary Hausdorf, Todd Criswell, Matthew Spielbauer, Mike Brickley and Ken Kaseforth.
--Larry Dean
External Affairs

Be a Part of the Movement! Celebrate Wetlands on October 10, 2010 for 10 Minutes

2010-08-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

The Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge is gearing up for a world-wide celebration of the Refuge’s recent designation as a Wetland of International Importance or Ramsar wetland.

Be a part of this world-wide event by celebrating a wetland in your own backyard. Join the 10-10-10 for 10! Celebrating Working Wetlands! event by hosting a gathering and join an international movement in a low-carbon way.

Here are helpful guidelines:

Events must be held October 10, 2010 and last for at least 10 minutes.

The name of the event needs to be formatted this way: "10 -10-10 for 10! Celebrating Working Wetlands - ." For example: 10 -10-10 for 10! Celebrating Working Wetlands – Friends of Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge

At least 10 people must attend.
The event must be held in or by a wetland. Wetlands are broadly defined as streams and rivers, lakes and ponds, marshes and swamps, estuaries and beaches, even caves with emerging springs!

Do 10 things at your event such as: Identify 10 birds, Identify 10 plants, List 10 reasons you love this place, Meet 10 new people, Pick up 10 pounds of trash, Catch 10 fish, You get the idea, do something with 10!
Take a photo with a legible sign showing the location name. Send photos to uppermississippiriver@fws.gov by October 12, 2010 to be included in the celebratory video for the official ceremony to be held on October 14, 2010. Please format your photo name as noted above.

Many Refuges, Friends groups and individuals have already started planning. Friends of the Refuge Headwaters are using their Facebook page to promote the events. Mississippi Wild is planning a ceremony at the Brownsville Overlook where thousands of swans and waterfowl congregate during the fall migration. Friends of Pool 10 will be hosting a 10 minute celebration near Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin and Friends of Pool 9 will be helping with monetary donations to off-set some of the costs.

Questions? Contact Cindy_Samples@fws.gov, Visitor Services Manager at Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota.

Student Employees

2010-08-17T09:57:00.001-07:00

The Fergus Falls Wetland Management District in Minnesota has had the opportunity to have a handful of helpful STEP enrollees and a SCEP employee this summer to work with. STEP (Student Temporary Employment Program), and SCEP (Student Career Employment Program) are two programs that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses to employ youth. There youth employees are working for the WMD completing a wide range of tasks from administrative to physical labor. The STEP enrollees, Kyle Kosak, Zach Larson, Ty Macheledt, and Robert Schmidt are working on a variety of activities including boundary posting, minnow counts, as well as maintenance and construction projects. Monica Schmidt, the sole SCEP employee is working in an administrative position in the WMD office.
In the spring of 2009, Monica’s school advisor helped her find and set up a summer internship as part of her course work at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minn. The internship she applied for was in the STEP program. Last summer, Monica was hired by the Fergus Falls Wetland Management District as a STEP enrollee to fulfill a number of duties ranging from using GIS to line up photos, to organizing easement folders, and entering pair count data for the Habitat Population Evaluation Team into a computer data base. However, the most important part, she says, about her experience last summer, was the offer to continue on for the summer of 2010 as a SCEP enrollee. This summer, her duties have changed a little. They now include familiarizing herself with programs and information that she will need to know throughout her career. She has also been able to do some traveling this summer for training, which she says has been a great experience for her and she has learned a great deal which will help her in her future work with the Service. "The past two summers have been a work experience I wouldn’t trade for anything," she says. Schmidt says she would like to stay with the service after her SCEP is done because she likes the idea of having a government job and she likes the people she works with.
--Nikolai Kleven
External Affairs

2010-08-17T09:54:00.001-07:00

Conservation intern Irma Tapia works with the Upper Mississippi Refuge in their conservation efforts of the state threatened ornate box turtle. She tracks turtles in remnant populations in the area. She is also responsible for entering data, contributing to reports about the turtles, and processing new turtles. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contracted Tapia, one of nine students, through the National Council on Science and the Environment. Aside from working with turtles Tapia has also aided with nest productivity counts of egrets, herons and eagles. Tapia says that her fishing experience is limited but she had great fun electrofishing.
A San Diego native, Tapia moved to Pullman, Wash. to attend Washington State University and attain her B.S. in Zoology. She then moved to Ames, Iowa to get her M.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. She learned of the Conservation Internship Program through a former Iowa State student that is currently working for the Service.
For her master’s research, Tapia did radio-telemetry work with white-tailed jackrabbits. "I enjoy watching wildlife and being able to track animals. [It] gives you a better understanding of individual behaviors and how movements may be affected by a myriad of factors, including anthropogenic ones," she says. "It’s also great that my field work is so close to many vacationers out on the river so I get the opportunity to do a lot of community outreach in the field. I often get people who stop and ask me what I am doing and why. So most days I get to teach people a little something about the turtles."
After her internship, Tapia has been given the opportunity to teach a mammalogy course at Drake University in the fall. "I think that having the opportunity to work with a broader range of animals will give me a better background from which to teach about a specific group of animals and how they compare to other groups."
--Valerie Rose Redmond
External Affairs

In the Field with Lionel Grant

2010-08-17T08:07:00.000-07:00

As a SCEP student and Visitor Services Park Ranger for Minnesota Valley National
Wildlife Refuge, Lionel Grant is responsible for the creation and implementation of
environmental education programming. He is charged with the task of finding ways to
connect surrounding members of the underserved community with the refuge.
Grant says his interest was piqued in the Service while serving as chapter president of an organization called Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources & Related Sciences (MANRRS) at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. His goal was to find ways that MANRRS could get involved with the Crab Orchard NWR which is located just outside of Carbondale, in Marion, Ill. As a then volunteer at a local refuge, he heard about a possible SCEP opening in the Midwest Region through an e-mail. "I jumped on it," he says. "I landed my career in the Service by maintaining a healthy relationship with refuges within my area."

Grant’s first job for the Service was made possible by the Student Conservation Association (SCA). "As a junior at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, I had heard of this organization while attending a national MANRRS conference back in 2008", he says. He landed a successful interview with Virginia Retting of Cape May National Wildlife Refuge in Cape May Court House, New Jersey.
Throughout his development as an undergrad, Grant says that there were a few people that he looked to as mentors but there is one that stands out the most. Dr. Dexter Wakefield, an Associate Professor in Agriculture Education at Southern Illinois University Carbondale was a major influence in his life. "He has advised me throughout my time at SIUC," Grant says, "and always been there to lend his support. Dr. Wakefield encouraged me to take my first venture with USFWS through SCA and for that, I am thankful."
Grant is the first in his immediate family to complete college by earning a Bachelor in Science from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. At present he is pursuing a Masters in Forestry: Human Dimensions of Natural Resources with Emphasis on Nature Deficits Disorder. He is the first in his extended family to embark on such an endeavor, as well.
Grant’s beaming enthusiasm is nothing less than contagious when asked about the children and nature programs at the Minnesota Valley NWR that he’s involved in. "This program fuels my passion because I always believed there needs to be a connection that children can make both in and outside of the classroom," he says. "This program does just that. Not only does this educate children on why what we do is important, but it also helps protect wildlife by creating environmental stewards. The most rewarding feeling I get is when we hear back about how the children are still inspired to learn about nature. That lets me know that we are doing our job (and affecting their lives)."
Grant is also a trained "Flying Wild" Program Facilitator. In this role, he helps to cultivate student’s birder knowledge.
The biggest challenge he faces is navigating in around the unknown social barriers. He says that dealing with youth in their teens can be difficult. In his own youth he remembers having had a lot of mixed emotions about people in uniforms. As a Chicago teen, some of his experiences with people in uniforms were not positive, an experience that is not uncommon in underserved communities. "Another major factor is that for decades minorities, especially African Americans, have been bound by fears that we don’t belong in the forests," he says. "I was not exempt from this pattern of thinking. Instead of a re-introduction [to nature] it is an introduction to minorities for the first time." These are all issues that the Service must overcome to be successful in its objectives.
Grant plans to use his teachings to help enhance our environmental education programs that are implemented throughout the Service. He says he hopes his future in the Service will allow him to help open doors for others. Grant’s engaging personality will serve him well in this endeavor.

--Valerie Rose Redmond
External Affairs

Banding Piping Plovers

2010-08-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

How many Piping Plovers nest in the Great Lakes?
How many Piping Plovers survive from one summer to the next?

These are a few of the questions population biologists such as myself try to answer. Our goal is to track how the health of a population changes overtime and to identify components of the environment (e.g. predators, weather) that influence these changes. To answer these questions, we place bands on the legs of Great Lakes Piping Plovers, such as BOXg and LXOL, and follow their movement and behavior throughout the breeding season (May-July).

University of Minnesota researchers, operating out of the University of Michigan Biological Station, have banded Great Lakes Piping Plovers since 1993. Before they learn how to fly, each chick receives a numbered aluminum metal band and a combination of color bands signifying the nest from which it hatched. The unique number on the metal band will ultimately tell the life story of each bird: where and when it hatched, who its parents were and how long it lives.

When a Piping Plover returns to nest as an adult, we recapture it, read and record the number on its metal band, and then give it a unique combination of color bands and an orange flag. The orange flag signifies that this plover nests in the Great Lakes (different colored flags are used for different breeding populations). This new band combination becomes the plover’s name, allowing us to identify each individual by reading its band combination with binoculars or a spotting scope.

Throughout the summer, monitors like Alice and Thaddeus pay close attention to the band combinations of the birds they watch. They record the individuals they see daily and make sure to determine which individuals (and band combinations) are associated with each nest they find. This information gives us an estimate of our population size in terms of the number of nesting pairs.

The banding and resighting data collected on Great Lakes Piping Plovers have provided us with a wealth of information on our population. For example, we can trace the lineage of Great Lakes plovers and determine how frequently close relatives mate with each other, a phenomenon that can lead to population declines. Additionally, we know that adult Piping Plovers have a 77% chance of surviving from one summer to the next, and that they are most likely to die in the spring.

Finally, because of the efforts of dedicated birders we know that most Great Lakes Piping Plovers winter in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. This information has been used to protect habitat important for Great Lakes plovers. In the near future, banding data on Piping Plovers nesting across North America will help us assess the impact of the Gulf Coast oil spill on the survival of this species.

Erin Roche is a researcher with the University of Minnesota.

Report from the Field - The Piping Plover Story Continues

2010-08-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

As the end of July approaches, the Great Lakes Piping Plover breeding season for 2010 is nearing an end. Although a few late nesters remain with eggs or chicks, many have completed the breeding cycle and are beginning their long journey back to their winter homes. The 2010 breeding season fell slightly short of our goal of a continued increase in population numbers. Our preliminary estimate for this year is approximately 60 breeding pairs. Last season we set the record, with 71 breeding pairs, and we all hoped for a continued increase. Nevertheless, we had another successful year in many regards, and our long-term population trend continues upward.

Like past years, piping plovers in the Great Lakes faced many challenges, such as severe storms, disease and the threat of predation. Lucky for us, and the piping plovers, the many dedicated field staff and other members of the Great Lakes Piping Plover, were up to these challenges and helped to mitigate these threats. And once again many landowners offered their cooperation in protecting the birds by allowing access by field crews and agreeing to limit disturbance. This level of cooperation could not be more evident, than the recent example of the piping plover pair that chose to nest within a few feet of a volleyball net on private property. First discovered by a group of volunteers, the prospect for success for this plover pair seemed limited. But the good will and efforts of all involved resulted in a successful nest, and, at last count, all chicks remained alive and well. Sometimes a program’s success is measured in more than in just numbers.

The many partners in the recovery program will soon meet to discuss the issues of the 2010 breeding season, and plan for the next. Data will be tallied and analyzed, and reports prepared. Some of the field crew, like the plovers, will move on to distant locations. Hopefully both will return next year, in even greater numbers.

Jack Dingledine is an endangered species biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s East Lansing Michigan Field Office.

July: End of the Nesting Season

2010-08-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

Monitoring Piping Plovers

Just as crowds of humans arrive at the beach, the summer breeding season is drawing to a close for BOXg and LXOL (BOXg and LXOL are the designations for a pair of piping plovers at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan).

BOXg and LXOL spent June and early July taking turns guarding their growing chicks from ravens, crows, stray dogs and beach-going humans. Their chicks spent their time eating, getting bigger and growing feathers.
Insulating feathers allow the young plovers to spend more time feeding, since they repel the cold and wet. The chicks no longer need to take shelter under their parents. Young plover chicks must eat large numbers of midges and other small invertebrates to support their rapid growth and the development of feathers.

The week of June 21st brought a big change to the lives of BOXg and LXOL: their chicks began to fly. Initially the chicks appeared surprised when they opened their wings and were lifted off the sand. Within days, though, they had learned to control their new skill and were using it to escape from neighboring plover parents who didn’t want them intruding on their territories. However, like Piping Plovers of all ages, they continued to run as their first method of escape.

On June 25th LXOL left her family. Once Piping Plover chicks are large and beginning to fly, the mothers usually leave the rest of the child-raising duties to their mates. The females begin their trip south, or sometimes visit other beaches in the Great Lakes. Once in a while they even show up well north of their nesting locations. There are many things we still don’t understand about Piping Plover migration.

After the chicks learn to fly, one last job remains for those of us who monitor the brood - counting the number of flying chicks. This can be a difficult task, as they quickly begin to leave their family groups. Over the weekend before June 21st one of BOXg and LXOL’s chicks went missing. Try as we might, we were unable to account for the chick with a red mark on its band. It appeared that BOXg and LXOL had lost a chick this summer. As a last effort, on June 30, we hiked the four miles south of where the chicks had hatched. There, alone, four miles away from home, was the missing chick. BOXg and LXOL had, once again, successfully raised all four chicks.

The chicks have all now moved on down the beach; but BOXg sometimes still stops by to feed on his summer territory.

This year the departure of the Piping Plovers is especially poignant. The winter grounds to which some will travel are being affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Those of us who dedicate so much time protecting plovers helplessly watch as the tragedy unfolds. If there were something we could do, we would, in a minute. Luckily many of our plovers winter on the Atlantic coast; but LXOL is one who has been documented wintering in Louisiana. Will she survive the oil? Will she find food on tidal flats and along the shore when the foundation of the Gulf food web has been destroyed? Will she be back next summer with BOXg raising another brood of chicks on their territory at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore? Early next April, you can be sure, I’ll be out on the beach anxiously watching for her and all of her summer neighbors to return. I’ll let you know...

Alice Van Zoeren of Empire Township in Leelanau County is involved in many natural history and outdoor education endeavors. She has been observing, protecting and enjoying piping plovers at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore for seven summers as a research assistant through a partnership between the National Park Service, the Michigan DNRE and the University of Minnesota.

Struggles and Triumphs in the Piping Plover’s Fight for Survival

2010-08-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

There are many things about piping plovers you can’t learn until you spend time with them: how they can disappear into the sand like experienced magicians, the way they can spot an avian predator long before you can, and how they can dodge around dune grass that’s four times as tall as they are. There are those who think we, plover monitors, have lost our marbles because of the long hours dedicated to these shorebirds. Sometimes I agree with them, especially on the days when Lake Superior roars and I have to point my umbrella sideways to stay dry. However, the long days and the unforgiving weather are worth it, if only because the time and effort means this elegant species may exist long into the future.

Three months ago, I had never even seen a piping plover. They were just another bird on that long, elusive list of endangered species – a bird that I could do very little, if anything, to help. Then, suddenly, I became a part-time monitor. I found myself alone on a beach, instructed to not only find and identify the ten birds that resided on this stretch of sand but also protect the four nests of precious eggs that could potentially become the next generation. I also had to make sure that the tourists and residents who frequented the beach were aware of the plovers and their history, because public support is such a vital part of working with endangered species.

The fight for survival is not easy for the birds or humans. I watched the adults diligently incubate the stony eggs for a month and then witnessed the fluffy chicks run so fast they tripped and somersaulted through the sand. I watched the chicks learn survival tactics from their parents, and saw their pale, naked wings as they experimentally stretched them. To lose some of these chicks, to predation or disturbance or some other force known only to nature, is heartbreaking. Luckily there are happier endings, like the chick I found that was taken in by biologists after it was injured by a hungry gull. These struggles give you a new respect for the dangers that the surviving plovers face every day.

The chicks on my beach are close to fledging. They zoom around on shaky wings, hovering in the air for a few seconds before touching back down, running as fast as they possibly can on legs that seem too thin to support them before pushing off again into the wild blue yonder. It makes you want to fly around with them, and you almost wish you could follow when they eventually head south. Such is the life of a plover monitor: to wait for the birds to grow up and return, and to continue in this endless fight for survival. Therein lies one of the most important things you can learn from a plover: don’t ever give up.

Jill Sekely is an intern with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. From May through July she monitored piping plover nests on the shore of Lake Superior. Piping plovers are an endangered shorebird.

Update from Marshall, Michigan - Enbridge Oil Spill Response

2010-08-04T13:29:00.001-07:00

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is actively participating in the response effort for the Enbridge oil spill, which began on Monday, July 26. Enbridge estimates that more than 800,000 gallons of crude oil leaked into Talmadge Creek, extending 30 miles down the Kalamazoo River in Southwestern, Michigan. As of today, more than 99,000 feet of boom has been deployed. The USFWS role is to provide technical assistance to the Unified Incident Command, and collect evidence for the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA), which analyzes the overall damage to natural resources in order for the public resources to be compensated by the responsible party, Enbridge.

A wildlife rehabilitation center in Marshall, Mich. has been established to stabilize and rehabilitate oiled wildlife that is being rescued by trained wildlife responders.

Today's Wildlife Numbers:
130 animals are currently in care at the rehabilitation center including:
64 Canada Geese
12 Mallards
2 Domestic Geese
2 Mute Swans
1 Red Wing Blackbird
5 Muskrats
42 Turtles

5 softshell turtles were released on Monday into their natural wetland habitat, away from the spill site. See the video here:

Update from the Gulf: Tropical Storm/Depression Bonnie causes limited disruption to field operations at Grand Isle, La.

2010-07-25T12:27:00.001-07:00

Tropical Storm/Depression Bonnie lost strength as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico on Friday and Saturday.

Weather conditions have improved and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assessment and logistics teams have already begun moving back in to Grand Isle, La. The rest of the Wildlife Operations crew will be leaving for Grand Isle on Monday morning and hope to be back conducting rescue and recovery operations by Monday afternoon.

Thankfully this storm did not develop into a full tropical storm or hurricane and the loss of operational time was minimal. It was also an excellent opportunity to test our emergency plan and assess its effectiveness. Hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico is just beginning, so having effective emergency plans is critical. Initial assessments indicate the plan was very effective.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Operations staff at Grand Isle are anxious to get back to their mission.

- Chuck Traxler, Grand Isle, La., July 25, 2010

Notes from the Gulf – Wildlife Operations from Grand Isle, LA – July 23, 2010

2010-07-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

Due to likely rough weather coming in from Tropical Storm Bonnie, wildlife operations at Grand Isle and other posts along the Gulf Coast will be put on hold for a few days but will resume as soon as the storm subsides. Rough waters make it difficult to safely find and recover injured birds on open waters.

As a result, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Staff and equipment will temporarily relocate to ensure safety of our personnel and then return to normal operations as soon as possible. Currently, we are estimating we’ll be back in operation by Tuesday, July 27, 2010. However, that is all dependent upon the weather.

The safety of our staff is our first concern.

Prior to this suspension of operations, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff have been out on the waters, shorelines and islands around Grand Isle area every day. We are working with our state partners to document, recover and rescue migratory birds impacted by the Deepwater Horizon/BP incident.

We look forward to returning to our mission as soon as possible.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries staff survey islands and waters around Grand Isle for injured birds. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has suspended operations due to Tropical Storm Bonnie, but will be back on the water as soon as it is safe to return.

- Chuck Traxler, Grand Isle, La, July 23, 2010

Notes from the Field: Wildlife Operations in the Gulf

2010-06-30T18:20:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Two evenings ago, the Mobile Wildlife Recovery branch implemented nighttime response operations. Initially, responders for distressed wildlife worked from 6:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. A nighttime crew was established to ensure round-the-clock support for wildlife recovery activities.

I accompanied a recovery crew this morning on a patrol of Orange Beach, a popular vacation spot along the coast of Alabama. This time of year, traffic along the coastal highway is usually stop-and-go, and the parking lots of beach access points are overflowing with tourists and vacationers. Not today. The parking lot was empty, the boat launch closed.

We received a call from dispatch around 10:00 a.m. for an oiled bird spotted by clean-up crew workers in a local marina. After arriving on scene, Juliette Gutierrez, wildlife refuge specialist from Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, identified the bird as a great blue heron, likely less than three weeks old. The bird was visibly oiled; Juliette put on her contaminants wear before collecting the bird and placing it in a secure cage. She called in a “runner” to transport the bird to the closest wildlife rehabilitation facility in Pensacola.

Notes from the Field - Wildlife Recovery Operations in the Gulf

2010-06-28T09:36:00.000-07:00

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Sector: Mobile, Alabama

Today was my first day of a two week detail on the Gulf Coast to support oil spill response efforts. It is 11:40 p.m. and the work day has come to close.

The slick is looming - like a cloud moving through the sky in slow motion. But it is a cloud that does not pass by or clear. It remains, hovering around Alabama's beautiful shores.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plays a leading role in the recovery of wildlife affected by the spill. I am stationed at the Wildlife Recovery post in Mobile, one of many Incident Command structures spread throughout the Gulf.

The Incident Command Post in Mobile is responsible for coordination of wildlife recovery, protection of sensitive lands, and natural resource damage assessment in relation to the oil spill, which since late April, has been an ever present threat to Gulf Coast residents - both its people and its wildlife.

At 0600 hours, the Incident Command Post outlined the Incident Action Plan for the day. Weather forecast: Hot, in the upper 90s, winds from the Southeast...The Wildlife Recovery Dispatch Center went into full operation to respond to calls from the public on sightings of distressed birds and other wildlife. The goal: to get a recovery crew to the animal in distress within 30 minutes of receiving the call.

At 0700 hours, the Spanish Fort Sector dialed in with its sister sectors, branches, and divisions for oil spill response in Mississippi, Florida and Louisiana.

In the short time I have been here, I have already fallen in love with the beauty of the South and its people. John, manager at Camille's, a small restaurant near Spanish Fort, told me, "The crawfish we have are close to the last of the bunch." Like many businesses that depend on the Alabama fishery, Camille's too has suffered. "We sure are happy you all are here," he said.

This evening, FWS representatives attended a Public Forum in Perdido Bay to answer questions from concerned residents regarding their stretch of coast. Many of the folks in the room were part of multiple generations of families - folks who have lived along Alabama's coast for decades. These beaches were their playgrounds as children, and just over a month ago, they remained a pristine paradise.

The Dunes of Perdido Beach are home to the endangered beach mouse. and a plethora of other shorebirds, beach nesting birds and even used as a nesting site by various sea turtle species.

After the public forum, I visited the beach and scanned the area for signs of a sea turtle nest, which I had been told was in the area. What I found was small pieces of weathered, light crule oil, dotting the surfline. At the moment I put my eyes on the evidence - what I had previously only heard about from my FWS peers and the media - it became real for me as an individual.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is committed to ensuring the best resources are made available to recover wildlife and ensure all oil spill operations are conducted with the least negative impact to wildlife and wildlife habitat. We are working on the ground to proactively protect our Refuges and the species that call them home, more than 30 of which could potentially be impacted by the spill.

Over the next two weeks, I hope to provide a closer look at FWS wildlife recovery efforts in this part of the world, as well as introduce you to some of the dedicated staff from across the nation who are part of the largest oil spill response effort in U.S. history.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Bon Secour or "Safe Harbor" National Wildlife Refuge today gave local and national media an opportunity to see the front line of wildlife recovery efforts, and provide candid discussions about the challenges the Refuge will face now and in the future as a result of the oil spill. Refuge staff and wildlife biologists shared with reporters a close-up view of clean-up efforts, as well as the critical habitat many beach-nesting and shorebirds call home. The journalists were fortunate to come across a sea turtle nest, just a few weeks out from hatching.

Wildlife experts are developing a comprehensive plan for these sea turtle eggs - a plan that will increase the likelihood of their survival. Although the rescue of sea turtles off-shore falls under the jurisdiction of NOAA, the Fish and Wildlife Service steps in to protect and conserve this endangered species habitat on-shore.

This media opportunity is just one of many public outreach campaigns underway by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Gulf. A Public Service Announcement is slated to go live next week to engage local community members in the response effort and highlight the current and future commitment of the agency to wildlife recovery and rehabilitation.

PIO Ashley Spratt, Operation Deep Water Horizon

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Click play to view the video of a wildlife rescue in Orange Beach.

2010-06-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Basin-wide Fisheries Management -
Mass Marking in the Great Lakes

The Great Lakes are one of our most valuable and treasured landscapes. They provide not only diverse habitats for freshwater fishes, but their coasts and tributaries also support a wide range of migratory birds and other wildlife, including many of the threatened and endangered species our agency works to protect.

Twenty-five to thirty million fish are stocked in the Great Lakes annually by tribal, state and Federal fishery programs on the U.S. side alone. An additional 10 million are stocked by the Ontario Ministry of Fisheries Resources. However, there has never before been a multijurisdictional-coordinated program across the Great Lakes basin for evaluating these fish in terms of their performance in the wild or their effects on the ecosystem.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently initiated a mass marking program to coded-wire tag and mark (finclip) state and tribal hatchery-reared fish, in addition to those fish stocked by the FWS in the Great Lakes. This technique that has been successfully used in the Northwest for marking hatchery-reared Pacific salmon, and is known as “mass-marking” since millions of fish are rapidly tagged and marked each year.

The mass-marking initiative began as the brain-child of the Council of Lake Committees, a group of policymakers for each of the Great Lakes, under the auspice of the Great Lakes Fisheries Commission (GLFC). They saw what mass marking was doing for salmon management in the Pacific Northwest, and wanted to bring that same capability to the nation’s most valuable freshwater resource, not only for salmon but for native species like lake and brook trout.

In 2003 the Council of Lake Committee initiated an implementation task force, co-chaired by Marianne Daniels from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) Chuck Bronte, to develop cost, equipment, and manpower estimates to implement mass-marking in the Great Lakes, as well as the associated data recovery and analytical capabilities.

“The Service already implements a basin-wide sea lamprey control program and lake trout restoration program, and was well-suited to lead the basin-wide mass marking initiative,” said Bronte, a fishery biologist and data analyst from the FWS’s Green Bay National Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office (FWCO).

The FWS’s Fisheries program already uses coded wire tags (CWT) to evaluate the performance of lake trout raised in Federal fish hatcheries; however, the idea behind the mass marking initiative was to equip the Service with capabilities to also tag State and Tribal hatchery fish.

Coded wire tags are small pieces of metal with numerical codes inserted into the nose of fish that, when recovered, allow fish biologists to look at movements, post release mortality, levels of natural recruitment, wild production and other key factors that influence fisheries management.

“It’s important for managers to know how many wild fish are out there, gauge the impact of the stocked fish, and balance forage availability with the number of salmon and trout that are out there,” said Bronte. “It’s also a way to manage non-native species that are naturalized and part of the system, and consider them in relation to native species management like lake trout and brook trout.”

The implementation task force visited each hatchery across the Great Lakes, to determine species and production schedules with the intention of mapping out equipment profiles.

The task force determined that the use of Northwest Marine Technology’s computer operated automated marking trailers would have the capability to mark 60,000 fish in an eight-hour day, amounting to an overall cost savings of 11 percent over manual methods. The automated trailer also provides better tag retention, more consistent tag placement, and easier tag recovery in the laboratory.

A Great Lakes Regional Marking Committee was established to oversee mass marking activities, and includes members from the States, Tribes, Province of Ontario and FWS. The Great Lakes Regional Marking Committee approved this year a project to mark all Federal lake trout in Region 3 (around 5 million fish) and assist with a validation study that examines natural reproduction by tagging 1.2 million of those fish with oxytetracyclene. The FWS also funded a Chinook salmon tagging study by New York Department of Environmental Conservation, which will evaluate the relative survival of pen-reared fish versus those grown out in the hatchery and released from trucks.

This spring the FWS, working with state hatchery personnel, tagged and marked 370,000 Chinook salmon from Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery, and 750,000 Chinook salmon at Platte River State Fish Hatchery, operated by Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The goal for the mass marking program is to reach more than 20 different facilities across the Great Lakes basin.

“Tribal treaty fisheries, inter-jurisdictional fisheries management, and native species restoration and conservation strategies rely on the exchange of information among management jurisdictions,” said Bronte. “Mass marking will improve our knowledge of fish movements, survival, performance and other valuable information about Great Lakes trout and salmon, and will promote cooperative strategic fisheries management.”

-Ashley Spratt, Public Information Officer, USFWS - Midwest Region

13:28 Operation Pelican Incident Command Station

2010-05-21T13:37:00.000-07:00

At 0700 hours on May 20, the Operation Pelican Incident Command Center went into full operation at Beaubien Woods Forest Preserve in Cook County, Chicago.
More than 300 staff from Illinois DNR, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Illinois Natural History Survey, U.S. Coast Guard, and other partner agencies have joined forces for a week-long sampling effort to determine abundance and distribution of the elusive Bighead and Silver carp - aquatic nuisance species threatening the Great Lakes- in the Little Calumet River.

Yesterday field crews from IDNR, assisted by USFWS, applied a fish piscicide to a 2.5 mile stretch of the Little Calumet. The piscicide (Rotenone) removes oxygen from the water, with the goal of killing all of the fish in the treatment zone. The fish then float to the surface where they are collected and identified by fisheries biologists. Electrofishing boats are used to collect any fish the treatment may have missed. This method allows for fisheries sampling crews to determine, with confidence, how many (if any) Asian carp are in the area.

The Little Cal was selected for the operation because it has been designated a "high risk" zone for Asian carp by the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee - a multi-agency coalition charged with strategically preventing Asian carp from getting into the Great Lakes. The Little Cal provides suitable habitat for Asian carp, and, multiple water samples have turned up positive eDNA hits for Asian carp, indicating the possible presence of the fish in the area. A map of the treatment area is below:

Yesterday evening boat crews began the detoxification process, applying sodium permanganate to detoxify the treatment area, and speed the process for the Rotenone to dissipate from the water. Recovery and fish identification will continue through the weekend, with the goal of concluding the operation within 3-4 days. As of mid-day on May 21, no Bighead or Silver carp have been found.

So far, no Asian carp have been found above the electric barrier, which was designed to keep them out of Lake Michigan. One Bighead carp was found below the Electric Barrier, approx. 40 miles from Lake Michigan, last December.

"There is no daylight between FWS and our state partners at Illinois DNR, in our efforts to prevent Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes," said Charlie Wooley, Deputy Regional Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service. "We have the best scientific minds working on this project, and remain committed to this fight."

To see video footage from Day One of Operation Pelican click "play" on the Blogger Video Player.

As the Operation continues, additional video footage and photographs will also be available for viewing and download here: http://cgvi.uscg.mil/media/main.php?g2_itemId=46

For the most updated information on the operation and sampling results, go to www.Asiancarp.org

- PIO Ashley Spratt (USFWS), Operation Pelican Incident Command Station

Visitors Help Refuge Officers Nab Convicted Felon

2010-05-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

Quick response and thorough detective work by Refuge Officers and Missouri Department of Conservation Agents built a case that ended March 23, 2010 with the conviction and sentencing of Raymond J. Trice, age 26, on federal firearms charges.

Refuge Officer Ryan Seward was first on the scene after visitors reported that shots were fired along the wildlife loop of Mingo National Wildlife Refuge on April 10, 2009. Seward said that public involvement was key to the success of the case. Seward describes Mingo NWR as a community-based refuge with a dedicated population of regular and repeat visitors that come to enjoy wildlife observation, hunting and fishing. “The more friends you have, the better off you are going to be,” explains Seward, thinking of the people that he welcomes week in and week out to the refuge.

After interviewing witnesses, Seward discovered fresh 9 mm cases in the area reported by the visitors and along the roadway at several spots throughout the refuge. Thanks to timely and effective interviewing, Seward obtained key witness and crime scene information that was central to tracking down, arresting and convicting what turned out to be a felon “well-known by federal law enforcement agents for other possible offenses, such as armed robbery,” explains Geoff A. Donaldson, Zone Law Enforcement Officer for Region 3.

Also key to the case was quick coordination with Missouri State Agent, Mic Plunkett, of the Missouri Department of Conservation. Seward said that Agent Plunkett was instrumental in building the case and “played an essential role in traveling to Arkansas with Refuge Officers to interview the subject.” Subsequent interviews lead investigators to the subject’s place of work in Arkansas, Donaldson reports, and later the subject confessed to the crime and relinquished the loaded handgun to authorities.

Donaldson, reflects on the case’s uniqueness, saying that what started as a wildlife crime of shooting at deer and turkey on a quiet Missouri refuge, “took us to a small farm house in Arkansas that ended with a federal firearms charge, but its roots are in the relationship-building that the Service has with the public.” The success in this case, and many others like it that Refuge Officers successfully investigate across the region, is based on making connections with people and enlisting them in protecting our wild places.

Donaldson goes further to say that because of Officer Seward’s initiative and quick response in surveying the extent of the shooting, “The Service was able to provide the U.S. Attorney’s Office with more extensive wildlife crime violations and the perpetrator plead out to the firearm charge.

Tina Shaw

Refuge Officer Ryan Seward

A handgun and magazine used by Raymond J. Trice

Winter in St. Marks with the Class of 2009

2010-02-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

More than forty endangered species biologists, crane experts, researchers and scientists convened February 8-10 for the ninth annual Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP) Winter Meeting in Wakulla County, Fla., to review the progress of the eastern migratory population of whooping cranes, and see the 2009 cohorts, which arrived at St. Marks and Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuges (NWR) on Florida’s Gulf Coast less than one month ago.

Brooke Pennypacker, Operation Migration pilot, flew one of the four ultralights that led the cranes on their 89-day migration to their wintering grounds in Florida. Brooke equipped me with rain boots and led me through patches of muddy forest to get to the pen site at St. Marks, where 10 of the 20 whooping cranes are spending the winter. Brooke joked, “This is where they filmed Jurassic Park.”

As we approached the blind, I saw the familiar structure that I had seen last year while visiting the other pen site at the Chassahowitzka NWR. Since 2008, the flock has been separated to winter in two separate Refuges along Florida’s Gulf Coast. At Chass, the pen site is only accessible by airboat. Here at St. Marks, the pen site is just a short ATV ride, but remains closed to public access to ensure safety of the cranes. The Florida panhandle has had unseasonably heavy rainfall this winter, turning the journey to the pen site into a muddy mess.

Once we arrived at the blinds, we lowered our voices. Although the blind is out of ear shot from the pen, we don’t want to risk startling the birds should they fly out and closer to the blind. The birds are kept inside a top-netted pen for the first 6-8 days after arrival at their wintering destination. After undergoing health checks and getting accustomed to their surroundings, the top-netted pen is removed, and the birds are able to fly freely in and out of a larger pen a few acres in size.

Just minutes after we picked up the binoculars and peered through the camouflage netting that covered the opening in the blind, a single bird flew outside of the pen, to be followed by the remaining nine birds. They flew in unison directly toward us, and then circled back to land just a few feet from their departure spot.

A curious raccoon crept toward the crowd of cranes then scurried away as one of the birds returned the raccoon’s curious advance. As I watched the interactions of the birds, their movement and mannerisms, I realized how quickly hours could pass without so much as a single check of the clock. St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge is a serene setting, and the birds provide continuous entertainment.

Brooke Pennypacker talks about training at Necedah NWR and preparations for the migration to Florida.

The birds are now around eight months of age. They were hatched in March and April of 2009. Their initial training as part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership project was at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland, where they were first introduced to the ultralight aircraft and began flight conditioning. After several weeks of initial training, the birds were then shipped by corporate jet (from a very generous sponsor), to Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin to spend the summer months training for short flights around the Refuge with the ultralights, to prepare for the fall migration.

A second whooping crane re-introduction method is ongoing at Necedah Refuge. In its third year, the Direct Autumn Release (DAR) program was developed to allow whooping crane chicks opportunity to bond with older cranes and subsequently join the fall and spring migrations with those birds, instead of following the ultralight aircraft along the migration route.

Nine DAR birds were released this year, and all continue to associate with older whooping cranes. The latest information indicates these birds are in Kentucky, Indiana and Florida.

A challenge facing the Eastern Migratory Population reintroduction project has been unsuccessful nesting during the spring months in central Wisconsin. Although whooping crane pairs have successfully produced eggs, only two chicks have been successfully hatched in the wild since the program began in 2001.

The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership is working to address this challenge through scientific evaluation of nesting sites, examination of possible limiting factors to nesting, and other potential contributors to nesting failure.

As of February 10, 2010, there are 105 birds in the Eastern Migratory Population of whooping cranes. Through the success of both the ultralight conditioning and the Direct Autumn Release programs, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership has successfully created and expanded the number of whooping cranes migrating without assistance, and living in the wild. The task now is to ensure that this population can one day be self-sustaining.

For more information about the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, visit www.bringbackthecranes.org

Ashley Spratt, USFWS External Affairs

An Urban Treasure: Hegewisch Marsh

2010-01-26T14:00:00.000-08:00

An Urban Treasure: Hegewisch Marsh

A unique landscape in the State of Illinois, Hegewisch Marsh is located within the Lake Calumet area, an industrial area on the south side of Chicago. Historically, this was part of the Chicago Lake Plain, rich in wetlands, sedge meadow, sand forests and prairies. Hegewisch Marsh itself is a fragment of what remains of that once massive Lake Michigan coastal habitat. It has statewide significance and is recognized as an Illinois Natural Areas Inventory site due to the breeding activity of several state endangered and threatened species such as Common moorhen and Yellow-headed blackbird.

Ultimately, Hegewisch Marsh was targeted not only for protection, but for a restoration overhaul that would offer great educational opportunities for local citizens as well as long distance travelers.

A State Wildlife Grant (SWG) from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service’s) Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program helped begin the restoration process. On a regional basis, land acquisition dollars from SWG and other federal, state and local sources allowed the purchase of 700 acres of wetlands and open space in the region. Additional Service grants under the National Coastal Wetland Conservation program have also provided support for the project, including two NCWC grants totaling approximately $1.2 million for ecological restoration work.

The restoration of Hegewisch Marsh has been invaluable to local residents, many of whom played on the site as children and care deeply about its care and restoration. More than 100 students visit each year - a number that will grow exponentially once the Ford Calumet Environmental Center is built. They and other visitors actively participate in planting vernal pools with native plants, planting native trees, and much more. Regular environmental education programs are connecting visitors with wetland ecology, flora and fauna, and the importance of preserving open space in urban areas in particular. Since most urban residents do not have the means to travel long-distance to our country’s amazing national parks and reserves, this is an urban treasure.

Over 100,000 visitors are expected each year, with programs and exhibits tailored to showcase the unique connection between nature, industry and community - "coexistence" - and how we can learn from our past, assess current plans, and create a more sustainable future in urban areas like Chicago. Construction of the Calumet Environmental Center is proposed to begin in late 2010 and the entire project is expected to be complete in 2011.

A multitude of partners have provided technical expertise, funding, and labor to inventory native species that use the marsh, improve the wetland habitat for native flora and fauna, and engage students, volunteers, residents and other visitors in local restoration efforts.
Additional partners include the: Office of the then Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, Service, Illinois Department of Natural Resources, Field Museum, Southeast Environmental Task Force, Calumet Ecological Park Association, Illinois State Water Survey, Illinois Natural History Survey, Chicago Public Schools, and many others.

--Ashley Spratt, External Affairs, Nicole Kamins, City of Chicago Department of Environment, Kathy Justison, Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Imagery: A Viable Tool in Recruitment and Retention

2010-01-26T13:56:00.000-08:00

Imagery: A Viable Tool in Recruitment and Retention

The upside of sealing a leak is the availability of tools to fix the problem. That said, the utilization of a concentrated formula is essential. When it comes to recruitment and retention of a diverse workforce, one element of the formula that is sometimes under utilized is imagery. Images draw people in. They resonate because they are eye catching. And because they resonate, images produce results.

But as in any targeted marketing strategy, some questions must first be answered. What is your audience interested in? What motivates them? What do they value? Where are they? Where do they search for jobs? The Service workforce recruitment audience is interested in among other benefits, career opportunities, training, compensation, recognition, family friendly workplace benefits, and work environment. But what’s key here is that diverse candidates may give more value and weight to one or more of these benefits than do their counterparts. One of these is work environment.

Are there people who look like me and have issues like me already working for this company? Are there people working for this company that I will have things in common with? A company can help answer these questions——through images.

Images in venues that diverse candidates frequent sends a message--an inviting one. When a candidate sees an image in a brochure or catalog or an advertisement that mirrors them, it catches their attention. When they see someone at a recruiting booth that looks like them, it resonates. When a press release with a catchy headline is issued, diverse audiences will note the catchy headline, but many times will stop and pay more attention if it also features an image that reflects something that they have in common with. Images speak volumes to distinct communities that are scoping for signs of representation.

An existing diversified staff is an in-house image asset that is sometimes underestimated and under utilized. The utilization of a diversified staff to recruit a diversified workforce is a tool that can produce viable results.

--Valerie Rose Redmond
External Affairs

Professional Organization Utilization in Recruitment and Retention

2010-01-26T13:54:00.000-08:00

Professional Organization Utilization in Recruitment and Retention

I feel more funds and emphasis should be placed toward reaching out to minority serving communities. For instance, Minorities in Agriculture Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) is a national society that welcomes membership of people of all racial and ethnic groups who have interest in agricultural, natural resources, biology, and related sciences careers. MANRRS provides ongoing networking and professional development activities for its members.
The best opportunity for networking, and recruiting students of color, however, occurs at the Annual Career Fair and Training Conference, which brings together hundreds of culturally diverse students and professionals to discuss issues of interest and concern in agriculture, natural resource, environmental science, and biology-related areas. In addition to workshop sessions and keynote addresses by prominent individuals, the conference conducts a career fair where employers from agricultural and natural resources, and environmental science industries and the government meet with students and young professionals to discuss volunteer, internship, and full-time employment opportunities.

There are more than 70 high school and university chapters in the MANRRS network. I have exhibited, presented, and served as a recruiter at this conference in the past with other partners. I am hoping to be able to attend again this year to help seal some of the leaks in the Service diversity pipeline. It is an ideal avenue for building a diverse, professional workforce, by acquainting conference participants with the Service. To learn more about MANRRS an the conference visit: http://www.manrrs.org/.

--Jeramie T. Strickland
Wildlife Biologist

The Future of Our Workforce

2010-01-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

The Future of Our Workforce

A statistical picture of America’s workforce, particularly that of the government, shows increasing numbers of employees nearing (or at) their eligible retirement age. Concurrently, the pool of younger candidates poised to fill these vacancies continues to shrink. The loss of knowledge and experience through normal attrition has always been a concern for both private and public employers. But for government agencies where more than half of the workforce is either at or near retirement age, the impact takes on more urgency. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), reflecting these same demographics is feeling the effects as well. The government and subsequently, the Service is on the cutting edge of this issue.

Adding to this demographics shift is an attitude shift. The changing world is accelerating the need for a strategic workforce approach. Young people entering the workplace view their careers differently than those who entered the workplace 20-25 years ago. The sense of permanency that workers once entered the workforce with is less prevalent. The perspective of younger workers is less static and more fluid based on personal career goals, employer benefits and the economy.

In the face of these challenges, I am quite optimistic. While these changing demographics are a challenge and will have an impact, they also present a tremendous opportunity.

To mitigate this impact in the Service, workforce mentoring is key, as is our ability to embrace innovative solutions. I am grateful to our employees who have been willing to step out and explore new possibilities. Last fall, Big Muddy National Fish and Wildlife Refuge Biologist Wedge Watkins and Biological Aide, Emily Magrowski, attended a virtual career fair at Lincoln University in Missouri (page 6). Equally impressive is Service employee participation in the Federal Outreach and Leadership Development Program (FOLD) whose mission is to identify and assist in the development of future federal executive leaders. (Inside Region 3 – July 2009).
I applaud programs like the Leadership Pathways program and the Advanced Leadership Development Program (ALDP), which is the Service’s program to recognize and further develop high performing GS-13 and GS-14 employees who demonstrate willingness and capability for senior leadership positions.

The Student Career Experience Program (SCEP), the Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) and the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP) have proved effective as well, as evidenced by the many promising new Service employees like Wildlife Biologist Jeramie T. Strickland of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife & Fish Refuge and Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge’s Ken Schimp, both of whom have come out of the programs (page 7-9).
Enhancing employee ability to take advantage of job swap, detail and cross-training opportunities has also proved valuable in helping the Service carry out its mission.

This kind of succession planning and talent management is a key strategy for addressing these issues and helping us to move forward as an agency. As the Service continues to identify effective strategies to meet this demographic challenge, recognize that the next generation of workers will build upon the work that you have already done.
The mission of the service is inextricably tied to these demographics. It is our responsibility to coach and mentor employees to be the best they can be by pushing them to take on new challenges.

--Tom Melius
Regional Director,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Midwest Region

Light Rail Connects Urban Dwellers to Refuge

2009-12-29T09:44:00.001-08:00

The Hiawatha Light Rail Line links metro riders with transportation from downtown Minneapolis and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to the Mall of America and back.
Opened in 2004, the line is operated by Metro Transit, who also operates Twin Cities’ buses. Trains run every 7-15 minutes during the day, and 15-30 minutes apart in the evenings, daily.
This 12 mile line, which opened in 2004, served 42.9 million riders in its first five years. Ridership in 2008 totaled 10.2 million. 46 feeder bus lines reach the light rail meaning that now access to the refuge is available by public transit to much of the Twin Cities population.
The light rail line has recently opened its newest stop at 34th Avenue and American Boulevard. This new stop is a mere half a mile from the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) Visitor Center. Currently under reconstruction, the visitors center should reopen by March 2010.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is able to connect with an inner city population that doesn’t have the same recreational opportunities as those with cars.
Accessibility is critical when it comes to connecting urban dwellers to nature. Congressman Keith Ellison echoes the importance of transportation in a recent interview. "Well, I think that one thing that we can do is show people the nature that is right around them. The fact is there are opportunities right here in the urban area to take advantage of, like for example right here in Minneapolis we are lucky to have several lakes in the city, several parks and these things, we’ve got to invest in them. We’ve got to make them walk-able," he says. In the wake of decades of decentralization, transportation solutions are not only desired but crucial. It is increasingly important for the public to gain access to all sections of the metro. Mass transportation is critical for job access to both inner city job seekers and suburbanites, here in the Cities and nationwide. The Service benefits from these investment in that it eliminates the transportation barrier. "And we’ve got to make it so that if you live in north Minneapolis and you feel like walking down to the park, you can do that," says Ellison. "We’ve also got to make transportation accessible so that people can get there and take full advantage." Having one of the few urban refuges that is also on a light rail line opens up many new opportunities for the refuge and the residents of the Twin Cities.

- Valerie Rose Redmond
Host of USFWS's Just Escape TV
For full length episodes and segments of Just Escape TV visit: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/JustEscape/. E-mail: justescape@fws.gov

Beyond the Desk at FWS

2009-12-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

As an Administrative Technician at Great River and Clarence Cannon National Wildlife Refuges (NWR), Carolyn Gregory’s duties move well beyond from behind a desk. When it comes to furthering the mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), Gregory’s job does entail the typical aspects of administrative work at a refuge such as, tracking the refuge budget, greeting visitors, and processing purchases, payments, travel vouchers and payroll, but it also includes plenty of outreach. Earlier this year Clarence Cannon NWR hosted Teacher Career Day, an organized event designed to bring together teachers and counselors to learn about the myriad of careers available in natural resources. Gregory gave the audience a presentation on her job responsibilities and the pathway to her career at the Service, which began in 1981. After studying business occupations at Pike-Lincoln Technical Center in Eolia, Missouri, she joined the Service family, as a clerk typist. "One of the best things about my job is that no two days are ever the same. Work priorities change and this means different tasks on different days. This keeps it interesting!" she says.

Gregory was also a major player in the renovation of the new office headquarters building at the refuge. In addition to the procurement expenditure tracking, she helped choose many of the colors, options, and facets of the new building. "Carolyn is the face of Clarence Cannon nad Great River NWR's. When visitors come in the office, she is their first, and often only, contact with FWS employees" says her supervisor, Jason Wilson.

Gregory also succeeded in refuge fire dispatch, one of several details she worked including some in the FWS Washington Office. Once during a flood, she rescued two stranded fawns and took them to her personal home for care. "I enjoy assisting with environmental education at the refuge. We had a group of 75 first graders come visit this fall and it was very rewarding when one child said, "This is the best day of my life!"

Born in nearby Troy, Missouri, Gregory’s passion for the natural world is fueled by her upbringing. She was raised on a farm and has spent her entire married life on a farm. “I have always enjoyed living in the country”, she says. “When I grew up we always had ‘chores’ to do outside.” She was also a Brownie and Girl Scout and her mother served as a leader.

When Gregory heard about a job opening at the Service, she says she knew it was the right fit—administrative type work in a rural setting.

Gregory says she can actually say her job is more than a job. It is a very real part of her life. “I like working for a small agency as it seems like no matter where you travel,” she says, “you always meet someone who knows someone you know. It really is like a big family. There are so many good employees who work for the Service---people who take pride in what they do for the greater mission of the agency.”

It is clear that a desk boundary is a foreign concept for Gregory. She is clearly connected to the land, as evidenced by her many activities. “When I look out my office window or take a drive on the refuge and see over 100,000 ducks, Canada and snow geese, and numerous bald eagles during the fall, I am reminded of why my job is important,” she says.

- Valerie Rose Redmond
Host of USFWS's Just Escape TV
For full length episodes and segments of Just Escape TV visit: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/JustEscape/. E-mail: justescape@fws.gov

A Slice of Heaven - Duluth, Minnesota

2009-12-23T11:49:00.000-08:00

Reminiscing on the eve of what in an ominous, Armageddon-like forecast, has been characterized by some in the media as “the worst snowstorm in a decade,” “a monster”, and “a big headache”…ah reminiscing… about a slice of heaven. See blog below.

A Slice of Heaven - Duluth, Minnesota

The summer of 2006 was nearing a close. Life's stress-o-meter had reached a crescendo, fueling the internal beckoning of my soul for healing and release. My desire to get away was as high as my funds were low. I needed a holistic, natural cure - a prescription for vacation. What to do? After some thought, meditation, and introspection, I had an epiphany. I live in a state that is home to the largest fresh water lake in the world! Eureka! Rated by Outside Magazine as one of America's top 10 outdoor towns, Duluth on Lake Superior was the holistic answer that I'd been searching for.
I packed up my children and headed due north on I-35 to what some call "the San Francisco of the Midwest," or "the third coast."
The temperature soared into the 90's that afternoon, as we neared our destination. Towering evergreens on either side of 35 formed a canopy and ushered us in like a welcoming gateway to what VisitDuluth.com calls simple, "a slice of heaven for outdoor enthusiasts."
We had fun in the outdoors on our own terms. We explored the historic city in a trolley car, where rumors swirled that the spiking temperatures might shatter a long standing record. We threw rocks into the pristine lake and were awed at the power and beauty of it. Amazingly, even in the sweltering heat, we could keep our feet in the frigid waters for only a few seconds. How is that possible, I wonder, for a body of water to maintain such an icy temperature in such intense heat? We rode striped red canopy bikes along the lake. We walked the pier to the lighthouse and watched the world-famous aerial bridge lift for passing barges. We cruised the lake on a Vista fleet, marveled at the pristine waters, and learned about the Twin Harbors. We visited the Maritime Visitor's Center in Canal Park. Our outdoor adventures were many, but culminated with the "Lakewalk." The waterfront boardwalk stretches 4.2 miles and goes to Brighton Beach. We didn't walk that far, as my youngest daughter, whose perspective slightly skewed by metro lakes, caused her to remark the now unforgettable words, "I hope we don't have to walk around this whole lake, cause it's hot out here!"

- Valerie Rose Redmond

Host of USFWS's Just Escape TV

For full length episodes and segments of Just Escape TV visit: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/JustEscape/. E-mail: justescape@fws.gov

External Affairs- A Division to Discover

2009-11-13T12:43:00.000-08:00

My detail is coming to an end. During this short time (2 weeks), there were many tasks to complete including tips sheets for media, attending meetings to learn about internal operations, assist in development of the social media manuals, and investigate and report American Recovery and Reinvestment Act projects in the Midwest for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Of course, writing and editing press releases and articles for internal and external publications were also included. Furthermore, during this time I learned how to edit video for YouTube, blogged my experience (as you are reading), and Twittered to inform people around the world about the National Wildlife Refuge System in the Midwest. Check it out! YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/user/USFWSMidwest; Midwest Podcasts, http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Podcasts/; and Twitter, http://www.twitter.com/usfwsmidwest.

Throughout my detail I have gained valuable insight to the Regional Office operations of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service). That External Affairs Division is here to support Service employees in the field; to tell stories to the public and key officials. Stories they highlight include but not limited to sound scientific research on plants and animals; protection of plants and animals globally; resorting and preserving treasured landscapes; and educating the public about wildlife and conservation. This will aid and improve my performance in the field. The Service truly wants its employees to understand not only internal operations, but external operations. Detailing is the one of the best routes. This was definitely the place to discover.

A New Working Environment

2009-11-09T06:27:00.000-08:00

My first week in External Affairs for the Midwest Region is complete. Skills that I have gained include video editing for a YouTube posting, writing 3 news releases for refuges and wetland management districts, editing 2 articles for internal publications, and updating the Midwest National Wildlife Refuges web page. The week was also spent sitting in on meetings to make sure I don’t miss any opportunity to highlight the work and efforts Service employees are conducting in the field.

This week I’ll be in on a conference call for the Service’s manual on how to use YouTube. Writing feature stories and new releases on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act projects happening in the Midwest Region.

Doing this detail has confirmed that there is never a slow, dull moment. Researching topics, learning new media outlets, interviewing employees and the public; tasks change not only on a daily basis, on an hourly basis.

I hope Service employees realize that this position is working for them; to tell their stories to the public in order to build stewards and gain support of our actions.

MUSINGS OF AN UPLAND BIRD HUNTER

2009-11-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Hunting, as an outdoor tradition, carries enormous cultural importance in the Midwest and other regions across the country. There are those who still hunt purely for meat, but in today’s era most people hunt to be closer to nature, engage in sport or recreation, or derive social (i.e., familial) benefits associated with the activity.

Many waterfowlers are quite fanatical about finding time for the duck blind, almost regardless of weather. It’s pretty much the same story with deer hunters once the rut starts. I certainly have my share of friends that love to sleep in on the weekends but have no problem rolling out of bed at o’-dark-thirty (if not before) to hunt turkeys in the early morning.

I have a deep and enduring appreciation for sportsmen and women who have logged a lot of hours setting up decoys, toting around portable tree stands, or honing their turkey calls. That said, I don’t personally hunt waterfowl, deer, or turkeys (or lions, tigers and bears for that matter). It all sounds like good fun, but I have come to realize there just aren’t enough hours in a week to hunt, fish, photograph, or otherwise harass every critter under the sun. Better to only pester a couple species and get good at it.

I hunt upland birds, mostly ruffed grouse and woodcock. I am most passionate about grouse hunting, although I often have success hunting woodcock in similar types of cover. Of course, in Maine (where I grew up) and other parts of New England that I hunted as a youth, people don’t hunt grouse. Nope, they hunt “pah-tridge.” But, hey, we could talk colloquialisms all day. Since moving to the Midwest I have also taken up pheasant hunting, but I tend to prefer woods to corn fields. Even though early successional forest (ideal grouse habitat) created by recent logging activity has clearly been touched by human hands, the landscape just feels wilder to me. I’m a fan of wild. At least the illusion of it.

For me, there is no better way to spend a fall or early-winter day than making the trek north and trudging around in a sleepy woodland of young aspen, mature oaks, fir trees, tamarack (if the ground is soupy enough), and dense underbrush in search of some mystic north woods game birds. Even on days when the birds aren’t cooperating I get a great deal of amusement from watching Ole, my German shorthaired pointer, zip around with boundless enthusiasm as he follows his nose wherever it leads. Over time he’s gotten pretty good at following my commands, but occasionally a scent trail and his curiosity trump what I’m asking of him. Fortunately for me his nose hasn’t led him to a porcupine or skunk yet. Emphasis on yet.

I have been hunting upland birds since I was about 12. Unlike most of my peers growing up, I was introduced to hunting by a family friend rather than a relative. As my family owned a fly fishing business, my father is an avid trout fisherman and we spent countless hours on the river together. Unfortunately, however, he has never been much of a “hunter” per se. That said, I will give him a pass because he just might be the best dad the world has ever seen.

Cliqued as it is to say, I actually do remember my first grouse hunting experience like it was yesterday. It was a brisk October day and we had started the morning hunting along the edge of a recent clear cut before eventually wandering into a stand of pole-size aspen and alders with a dense understory. I flushed my first grouse out of patch of brambles in a forest opening. The bird escaped with little more than a scare, but what a rush. I was hooked. Fellow upland bird hunters can attest to the adrenaline surge one experiences after a grouse unexpectedly bursts from a well-concealed spot on the forest floor. Even if you hunt with a dog, as I typically do, you can only be so ready for the cacophonous explosion of a flushing grouse. In my opinion, there are few phenomena that appear so clumsy and graceful at the same time. And, of course, for every bird that flushes, I get the sense there are many more that hunker down and watch dog and hunter move right on by. Let’s face it, Ole isn’t perfect. Then again, neither is his owner.

Regardless of how much “success” I have on a given day, it is always a special feeling to walk amongst these iconic symbols of the north woods. I hope any future children I have will feel the same way. Days spent in the field serve as compelling reminders - not that I often need them - of why I am so fortunate to work for a conservation agency.

--Ryan Aylesworth, USFWS

2009-11-05T09:00:00.003-08:00

2009-11-05T09:00:00.001-08:00

Unique Opportunities for Service Employees

2009-11-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

For the next two weeks I am detailing within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for External Affairs in the Midwest Regional Office, Fort Snelling, Minn. Presently, I am stationed at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington, Minn. as a Visitor Services Specialist. My duties there include program coordination for the Refuge Partner School Program (environmental education programs), Minnesota State Coordinator for the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Program, website coordination for the station, and daily operation of the Bloomington Visitor Center. Each day is unique creating enjoyable and challenging work juggling all these “hats.”

This is not my first detail in the FWS. FWS promotes learning skills, understanding of internal operations, cross-program partnerships, and experiencing job positions through detailing. Many of these positions are used as details during the vacancy period of a position. This is the case of my detail in Midwest Region External Affairs. Details can be for a few weeks to several months depending on the need of the field station or office.

The projects and skills I hope to gain through this experience include using new social media (blogging, YouTube, Facebook, etc.) to inform the public on happenings within the FWS. It’s a market that FWS is advocating its employees to use. Another is writing and editing new releases, feature stories, and articles of events and highlights occurring throughout the Midwest Region.

Keep posted to hear updates on my detail and to learn more about the unique opportunities the FWS can offer you as an employee.

Building A Career through Experience

2009-11-05T06:40:00.001-08:00

Ottawa 2009 YCC Crew
L – R: Kylie Biggert, Oliver Cornet, Allison Burkett, Haley Smith, Hunter St. Clair
Photo credit: FWS

A summer filled with beach cleanups, trimming trails, habitat restoration for the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly, and banding egrets and great blue herons is just the beginning for high school students at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge (Refuge). The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provided funding allowing these experiences to happen.

“I now know how much damage Spotted Knapweed does to the beaches,” stated a YCC enrollee who gathered 100 garbage bags full of this invasive plant from the Cedar Point National Wildlife Refuge beach.

The Refuge considers this years Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) program a big success. For most of the enrollees, this was their first job. “Some of the students were contemplating a career in the environmental field, and this program provided them with first-hand experience,” stated Sara Siekierski, Wildlife Refuge Specialist. The students learned what was to be expected of them as an employee and gained new skills that they can apply in future employment opportunities. Their hard work, dedication, and youthful enthusiasm were greatly appreciated by the Refuge.

On Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge YCC crew leader Kylie Biggert, guided her crew with little effort. As a team one of their biggest accomplishments was to place boundary signs on 8 refuge properties totaling 530 acres of refuge land.

To fulfill the YCC program requirements, the crew took part in many educational programs during their 8-week employment with Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. One YCC enrollee stated, “My favorite thing this summer was when we went on the ferry to Gibraltar Island and toured the Stone Laboratory.” All of the field trips and work at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge exposed the students to different career paths and taught them about many of the different environmental programs and organizations.

Allison Burkett assisting the Ohio Department of Natural Resources with their Annual Goose Round-Up.
Photo credit: FWS

Hunter St. Clair holds a Canada Goose he banded at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources with their Annual Goose Round-Up.
Photo credit: FWS

Haley Smith and Allison Burkett performing habitat restoration at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.
Photo credit: FWS

On Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge YCC crew leader Kylie Biggert, guided her crew with little effort. As a team one of their biggest accomplishments was to place boundary signs on 8 refuge properties totaling 530 acres of refuge land.
Photo credit: FWS

Unveiling the Stories

2009-11-05T06:26:00.000-08:00

First graders exploring the prairie while on a fieldtrip to Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
Photo Credit: FWS/Darla Madsen

It’s a crisp calm autumn morning while gathering program materials for a class of inner-city 1st graders. They are eagerly awaiting their morning field trip to Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge (Refuge). This will be their first time out to the Refuge for this school year. Their program is on the scientific study of changes in nature-phenology. Prior to their field trip I went into their classroom with myriad of items that signify change; snowpants, colored leaves, umbrella, nuts, picture of a snowflake, sunglasses, model of emerging green grass. The students had to categorize these items into three groups: plant, animal, or weather. Once this was completed we then reorganized the items into the seasons of when they would be used or seen.

Change is inevitable in nature. People have been studying the changes in nature for centuries. It is how our ancestors were able to gather and hunt for food and keep tack of time. The biggest change that has everyone conversing is climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency defines climate change as “any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer)” (2009). Climate change may result from:

· natural factors, such as changes in the sun's intensity
· natural processes within the climate system, such as changes in ocean circulation;
· human activities that change the atmosphere's composition (e.g. through burning fossil fuels) and the land surface (e.g. deforestation, reforestation, urbanization, desertification, etc.)

Scientists are tracking changes in the environment at an astounding rate. They are researching the widespread melting of glaciers, increased frequency of extreme weather events, and changes in rain and snowfall patterns. Still they are people who question climate change. Is it happening? How can we stop it? What is going to happen? Who is responsible? These questions are what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service along with numerous other agencies and non-profit organizations are trying to answer.

Information on climate change is being inundated every second due to our profound connection to technology; including children. Our newest generation – currently in K-12 – is demonstrating for us the impact of having developed under the digital wave. These youth have been completely normalized by digital technologies—it is a fully integrated aspect of their lives (Green & Hannon, 2007). Many students in this group are using new media and technologies to create new things in new ways, learn new things in new ways, and communicate in new ways with new people—behaviors that have become hardwired in their ways of thinking and operating in the world. Green and Hannon give an excellent example of this, “Children are establishing a relationship to knowledge gathering which is alien to their parents and teachers” (2007, p. 38).

Being an educator, the question in my mind is how do I teach this topic to students without leaving a “doom and gloom” image? While doing some research I concluded that there are several curriculums, activity guides, and papers available and possibly more impending. The problem, most are written for middle school and high school levels. Is the subject of climate change is too grave for elementary student comprehension? A person would be amazed at what information children ages 6-12 can comprehend. A study conducted by Yurki Hirsoe concluded that knowledge of stories aid children in becoming aware of the factual information contained in a sentence (1993, p29).

Stories are used throughout the world to convey messages of culture, values, and traditions. Nature provides stories everyday about the coming and goings of plants and animals. People of all ages can actively observe and learn about the seasonal changes of the ecosystem around them. This is a perfect solution for elementary students to learn about changes in the environment-climate change. Once students have learned about how to observe nature, go outdoors and explore. They even have the opportunity to submit their findings to research. The USA National Phenology Network, www.usanpn.org, brings together citizen scientists, government agencies, non-profit groups, educators and students of all ages to monitor the impacts of climate change on plants and animals in the United States through phenology.

While preparing for the 1st graders, I ensure that nature is ready to unveil her stories. Today, students will record the phenological events they observe during a hike on the Refuge and discover how scientists use phenology to track the impact of changes on the behavior of plants and animals. They take this knowledge and record their daily observations in the classroom throughout the school year and on-line through the citizen science; The USA National Phenology Network. In winter, they will come out again to observe and learn about changes animals perform to survive our harsh, cold Minnesota weather.

Students recording their observations in nature.
Photo credit: FWS

First grade students exploring the forest floor at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.
Photo credit: FWS

References
Environmental Protection Agency. (2009, October 23). EPA. Basics of Climate Change. Retrieved from http://www.epa.gov/climatechange.html

Green, H and Hannon, C. 2007. Their Space: Education for a digital generation, Retrieved on October 26, 2009 from http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Their%20space%20-%20web.pdf

Hirose, Yurki. (1993). World Knowledge in Children’s Sentence Comprehension. MITA Working Papers in Psycholinguistics, 3, 17-31. Retrieved from ERIC Database. (ED 35872S) http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/e3/aa.pdf

Congressional Staffers Tour Aquatic Habitat Restoration Site on Rural Missouri Farmland

2009-10-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), in coordination with the Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) and appropriate private landowners, invited congressional staff with Senators Bond (R-MO) and McCaskill (D-MO) and Congressman Luetkemeyer (R-MO-9) to take part in a tour of an aquatic habitat restoration project on private farmland in the Lower Bourbeuse watershed in Franklin and Crawford Counties (eastern Missouri). The event took place on September 30, 2009.

Prior to restoration activities, heavy agricultural pressure had contributed to severe erosion of stream banks and high sediment loads to the stream, which negatively impacted habitat and water quality, as well as local fish populations. During the site visit, congressional staff learned how efforts to improve land management practices in recent years have led to improvements in water quality and reductions in stream bank erosion, which in turn have helped to maintain habitat for fish, amphibians and reptiles, and aquatic invertebrates.

Efforts to improve aquatic habitat in the Meramec – Lower Bourbeuse Watershed Basin are unique, as landowners drive the restoration programs. There is a lengthy history of landowner cooperation and leadership in conservation activities within the watershed, which includes Little Bourbeuse, Brush Creek, Lick Creek and Boone Creek sub watersheds. The landowners were proactively approached by the Service and MDC just prior to the scaleshell mussel being listed under the Endangered Species Act. Collectively the agencies and the landowners developed a plan to ensure healthy streams and healthy farms. There has been a waiting list of landowners with a clear desire to participate in watershed improvement efforts since 2001; with significant water quality and habitat improvements taking shape in the watershed over the past eight years.

The partnership restoration project falls under the umbrella of The Southeast Aquatic Resources Partnership (SARP) and is a direct application of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP). NFHAP is a national investment strategy to maximize the impact of conservation dollars on the ground. Under NFHAP, Federal, State, Tribal, and privately-raised funds are leveraged through regional partnerships to address the nation’s biggest fish habitat challenges.

Senator Bond has co-sponsored the National Fish Habitat Conservation Act of 2009 (S. 1214) in the United States Senate, and this legislation aims to conserve the Nation’s fish and aquatic communities through partnerships that foster fish habitat conservation and would act as organic legislation for the NFHAP program.

Osprey Nest in Wayne County for the First Time Since 1890s

2009-09-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

Gibraltar, Michigan – In 2009, a pair of osprey built a nest in a cell phone tower adjacent to the Gibraltar Wetlands Unit of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, representing the first time that osprey have successfully nested in Wayne County since the 1890s. Osprey are one of the largest birds of prey in North America, with a nearly six foot wingspan. Osprey are also known as “fish hawks.” They feed almost exclusively on fish and are considered a good indicator of aquatic ecosystem health. As with bald eagles, a dramatic decline of osprey occurred throughout North America due to widespread use of DDT and other organochlorine pesticides that caused eggshell thinning. DDT was banned in Michigan in 1969 and nationwide in 1972. Osprey restoration efforts began in the mid-1980s.

In the Gibraltar Wetlands Unit, osprey first attempted to nest in a large tree in 2006 and 2007. Both attempts were unsuccessful. In 2008, osprey again attempted to nest in the cell phone tower located on the edge of the Gibraltar Wetlands Unit, but were again unsuccessful. Finally in 2009, osprey successfully nested in the cell phone tower next to the Gibraltar Wetlands Unit and fledged two young.

“The first successful osprey nest in southeast Michigan was reported in 2002 at Kensington Metropark,” noted Jim Kortge of Osprey Watch of Southeast Michigan which works with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to restore the osprey population and educate people about this unique raptor. “Since 2002, osprey restoration efforts have been very successful, culminating with 18 confirmed nests in southeast Michigan that produced 46 chicks during 2009.”

Historical ornithological records from southeast Michigan are limited. “However, based on available surveys and reports, there have been no reports of nesting osprey in Wayne County since the 1890s,” notes ornithologist Julie Craves of the Rouge River Bird Observatory.

“This news of osprey reproduction in Wayne County along the Detroit River is part of a larger ecological recovery story for the Detroit River,” said Tim Payne, wildlife biologist from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. Since the enactment of the Clean Water Act and the signing of the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 1972, there has been a substantial reduction in pollutant loadings to the Detroit River and substantial improvement in the water quality of the Detroit River. “There is no doubt that more needs to be done to clean up the Detroit River, but the environmental improvement achieved to date has laid the foundation for one of the most remarkable ecological recoveries in North America,” reports Dr. John Hartig, Refuge Manager of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge. Scientific evidence has documented the return of bald eagles, peregrine falcons, lake whitefish, lake sturgeon, walleye, and mayflies in large areas from which they had been extirpated or negatively impacted. And now there is evidence of the return of osprey to Wayne County. Clearly, this is good news for people living in the Detroit and Windsor metropolitan areas because if this ecosystem is
cleaner for fish and wildlife, it is cleaner for people.

The Detroit River has the distinction of being the only international wildlife refuge in North America and the only river system to hold both American and Canadian Heritage River designations.

For more information, please contact Julie Craves of the Rouge River Bird Observatory (313-583-6373), Tim Payne of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (248-359-9040), Jim Kortge of Osprey Watch of Southeast Michigan (810-629-0378), or Dr. John Hartig of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge (734-692-7608).

Detroit Zoo Honored for Conservation of Great Lakes Piping Plover

2009-09-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

ROYAL OAK, Mich. – The Detroit Zoo has received the 2009 North American Conservation Award from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for its coordination of the Great Lakes piping plover salvage captive rearing program. The significant achievement award honors the Zoo’s efforts to conserve the endangered bird.

The Great Lakes population of piping plovers has been listed as federally endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since 1986. Once estimated at over 600 pairs, piping plovers nested throughout the Great Lakes region. By the early 1980s, the population had declined to under 20 pairs due to loss of habitat and disturbance of nesting birds.

For the past nine summers, Detroit Zoo bird keepers have gathered at the University of Michigan’s Biological Station in Pellston with bird keepers from other zoos across the country. As part of the recovery plan, piping plover nests are monitored daily and all abandoned eggs are collected for captive rearing. The program includes artificially incubating the abandoned piping plover eggs, rearing hatched chicks and releasing the birds back into the wild when the chicks fledge.

“Captive-reared piping plovers help to supplement the chicks that are reared naturally in nests along Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior,” said Detroit Zoo Curator of Birds Tom Schneider. “Over the last several years, the captive birds have represented approximately 15 percent of all Great Lakes piping plover production, with several of these birds returning to nest. This effort has preserved genetic lines that may otherwise have vanished.”

The piping plover population has been growing steadily as a result of the recovery efforts, and in 2009 there were 71 nesting pairs in the Great Lakes region. Although still extremely vulnerable to extinction from predation, beach development and nest disturbance, the Great Lakes piping plover’s numbers are stable, but guarded. Salvage captive rearing will remain an important component in the population recovery goal of 100 breeding pairs. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation provides grant funding to support the effort.

The Detroit Zoological Society is a non-profit organization that operates the Detroit Zoo and Belle Isle Nature Zoo. Situated on 125 acres of naturalistic exhibits, the Detroit Zoo is located at the intersection of Ten Mile Road and Woodward Avenue, just off I-696, in Royal Oak. The Detroit Zoo is open daily 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April through Labor Day (with extended hours until 8 p.m. Wednesdays during July and August), 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. day after Labor Day through October and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. November through March. Admission is $11 for adults 15 to 61, $9 for senior citizens 62 and older, and $7 for children ages 2 to 14; children under 2 are free. For more information, call (248) 541-5717 or visit www.detroitzoo.org. The Belle Isle Nature Zoo is open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. year-round and provides educational programming with interpretive staff support from the Huron-Clinton Metroparks. Admission is free. For more information, call (313) 852-4056.

2009-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

Congressman Ron Kind and Staff with Senators Kohl and Feingold Tour Aquatic Habitat Restoration Site and Attend Refuge Visitor Center Ground-Breaking Ceremony

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in coordination with the Wisconsin DNR and Trout Unlimited, hosted Congressman Ron Kind (WI-3) and congressional staff with Senators Kohl (WI) and Feingold (WI) on a tour of an aquatic habitat restoration project at Big Spring Branch in southwestern Wisconsin (Iowa County) on August 25, 2009. Prior to restoration activities, heavy agricultural pressure had contributed to severe erosion of stream banks and high sediment loads to the stream, which negatively impacted habitat quality and the local trout fishery.

The partnership restoration project is a direct application of the National Fish Habitat Action Plan (NFHAP), a national investment strategy to maximize the impact of conservation dollars on the ground. During the site visit, Mr. Kind and congressional staff learned how efforts to improve land management practices in recent years have led to improvements in groundwater recharge, water quality and the local fishery. As part of the Driftless Area Restoration Effort (DARE), the Service and its partners continue to plan and implement projects to stabilize eroding banks, install natural structures in-stream to scour out pools, increase stream velocity and sinuosity, and provide diverse habitat for fish, amphibians and reptiles.

Under NFHAP, Federal, State, Tribal, and privately-raised funds are leveraged through regional partnerships to address the nation’s biggest fish habitat challenges. Congressman Kind introduced the National Fish Habitat Conservation Act of 2009 in the House of Representatives in May of 2009, and this legislation aims to conserve the Nation’s fish and aquatic communities through partnerships that foster fish habitat conservation and would act as organic legislation for the NFHAP program.

Later in the same week (August 27), Congressman Kind and staff with Senators Kohl and Feingold also attended an unveiling of the architectural design and a ceremonial ground-breaking for a new visitor center at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge. Congressman Kind, who has played a key role in helping to obtain funding for the new visitor center, praised the ecological values of the refuge and emphasized the economic and educational benefits that the new facility will offer residents of the area and visitors from outside the region. Construction of the visitor center will be funded in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The ground-breaking ceremony was also attended by Rowan Gould, the Service’s Acting Director, and Tom Melius, the Service’s Midwest Regional Director. The event included a light lunch provided by the Friends of Necedah National Wildlife Refuge and was attended by approximately 150 members of the public.

2009-08-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

Future Conservation Leaders: Leading By Design

Wildlife Forever, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partner in conservation, hosted the 11th Annual State Fish Art Contest on August 1 at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. More than 30 children and teens, along with their families and friends, made the trip to the Twin Cities to participate in an awards ceremony and weekend of special events honoring the winning artists.

Brie Jenkins from Missouri won the most prestigious honor - the Art of Conservation award - with her acrylic depiction of her home state’s fish, the channel catfish.

Winners and their guests enjoyed a guided fishing event on Saturday afternoon at Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, as well as tickets to the Minnesota Twins vs. Los Angeles Angels baseball game at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been a proud partner in conservation with Wildlife Forever for more than 16 years. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Wildlife Forever work together to protect and conserve wildlife habitat and aquatic resources across the nation, sharing a common interest in the natural resources around us and a common priority to connect people with nature.

“Together, we can carry on a tradition of wildlife and habitat conservation. You are the future of conservation, and we are all proud to honor your talent, your achievements, and most importantly, your future as conservation leaders.”

– Gary Frazer, Assistant Director Fisheries and Habitat Conservation, USFWS, guest speaker at award ceremony held for winners at Mall of America.

About the Contest:
To enter the Wildlife Forever State Fish Art Contest, young artists create an illustration of any official State fish and a written composition on its behavior, habitat, and efforts to conserve it. Entries are categorized in three grade levels: 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12. Educators nationwide can utilize the State Fish Art Contest Lesson Plan, an interdisciplinary educational supplement specific to aquatic natural resources that includes fishery lessons and activities, a species identification section profiling each statefish, a glossary, and student worksheets. The lesson plan can be downloaded FREE from the StateFish Art website, www.statefishart.com.

A Hatchery of the Future: Breaking Ground at Neosho NFH

2009-07-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

On July 1, 2009, a long-time dream for the town of Neosho, Missouri and its residents, became a reality. State and federal legislatures, Fish and Wildlife Service staff, community members, volunteers, church groups, and life-long supporters of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery congregated to break ground for a new, energy-efficient visitor center at the hatchery. The hatchery faced closure in the 1980s, and now, more than 20 years later, is expanding to offer both educational and economic opportunities for Neosho and its visitors. The visitor center is expected to be completed by the summer of 2010.

The oldest operating federal hatchery in the nation, Neosho NFH raises endangered pallid sturgeon for recovery efforts in the lower Missouri River and rainbow trout for stocking in Lake Taneycomo. The hatchery also supports conservation of the endangered Ozark cavefish and restoration of native mussels.

The following is a message shared by Dave Hendrix, Hatchery Manager, with guests at the ceremony:

"On behalf of the staff at the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, I would like to express our sincere appreciation and thanks for the continuous support from the City of Neosho and surrounding communities, our federal and state legislators, and our conservation partners. We are so honored to work at our nation's oldest operating federal fish hatchery, to serve our local Southwest Missouri community, and help protect and conserve the aquatic resources of our nation. The realization of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery's Visitor Center is the result of the combined efforts of our community, Friends of the Neosho NFH, legislators and so many others, working together for a common purpose. The Neosho National Fish Hatchery is a wonderful conservation and management tool that not only works to restore and protect our aquatic resources but also works to educate our young people and adults about the importance of a meaningful appreciation for nature."
"This is not a hatchery of the past, this is a hatchery of the future."
- Rowan Gould, Acting Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

BENEFITS OF THE VISITOR CENTER

More visitors = more environmental education opportunities for kids and adults
Currently more than 45,000 visitors walk through the doors of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery each year. With the new visitor center, the hatchery is expected to accommodate more than 100,000 visitors per year.The environmental education and interpretation opportunities at the hatchery will be expanded to reach new audiences, not just the traditional angler or conservationist. The increased capacity will accommodate school groups from Newton County and surrounding areas, and perhaps plant the seeds for future fishery biologists, outdoor enthusiasts, and environmental stewards in the process.

The hatchery improvements are an investment in the future of fisheries conservation and restoration
Fish hatcheries are one of the primary tools for fisheries restoration and conservation efforts in the Midwest. By producing both rare and endangered native fish species and releasing them back into the wild, and stocking sport fish into our lakes, rivers and streams, fish hatcheries and the biologists and technicians that staff them serve a critical role in ensuring to the future of fisheries conservation.

Neosho NFH can set example of how other offices/agencies can minimize their own environmental footprint
In carrying out the FWS conservation mission, it is our obligation as a resource management agency to examine our own environmental footprint. Are our buildings energy-efficient? Do our vehicles have low-carbon emissions? Are we doing everything we can to maximize our use of emerging “green” technologies? As conservation agents, it is our responsibility to serve as a model to Americans as we work to reduce our carbon footprint locally and everywhere we are working, from coast-to-coast.

More visitors = economic benefits for local community
The construction and operation of the visitor center is expected to generate local economic benefits here in the local community through enhanced tourism revenues and associated employment opportunities.

The new visitor center will improve community education about our aquatic resources, and at the same time enhance the energy-efficiency of daily hatchery operations. The hatchery’s visitor center will serve to promote conservation of our resources both through its smart, environmentally-friendly design, and through the lessons learned within its walls.

AMENITIES

9,500 sq.ft. 2 Level facility
History of the hatchery exhibit hall
Friends of the Neosho NFH Bookstore
Classroom/Wet Lab and Aquariums
Auditorium, Library, Office Space

RECENT NEWS COVERAGE
Neosho National Fish Hatchery Breaks Ground for New Energy ...
Kansas City infoZine - ‎Jul 2, 2009‎
The US Fish and Wildlife Service's Neosho National Fish Hatchery (NFH) in southwest Missouri, the nation's oldest operational federal fish hatchery, ...
New National Fish Hatchery to be built
News-Leader.com - ‎Jul 2, 2009‎
Ground was broken Wednesday on the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, putting a modern face on the facility that opened in 1888. The building will include an ...
Speakers laud prospects for new hatchery center w/ video
Joplin Globe - Anne Hershewe - ‎Jul 1, 2009‎
NEOSHO, Mo. — Despite its rich history, the Neosho National Fish Hatchery on Wednesday was all about the future. “This is the beginning of ...
Speakers praise community support as key to success of Neosho hatchery
Neosho Daily News - Rick Rogers - ‎Jul 2, 2009‎
US Congressman Roy Blunt grabbed the gold-painted shovel with two hands, plunged it into the soft dirt next to one of the fish ponds, ...
WEB UPDATE: Hatchery officials break ground on visitor's center
Neosho Daily News - Rick Rogers - ‎Jul 1, 2009‎
The first pieces of dirt were moved Wednesday morning as members of the US FiSH and Wildlife Service, community members, ...
Ground broken for hatchery
Joplin Globe - ‎Jul 1, 2009‎
NEOSHO, Mo. — The Neosho National Fish Hatchery broke ground for its new visitors center today. The contract for the construction of the new center was ...

For more information on the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, http://www.fws.gov/midwest/neosho/

Outdoor Writers Association of America Conference

2009-06-14T08:58:00.000-07:00

Outdoor Writers Association of America Conference
June 13-16, 2009

Starting on Saturday, June 13, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service participated in the 82nd Annual Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) Conference, held in Grand Rapids, Mich. Since its establishment 82 years ago, the OWAA has become a prestigious organization including some of the most accomplished and prolific outdoor communicators among its members. The organization has also evolved a great deal in its 82 years of existence and a large portion of the conference focused on the constant skills needed to be a good communicator. Several sessions also highlighted the newer skills and tools needed to work in the evolving digital and social networking worlds available to outdoor communicators.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's small contingency at the conference was lead by Hannibal Bolton, Assistant Director for the Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration Program. Public Affairs staff from the national office and the nearby Midwest Region Regional office were also on-hand to provide story ideas and help the OWAA members better understand what the USFWS does, and explain how we can help them find the information they need to do their jobs.

During an hour-long session on Saturday afternoon, Hannibal was joined by other senior executives from the USDA and BLM to provide a report as to what the agencies have been doing, and what some of their priorities for the coming years will be. Hannibal highlighted some new hunter recruitment opportunities proposed in the FY 2010 budget, along with highlighting the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, climate change issues and the importance of working as a team with other federal agencies, states, private companies, NGOs and public to accomplish our mutual natural resource management goals.

A theme for all federal agencies represented was the need to work together, and to share energy, expertise and resources to develop effective strategies to better understand and address our changing climate.

As expected, the OWAA members in attendance were interested in the topics and engaged the panel in a lively question and and answer session. The conference continues through Tuesday.

Next year's OWAA conference is scheduled to be in Rochester, Minn., in early June 2010.

Posted by Chuck Traxler, Midwest Region Public Affairs Specialist

International Waters

2009-05-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

The Yangtze River in China and the Great River that cuts through America’s midsection, although thousands of miles apart, face similar threats to the ecological balance of the habitats they provide and the resources they supply.

The Mississippi River, first navigated by early explorers in our nation’s history, is now one of the most heavily trafficked transportation corridors in the world. From the headwaters of the far north to the hypoxic delta of the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River basin feeds the agricultural lifestyles of the

Midwest, waters the angler’s thirst for sport fish, and provides habitat for some of the most threatened and endangered aquatic species in the country.
The Yangtze, the largest river in China and third longest in the world, flows from the southwest corner of the country to the east through Shanghai, the country’s most populous city, before emptying into the East China Sea. It supports a commercial fishery that helps feed the country’s 1.3 billion residents. It provides a thoroughfare for the transportation of goods across the country. And beneath its waters, the 6200 km river holds some of the last remaining populations of Chinese fish species threatened with extinction.

The common challenges facing these rivers and their ecosystems have brought Chinese and American fish and wildlife agencies together to share conservation strategies and better understand the similarities and differences between their unique cultural views of conservation.

“When scientists work together across countries, we are increasing our opportunities to improve the environment on a more comprehensive, international scale,” said Pam Thiel, fish biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s LaCrosse National Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office. Thiel was one of ten American delegates who participated in a two-week fisheries resources expedition in China last fall. Thiel and other Service representatives hosted a Chinese delegation of managers and scientists during their cross-country trip to the United States this April.

“We have to respond to the globalization of our economies and marketplaces at an environmental level as well,” Thiel said.

The U.S. - China delegation exchange program developed as a result of a series of science and technology agreements signed in 1986 between the U.S. and People’s Republic of China. Under the U.S. China Nature Conservation Protocol, the U.S. Department of the Interior and China’s State Forestry Administration are working together to address environmental issues and increase cooperation and exchanges between the countries’ conservation agencies.

“We are interconnected; what happens in one place, can happen in another,” said Steven Kohl with the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service’s Division of International Conservation. Kohl led the Chinese delegation tour this spring.

“China has the largest population in the world; because of this, their experiences can help us understand how to respond to urbanization and other negative human impacts using new tools and resources.”

The exchange brought leading fisheries biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to China where they met with members of the Ministry of Agriculture and Academy of Fishery Sciences. The delegates visited the Chishui and Yangtze Rivers, Three Gorges Dam, and numerous fisheries research institutions, including the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute.

“The threats facing the Chinese sturgeon are similar to those facing the species’ close relative, the Pallid sturgeon, here in U.S. waters,” Thiel said. “Pollution, habitat degradation, dredging, the construction of dams – these are the challenges we face with fish both in the States and abroad.”

Both the Chinese sturgeon and Pallid sturgeon are considered ‘living fossils’ because they lived up to 140 million years ago and bear the prehistoric appearance of dinosaurs. The Pallid sturgeon, with fewer than 300 in the wild population, was listed as Federally endangered on the Endangered Species List in 1990. The Chinese sturgeon is categorized as a ‘first class’ species in China’s National Catalogue of Protected Wildlife. Among China’s first class protected wildlife, many are aquatic species, including the Chinese river dolphin, Chinese paddlefish, red coral and Asian giant softshell turtle.

The gravity of the threats facing the Chinese sturgeon led to the development of the Chinese Sturgeon Research Institute, one of the sites visited by the American delegation. The research facility studies the species’ reproductive cycle and raises captive populations for propagation and release into the wild. Fan Xiangguo, Director of the Division of Aquatic Wildlife Conservation within the Ministry of Agriculture and member of the Chinese delegation, said that more than 7 million Chinese sturgeon have been released into the Yangtze River in an effort to recover the species. However it remains uncertain whether the hatchery-reared fish are contributing to self-sustaining populations.

Pallid sturgeons are also captive-reared by state and federal hatcheries in the U.S. in an effort to reestablish populations in the lower Mississippi and Missouri rivers. But artificial propagation is just one element of recovery efforts for endangered fish species. Restoring habitat is critical for species like the sturgeon to survive.

Of the fish that are released in the Yangtze, only a small number are marked. Mass marking initiatives have become a key monitoring method for fish released into the wild in the U.S. Thiel and other fishery conservation agents hope the U.S. - China exchange program will encourage effective monitoring tactics, like mass-marking, be adopted by Chinese fishery counterparts to help improve recovery efforts for the sturgeon.

Degradation and loss of habitat are the main factors contributing to aquatic species decline in the U.S. and China. Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydro-electric power station in the world, provides clean energy, power to millions of Chinese citizens, and prevents flooding, but has also resulted in major barriers to fish passage and decreased water quality.

In the U.S., the construction of dams and channels has also contributed to loss of suitable spawning habitat for many species, including sturgeon.According to Thiel, paddlefish, a species of concern in the U.S. are another victim of habitat loss, and are functionally extinct in China. In the U.S., paddlefish are illegally harvested for their eggs, a threat that has caused growing concern amongst many fish and wildlife agencies.

“Overharvesting by commercial fisherman, pollution and public perceptions continue to remain the major issues for fisheries conservation in many parts of the world,” said Thiel.

Li Yanliang, Director General of China’s Fishery Law Enforcement Command, headed the Chinese delegation. “Compared to the United States, our country started a little bit later in terms of technology,” he said. “We are behind and we recognize the need to educate our public more on wildlife conservation.”

As part of China’s effort to become more environmentally conscious, the Ministry of Agriculture set a priority of establishing nature preserves and strengthening habitat protection of endangered aquatic wildlife. China currently has more than 200 nature preserves, a number that has tripled since 1999. According to members of the Chinese delegation, nature preserves have already resulted in positive effects for fishery resources, water, ecosytems and sustainability of fishing communities.

“More people are paying attention to the protection of wildlife,” said Yanliang.

China is also credited in the current economic climate for its booming economy and in turn, increasing mobility for its citizens. With increasing disposable incomes, demand for recreational activities has grown, including visitor centers and services in the country’s natural areas and reserves.

“We have been able to share knowledge about our agency’s National Wildlife Refuge System and Visitor’s Services programs, to help them accommodate this growing demand, said Kohl.

The U.S. - China Nature Conservation Protocol exchange program is just one of several international exchange programs facilitated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The opportunity to interact with our international counterparts on a face-to-face basis is rare, but it is so important,” Kohl said. “Not only for the lessons it teaches us about conservation; but also the lessons it teaches us about cooperation between cultures.”

- Ashley Spratt, USFWS External Affairs

Little Shack on the Prairie

2009-04-29T19:04:00.000-07:00

Generally, my alarm going off at 4 a.m. is not something I look forward to....4 a.m., on Tuesday, April 28, was no different. When combined with the fact that right next to my hotel was what seemed to be the busiest railroad line on the planet, it was going to take something special to make this a good day for me. To make it just a little more painful, my guide for the early morning excursion, Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District Assistant Manager Cathy Henry, also suggested that I not drink any coffee.

Needless to say when I met her at the District office at 4:45 a.m., I wasn't too cheery. When, after a short drive to the middle of a vast open prairie, I stepped into ankle deep cold water I knew it could only get better. It was still dark at 5:30 a.m., after our 15 minute walk through cold water, guided only by small blue reflective lights, we arrived at "little shack on the prairie."

As a fully prepared public affairs guy, I had carried about 100 lbs. of expensive electronics with me into the middle of this slough. And, being the professional that I am, I started quickly and quietly preparing tripods, cameras and audio equipment, all while trying my best not to startle our intended targets.

My equipment was ready -- at least as ready as I could make it on 3 hours of sleep, standing in ankle deep water in the dark. So, Cathy and I stepped into the 8 foot wide, 4 foot deep, and 6 foot tall, Hamden Slough National Wildlife Refuge Prairie Chicken Blind, a.k.a Little Shack on the Prairie. It was about 5:45 a.m., and I still wasn't very cheery.

I should be fair and explain why Cathy suggested I not drink coffee. I am quite a coffee drinker, and not having coffee at a 4 a.m. wake up was pretty sadistic punishment in my book. But, Cathy only had my best interest at heart. Apparently in about 15 - 30 minutes the prairie chickens would arrive near our shack, and once they do, we are stuck inside until they leave; often 4-5 hours later. If we leave before they do, it can cause enough stress on them, so they may abandon the lek (the area these birds congregate in the morning)...which, is not a good thing. So basically, no restroom breaks for 4-5 hours, and if I'd filled up with my normal 2-3 big cups, I'd have lasted about 45 minutes.

Around 6 a.m., I began to hear very strange sounds. A combination of what I thought were mourning doves, mallard ducks, shrieking children and possibly some Buddhist monks. The air was filled with these strange, hypnotic sounds. Even in the vastness of this open prairie, I really couldn't tell where the sounds were coming from. It seems like from all sides of the shack. Cathy leaned over toward me and whispered, "They're here."

Around 6:15 or 6:30 it was finally light enough for me to catch my first glimpse of movement, a dark blur of feathers leaped straight up in the air, flowed by a few other doing the same and then quickly running off into the darkness.

The sounds alone where really enough for me to get over the train whistles, early wake up and the wet boots. Once I started catching glimpses of the birds, followed by views of the open prairie and 16 of the birds dancing, whirling and running all at once, I even stopped worrying about the coffee. And, had I known that in just over 12 hours I'd be stuck at dead stop in the middle of a Minneapolis rush hour traffic jam.....I wouldn't have complained at all, because a 4 a.m. wake-up, no coffee and wet shoes are still better than rush hour traffic. And, when you add in the best show on the prairie, I can easily say that this was the best 4 a.m. wake-up day I have ever had; less the rush hour traffic.

Back to the chickens, these energetic, excited and funny birds put on a performance to rival cirque de soleil. I'm not critic, but in my humble opinion the music, dancing and stage setting for the prairie chicken show was far more entertaining and enjoyable. And, yes, I have seen cirque de soleil. It is difficult to explain, but there really is something hypnotic and powerful about the booming and the dancing these birds perform that is nothing like I've ever seen or heard.

This is a once-a-year show, only performed for a few weeks in April and May in northwestern Minnesota. Mature male and female prairie chickens are somehow naturally attracted to what is called a lek. These are generally rocky or sandy soil spots in the middle of large prairies where the grass doesn't grow tall. This allows the short males to perform for the females enjoyment and favors.

The males puff up large orange air sacs on their necks, they jump straight up in the air and spin, landing as gracefully as a prairie chicken can.

Sometimes a male will go face-to-face with another male and stare each other down. These generally end with either one male making a quick attack and the other leaves, or, they both just stare at each other and then they both walk away, each with his dignity intact.

Biologists surmise this elaborate courting behaviour is to help ensure that the strongest, most coordinated and dominate males mate with females to help further their species. It is something most species do in one form or another, but this is one of them most fascinating and entertaining I have seen.

Time is running short if you want to experience this amazing wildlife spectacle yet this year. You can reserve the Hamden Slough National Wildlife Refuge Prairie Chicken Blind by call the office at 218-8474431.

If you can't get in this spring, mark your calendars for next spring. Despite the early wake-up, a little chill and no coffee, it is worth the effort. I'll be doing it again.

Thanks to Cathy Henry, Scott Kahan and the rest of the staff at the Detroit Lakes Wetland Management District for giving me this opportunity to enjoy some of the prairie wildlife.

More information on the Detroit Lakes WMD and Hamden Slough NWR.

More information on prairie chickens from the Prairie Chicken Society.

More information on the Midwest Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Chuck Traxler

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Midwest Region External Affairs

Public Affairs Specialist

The State of the Birds: A Midwest Perspective

2009-03-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

The State of the Birds report was developed in partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), state wildlife agencies, and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) as a subcommittee of the U.S. North American Bird Conservation Initiative.

Birds are considered indicators of the health of our environment. They keep us attuned to changes in habitat and natural resources and are undeniably linked to our quality of life in the Midwest. Approximately 450 of America’s bird species occur in the wetlands, grasslands, forests and urban environments of the Midwest. The bird species that follow provide just a few examples of the ongoing successes and challenges of bird conservation and management in this region. To see the complete report, visit http://www.stateofthebirds.org.

FOREST BIRDS OF THE MIDWEST

Cerulean Warbler

Cerulean Warbler breeds in large tracts of mature eastern deciduous forests, including river

floodplain, ridge top, and cove forests. Although the center of its current distribution is in the central Appalachians, there are current breeding populations in all eight upper Midwestern states. The species flies more than 2,500 miles twice a year to and from its wintering grounds in the northern Andes of South America from Venezuela to Peru. Survey data suggest the current population has declined by more than 70 percent since 1966. Declines are believed to be caused by habitat loss and degradation due to forest fragmentation and loss of large emergent trees on both the wintering and breeding grounds. The species has also suffered from habitat loss to mountaintop mining in the core of its breeding range. Ceruleans appear to respond well to forest management tactics including selective cutting and the creation of small openings. Proactive conservation measures have been coordinated by the Cerulean Warbler Technical Group, a partnership between federal, state, nonprofit, and private agencies and organizations. The group has established conservation action priorities, conducted research on breeding requirements and nesting success, tested forest management practices, and surveyed populations on the breeding and wintering grounds. An active international working group, El Grupo Cerúleo, is working to develop conservation strategies throughout the breeding, migratory and wintering stages of the Cerulean life cycle. In partnership with ProAves Colombia, El Grupo hosted a summit in Bogotá in October 2008. As a result, an international partnership is forming between the coal industry in the Central Appalachians and coffee producers in Colombia.

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler breeds in coniferous and mixed northern hardwood forests across the southern boreal forest and Upper Great Lakes, and in mesic ravines in the Appalachian Mountains. The species winters in the mountains of northwestern South America. Population declines noted by survey data are believed to be due to forest fragmentation and habitat degradation both on the breeding and wintering grounds. Habitat of Southern Appalachian high-elevation breeding birds is being degraded by acid rain and increasing numbers of insect pests. Canada’s Boreal Forest Conservation Framework has set a goal of protecting more than 50 percent of the boreal forest, which should lead to habitat improvements that support the long- term viability of this species.

American Woodcock

American Woodcock breeds in early-successional northern hardwood forests across the southern boreal forest of Canada, the Upper Great Lakes, and northeastern United States. The Woodcock Singing-Ground Survey shows a long-term decline that is believed to be caused by loss of early-successional forest and habitat degradation on the breeding grounds. The Wildlife Management Institute, in cooperation with the Service and numerous state agencies, has embarked on several regional woodcock initiatives. The goal is to focus habitat management efforts to benefit woodcock through maintenance of field and shrubland habitats and the creation of young forest using the best available principles of conservation biology and land-use planning.

GRASSLAND BIRDS OF THE MIDWEST

Eastern Meadowlark

Survey data show a long-term decline throughout the species’ range in the eastern and midwestern U.S. and Canada. The decline is attributed to the disappearance of suitable nesting habitat due to urbanization, intensive agricultural practices, and loss of open fields. Maintenance and increases in local meadowlark populations will depend on restoration of large blocks of grassland and prairie habitat and continuation and expansion of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Larger landscape-scale increases seem partially dependent on changing land-use behaviors of the agricultural community.

Henslow’s Sparrow

Henslow’s Sparrow is found in grasslands of the eastern and midwestern U.S. and southern

Ontario. Large population declines from the 1960s through the mid-1980s have been halted,

and the species has rebounded above the objective set by Partners in Flight. Recent increases may be due primarily to the large number of acres set aside for the CRP in the 1990s. CRP acreages recently began a sharp

decline, however, future population stability may be dependent upon reversing this trend. Large landscape-scale prairie restorations can hold several hundred or even thousands of breeding pairs of this bird. This restoration work produces source populations for surrounding landscapes when CRP lands are abundant and also creates refugia when CRP lands dwindles. (Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation)

WETLAND BIRDS OF THE MIDWEST

Trumpeter Swan

Trumpeter Swan breeds in freshwater marshes and along ponds and lakes from central Alaska to western South Dakota, North Dakota, and throughout the Great Lakes states and provinces. It has been re-established farther eastward in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ontario. The species winters in lakes, streams, springs, rivers and reservoirs. The Trumpeter Swan was hunted for its feathers throughout the 1600s - 1800s, causing a tremendous decline in its numbers. It was reduced to near extinction by the early 20th century. The continental estimate of Trumpeter Swan abundance in 2005 was 34,803 - a record-high since comprehensive surveys were initiated in 1968. Much of the success of this species’ recovery has been due to collaborative restoration and management efforts across its range.

Lesser Yellowlegs

This shorebird breeds across the boreal forest of Canada and Alaska and winters in southern U.S. and Central and South America. Numbers are thought to be declining, particularly at migration sites in the Midwest and Northeast. Threats to the species include insecticides on wintering rice field habitat in the southern U.S., drainage of wetlands from tiling in the Midwest with resultant loss of important stopover habitat, fragmentation and degradation of its boreal forest habitat, and energy development and habitat degradation through pollution and development in the estuaries of northern South America. Management of national and state refuges for shorebird stopover habitat during spring and fall migrations benefits this species directly and partially compensates for loss of wetlands.

King Rail

King Rail breeds inland in fresh water marshes along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and in the interior U.S. as far north as Wisconsin and west to the eastern Great Plains. Interior migratory populations have decreased greatly in recent decades, and the King Rail has been identified as a species of greatest conservation need in 30 State Wildlife Action Plans. Loss of wetland habitat due to drainage and habitat degradation from nutrient runoff, invasive plant species, and fragmentation are adversely affecting this species. (Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Conservation)

Scaup

Decline in continental populations of Greater and Lesser scaup continue to seriously concern waterfowl managers in North America. The decline in the breeding population largely has occurred in the western Canadian boreal forest - in the heart of Lesser Scaup breeding range - but breeding populations of greater scaup in traditional survey areas appear stable. Issues of habitat quantity and quality and contaminants are applicable to both species on many key staging and wintering areas. The next step needed for scaup conservation is the development of a comprehensive conservation action plan. The goals for the conservation plan are to synthesize the recent, rapidly evolving information on scaup; identify important affiliations, habitats and areas; identify conservation threats; develop priorities for monitoring, research, and habitat conservation; and identify potential funding programs, resources, and partnerships.

URBAN ENVIRONMENTS

The Service entered into an Urban Conservation Treaty for Migratory Birds with Chicago, Ill., in 2000 and St. Louis, Mo., in 2004. An important stopover location for migratory birds, the City of Chicago has since successfully reduced bird hazards through such initiatives as the Lights Out program, and has set a national and global model for “green” municipalities. At the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, St. Louis is a major stopover point along the Mississippi Flyway. Partners involved with the St. Louis Urban Treaty have committed to the creation, protection, and restoration of bird habitat. Both Urban Treaties offer excellent opportunities to educate both children and adults about the ecology and conservation needs of migratory birds.

To listen to the State of the Birds announcement by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, click here:

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/Podcasts/Audio/State%20of%20Birds-2.mp3

To watch video of the press conference, click here: http://www.fws.gov/video/flash/birdsalazar.html

For the State of the Birds news release, click here: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/News/documents/SOTB_NewsRelease_19Mar09.pdf

2009-02-17T09:17:00.000-08:00

Tracking a Killer

The bat is the climax of creation in many things,
highly developed in brain, marvelously keen in senses,
clad in exquisite fur and equipped, above all,
with the crowning glory of flight.

Ernest Thompson Seton: 1913

Maybe you have to work with a bunch of bat fanatics to get seriously worried about bats with fungus growing on them. Bloomington Field Office, in general, is rife with bat-lovers, as much as a 14-person office can be. But even someone like me, who is not a biologist and who divides work time among lots of different issues, immediately got the drift that something very bad was happening to bats.

I first heard about white-nose syndrome about a year ago. The lead biologist for Indiana bat recovery, Lori Pruitt, stuck her head in my office and told me about reports of bats dying in New York State. Lots of bats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them, found dead in caves. The only symptom that could be identified at the time was a fuzzy fungus growing on the bats’ muzzles. White-nose syndrome, it was called, for lack of a better term.

Lori told me about biologists in New York visiting caves and finding piles of dead bats on the cave floor. They’d seen bats with the fungus at just a four sites, in a very localized area, the year before, but nothing of this magnitude. As days went by, I heard about more and more sites in the northeast where WNS had been confirmed. Our counterparts in the Northeast Region were swamped with inquiries.

By the end of the winter of 2008, biologists confirmed that white-nose syndrome had killed tens of thousands of bats in northeastern states: New York, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut. In some caves and mines in New York, bat mortality was 80 to 100 percent. Most of the affected bats were little browns, but other species, including the endangered Indiana bat, died as well.

For me, what really spoke “crisis” was a Region 5 video posted on their website. The video showed the incongruous sight of tiny bats struggling through the snow in broad daylight. Bats aren’t supposed to be out in the daylight. They’re supposed to be hibernating when there’s snow on the ground, not scrabbling among the drifts. Take a look and see for yourself, although it’s not easy to watch. http://www.fws.gov/northeast/wns2.html

What would make these little creatures leave their caves in the middle of winter, to venture out into freezing weather with not a hope of finding any insect prey? One theory is that bats with the fungus, for whatever reason, burn up their winter reserves of fat early and venture out to find food. Bats found outside caves were often emaciated or dehydrated.

As bats left caves in the spring last year, there was hope that perhaps the change of season would stop the trend. But there were also worries that bats were dispersing from hibernacula to spread white-nose to new areas. In the meantime, the bat conservation community nationwide - federal, state and private agencies - set up networks for information exchange, defined research needs, and established protocols for people entering caves to limit potential spread. The problem: no one knew how the fungus spread, whether humans could contribute, or even whether the fungus was the cause or merely a symptom of the problem.

The summer reprieve didn’t materialize. People out east even reported little brown bats dying in summer roosts – in barns, attics and outbuildings.

It’s now mid-February. As I write this, I periodically get cc’d on e-mails among the biologists working to find an answer. And the news continues to worsen. A biologist in Vermont reports a “horrendous” scene inside a cave he surveyed. Parts of bats strewn on the ground at the cave entrance. Inside, bats stuck to icicles, struggling to fly, dying as he watched. Overhead, bats clustered together as if hibernating, except that many were dead. The biologist described the live bats trying to huddle with decomposing bodies.

More messages pop up: White-nose likely in West Virginia. Additional WNS sites in Pennsylvania. Here in Indiana, home to the world’s largest hibernaculum for the endangered Indiana bat, we worry and wonder whether the fungus will appear at sites farther and farther west. In a few days, biologists are planning to enter one of Indiana’s prime bat caves to do the biennial count. So far, we’ve seen no evidence of WNS in the Midwest, and we are hoping that will continue. Meanwhile, Lori and her colleagues in the bat conservation community carry on searching for an answer, or at least a glimmer of hope.

Georgia Parham - External Affairs, Midwest Region

Photo: New York Department of Environmental Conservation

Pheasants Forever, a FWS Partner in Conservation, Presents Pheasant Fest 2009

2009-02-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

Pheasants Forever and Cabela's, both U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partners in conservation, presented the fifth annual Pheasant Fest this February 6-8 at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, Wis.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees from the Midwest Region educated the public on private lands, fire management, the Small Wetlands Program, and the Federal and Jr. Duck Stamp programs.

Greg Brown, private lands biologist with the Service's Midwest Regional Office, said, "Interacting with private landowners in this setting gives us a chance to hear about conservation issues affecting their land, and educate them on how they can manage their land in such a way that benefits wildlife and people."

Daniel Peterson, Visitor Services Manager with Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, and Refuge volunteer Mary Jane Bean answered questions from teachers, parents and children about the Wisconsin Jr. Duck Stamp Contest, which will be held at the Refuge this March. "Everyone that walked by the booth was amazed at the artwork we had on display from last year's contest," Peterson said. "They always ask, you mean a kid drew that?"

The Junior Duck Stamp Program is an offshoot of the Federal Duck Stamp program, which was established more than 75 years ago to permanently protect wetlands, waterfowl and wildlife on the National Wildlife Refuge System. As part of the Junior Duck Stamp program, students from every state submit artwork to be entered into the state Jr. Duck Stamp contest. The winning artwork from each state, or the "Best in Show," is then submitted the the National Junior Duck Stamp Contest, which will this year be held at the Postal Museum in Washington D.C. on Earth Day, April 22. The national winning artwork is made into the Jr. Duck Stamp, which is then sold to the general public for $5. While funds generated from the sale of Federal Duck Stamps goes directly toward purchasing waterfowl production areas (WPAs) and wetlands on the National Wildlife Refuge System, the funds generation from the sale of Jr. Duck Stamps goes directly back into conservation education and expansion of the Jr. Duck program.

"These children have budding artistic talent, and they are able to express their talent and learn how to be good conservation stewards at the same time through the Jr. Duck Stamp program," said Mary Jane Bean, President of the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge Friends Group. Mary Jane has been a member of the Necedah Friends Group for more than six years.

Along with the Wisconsin Jr. Duck exhibit, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service staff also displayed the original artwork from the last Federal Duck Stamp contest, which was held in Minnesota in October 2008. The top 25 entries, including Federal Duck Stamp winner Joshua Spies' acrylic painting of a long tailed duck and decoy, were on display for the public to view. Several former Duck Stamp entrants hosted booths at Pheasant Fest, and were pleased to see their artwork being admired by the show's attendees. Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius shook hands with the former Duck Stamp artists in an historic moment in wildlife art and conservation history.

Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius also participated in a panel discussion on renewable energy and wildlife habitat with high-ranking representatives from multiple conservation and energy agencies and organizations. Panelists included Kim Zuhlke, Vice President of New Energy Resources for Alliant Energy, Toby Lloyd, program specialist with USDA Farm Service Agency, Pat Leavenworth, Wisconsin State Conservationists with USDA National Resources Conservation Service, Matt Frank, Secretary of Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Bill Belden, Vice President of Prairie Lands, Dave Jenksin, Director of Wisconins Office of Energy Independence, and Dr. Clarence Lehman, research scientist with the University of Minnesota.

Melius discussed ways the Service is contributing to research on alternative energy, but also maintained that the Service is committed to carrying out our mission - putting fish and wildlife first. He discussed the use of native grasses as biomass for energy production at St. Croix Wetland Management District, and how the removal of woody vegetation from waterfowl production areas benefits both the wildlife, and our exploration of energy alternatives. "The economic benefits have to be real," Melius said. "Land is not something we can make more of."

Panelists discussed renewable energy crops and climate change issues in the context of policy and land use practices and answered questions from private farmers and landowners.

Pheasant Fest provides an opportunity for the conservation community to come together and share ideas on the outlook of hunting, education, and conservation in the changing environmental and economic landscape of the 21st century. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proud to be a partner in conservation with Pheasants Forever, a leader in grassroots conservation.

- Ashley Spratt, USFWS Midwest External Affairs

Planes, Cranes and Automobiles: Ultralight-led whooping cranes arrive at two Florida National Wildlife Refuges

2009-01-22T15:31:00.000-08:00

Three months ago, fourteen yearling whooping cranes departed from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in central Wisconsin for their first 1,200 mile journey across the skies of the middle and eastern United States. Half of the flock was destined for St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, and the other half destined for Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, both located on the Gulf Coast of Florida.

So what makes this migration different from that of any other migratory bird? The answer is two fold: their ultralight-aircraft chaperones, and their status as an endangered species.

Since 2001, the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership (WCEP), an international coalition of public and private agencies and organizations, has been working to establish a self-sustaining migratory population of whooping cranes in the Eastern United States. Whooping cranes (commonly known as "whoopers" for their loud and penetrating unison calls) were on the verge of extinction due to hunting and habitat loss in the 1940s, and were listed as federally endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1967.

Pilots from Operation Migration - a WCEP partner- has been leading flocks of captive-reared whooping cranes south from their summer home in Wisconsin to their wintering location in Florida.

To increase awareness for the project and highlight the recovery efforts of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership, the public is given opportunities along the migration route to see the ultralights and birds in flight.

On the morning of January 17, thousands of onlookers - some locals from the towns surrounding St. Marks, others craniacs from across the nation - crowded the town of St. Marks to witness for the first time, seven whooping cranes flying behind four ultralight aircraft as they closed in on their final destination. Terry Peacock, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge Manager, said the outpouring of support in preparing for the cranes' arrival was remarkable. "People had never seen anything like it," she said. One of the oldest refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System, St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge covers 70,000 acres and more than 60 miles of coastline in Wakulla, Jefferson and Taylor counties along the Gulf Coast of northwest Florida. Joan Garland, Co-Chair of the WCEP Outreach Teams, said WCEP's decision to split the flock was because of the loss in February 2007 of 17 of the 18 Class of 2006 whooping cranes in a severe storm at Chassahowitzka NWR. "WCEP hopes the two wintering locations will help reduce the risk of another catastrophic loss," Garland said.

Just a few days later on January 22, I was able to experience the cranes flying behind planes firsthand. This group of seven cranes were destined for Chassahowitzka NWR. I stood outside the hangar at Dunnellon Airport at 7:00 a.m., and watched the headlights of cars beaming through the mist as they headed down the driveway. By 8:00 a.m. the parking lot was full. Despite an unusually frigid Florida morning, several hundred people turned out for the flyover event, as it would be one of the last opportunities to see the migration caravan of planes and cranes up close. Around 9:00 a.m., a voice came over the loudspeaker. "The cranes are approaching!"

Cheers and claps drowned out the loud speaker and binoculars, cameras and video camcorders all jumped out of their cases in a matter of seconds. It took a few minutes before the cranes and planes were visible to the naked eye, but once they were spotted, all eyes, ears and pointing fingers faced in their direction.

I squinted my eyes to make out the triangular shape of the lead ultralight, manned by Brooke Pennypacker, one of OM's pilots. Soon after I spotted the ultralight, I saw a thin white string following closely behind on one wing. It was not until the caravan closed in on the airport could you discern that the thin white string was actually a flock of cranes. And not just any cranes: endangered whooping cranes. The birds glided in a perfect line behind the left wing of the aircraft, barely flapping a wing.

Brooke circled the crowd overhead... once... and then a second time. The birds were in view for around 10-15 minutes, before Brooke headed directly into the sun, and off to the Halpata pen site, where the birds and crew would rest in preparation for their final leg to Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge the following morning. As the birds and Brooke cleared the treetops and flew out of sight, two of the other ultralight aircraft came in for a landing at the Dunnellon airport. The pilots parked their planes in front the crowd of people that had gathered to shake their hands.

With the completion of Migration 2008 in sight, the Whooping Cranes Eastern Partnership could breathe a sigh of relief. But still with one leg of the migration left, a short 26 miles from Halpata to Chassahowitzka, Preparations still needed to be made at Chassahowitzka NWR to prepare the pens.

I visited the pensite at Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on January 23, the day the flock of seven arrived. Sarah, who works for the International Crane Foundation, and is a member of the WCEP Tracking Team, guided myself and Joan Garland, ICF Education Coordinator, through the salt water marsh on Florida's Gulf Coast to reach the pen location inside the refuge. We traveled by car, by airboat, and by foot to reach the pensite, which is located in an isolated section of the refuge. "It's important that the birds do not get accustomed to humans," Sarah explained. In fact, the cranes never see a human face, or hand, or leg. That's because WCEP researchers, and even OM's pilots, all wear crane costumes when they handle or are around the cranes. Once we reached the camouflage colored blind, we were outfitted with our own crane costumes, which resemble bee keeper suits, and come equipped with a crane neck and head that takes the place of our human hands.

Sarah will check on the birds twice a day through the wintering period, in the morning and in the afternoon. Her WCEP Tracking Team partner, Richard Urbanek, who is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, takes the evening shift. "This is one of the most intensely monitored populations of crane in the world," Richard told me.

After suiting up and being instructed on pensite protocol, we walked silently toward the pens. This is the first afternoon the birds have spent at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge, and we are anxious to observe their behavior. Sarah checks the water level and food, while Joan and I watch as some of the cranes curiously approach. The birds are provided with "crane pellets" but also forage for snails, oysters, and other food on their own. I watch motionless, as one of the larger birds stands tall and stretches his long neck upwards. Sarah raises the crane head from her costumer higher than that of the approaching bird's, and he backs away. After we left the pens, Sarah explained that this behavior is how the birds display dominance. One of the smaller cranes picks at a snail, tossing it in the air before it drops to the ground, and the cycle is repeated. The birds will stay in these top-netted pens until health checks are completed, which will be within just a few days. Then they will be released into a larger, 4-acre pen and will be free to fly and forage outside of the pen, but Sarah explains that most stay nearby.

WCEP History

In 2001, project partner Operation Migration’s pilots led the first whooping crane chicks, conditioned to follow their ultralight aircraft surrogates, south from Necedah NWR to Chassahowitzka NWR. Each subsequent year, WCEP biologists and pilots have conditioned and guided additional groups of juvenile cranes to Chassahowitzka NWR. Having been shown the way once, the young birds self initiate their return migration in the spring, and in subsequent years, continue to migrate on their own.

In the spring and fall, project staff from the International Crane Foundation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service track and monitor the released cranes in an effort to learn as much as possible about their unassisted journeys and the habitat choices they make both along the way and on their summering and wintering grounds.

Most graduated classes of whooping cranes spend the summer in central Wisconsin, where they use areas on or near the Necedah NWR, as well as other public and private lands.

Whooping cranes were on the verge of extinction in the 1940s. Today, there are only about 525 birds in existence, 375 of them in the wild. Aside from the 73 birds reintroduced by WCEP, the only other migrating population of whooping cranes nests at the Wood Buffalo National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada and winters at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas Gulf Coast. A non-migrating flock of approximately 30 birds lives year-round in the central Florida Kissimmee region.

Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership founding members are the International Crane Foundation, Operation Migration, Inc., Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey’s Patuxent Wildlife Research Center and National Wildlife Health Center, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Foundation of Wisconsin, and the International Whooping Crane Recovery Team.

Many other flyway states, provinces, private individuals and conservation groups have joined forces with and support WCEP by donating resources, funding and personnel. More than 60 percent of the project’s budget comes from private sources in the form of grants, public donations and corporate sponsors.

A Wisconsin Whooping Crane Management Plan that describes project goals and management and monitoring strategies shared and implemented by the partners is online at: http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/er/birds/wcrane/wcraneplan.htm.

For more information on the project, its partners and how you can help, visit the WCEP website at http://www.bringbackthecranes.org/.

Ashley Spratt, Public Affairs, Midwest Region

Federal Wildlife Investigation Leads to Felony Conviction of Two Minnesota Women for Trafficking in Illegal Wildlife

2009-01-13T21:15:00.000-08:00

Federal Wildlife Investigation Leads to Felony Conviction of Two Minnesota Women for Trafficking in Illegal Wildlife

On January 13, 2009, Pa Lor and Tia Yang, both of Minnesota, were sentenced for conspiracy to import wildlife into the United States. U.S. District Court Judge Joan Ericksen sentenced both women to two years of probation. In addition, Yang was sentenced to five months home confinement, 40 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $9,000 fine. As part of Lor’s sentence, she also agreed to work with federal officials to develop educational materials designed specifically for the Hmong community.

Visit our website for more photos, videos and details about this case at: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/LawEnforcement/traffic.html

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney LeeAnn K. Bell prosecuted the case.

The case against the two women began on October 23, 2005, when Lor was found attempting to smuggle more than 1,300 pieces of wildlife into the country through the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. This discovery was the beginning of a more than three year, multi-agency investigation into Lor and Yang’s illegal wildlife smuggling operation. The investigation was a cooperative effort between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Smuggling Endangered Species and Other Wildlife
On October 23, 2005, more than 24 hours after getting on an airplane in the country of Laos, Pa Lor walked off the plane in Minneapolis, Minn. Like every other international passenger arriving in Minnesota, Pa Lor filled out the familiar blue U.S. Customs form allowing travelers to declare certain items before being allowed into the United States. She did not declare any wildlife, or products derived from wildlife, upon her entry into the U.S.

While going through the normal interview process administered to all people entering the country, an alert U.S. Customs agent decided that something was not quite right. The agent determined that Pa Lor needed to go to the “secondary” or more intensive level of inspection, before being allowed into the U.S. During this secondary interview and inspection process, Customs agents found numerous items that appeared to be parts and pieces of wildlife in Lor’s luggage.

Not being experts in the identification of fish and wildlife, the U.S. Customs Agents called on-site U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Wildlife Inspector Linda Benson. Benson, along with Chicago-based Wildlife Inspector Tamesha Woulard who happened to be working in Minneapolis at the time, arrived at the scene and quickly recognized they were looking at a significant amount of wildlife. Many of the items in Lor’s possession were immediately identified as part of internationally endangered species.

“I’ve been working at this airport for a long time and I’ve seen a lot of things,” said Benson. “So, even with the massive quantity of wildlife pieces we found, we were able to recognize many of these items were illegal to bring into the U.S. Specifically, the primate and elephant parts stood out. A monkey hand or foot looks very much like a human, so when you see it lying on a counter, it attracts your attention….and, it leaves an impression.”

In all, 1,388 parts and piece of wildlife were confiscated from Pa Lor’s luggage. Parts of serow, douc langur, Asian elephant, slow loris, clouded leopard and many other internationally protected species were found. As part of Inspector Benson’s investigation at the scene, she was also able to determine that it appeared Lor’s intent was to bring these items into the U.S. and then sell them at her place of business.

“The vast majority of wildlife importation violations I find are the result of ignorance,” said Benson. “People simply don’t know they can’t bring some wildlife items into the U.S. In fact, some people often don’t make the connection that what they have is wildlife. They claim jewelry, clothing or medicine on their Customs forms and are genuinely surprised when I inform them that they actually are importing wildlife pieces.”

While ignorance of the law is no excuse, in most cases that wildlife inspectors determine travelers were not trying to intentionally break the law, the items are just confiscated. “Even if it was a true case of just not knowing or understanding the law, we still can’t allow the wildlife into the country,” explained Benson. “So, the person agrees to abandon the items and that is the end of it.”

However, in the case of Pa Lor, the sheer volume of the items, the intentional concealment of items and the intent to commercially sell the items made it clear this was not a mistake. “This was a planned conspiracy to illegally import wildlife into the United States,” said Assistant United States Attorney LeeAnn K. Bell, who prosecuted the case on behalf of the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Minnesota. “The facts left no doubt that this was not a case of misunderstanding the laws.”

Commercial Exploitation of Wildlife and Profiteering
Because of the volume and the commercial intent of the wildlife parts, Wildlife Inspector Benson called U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent Sheila O’Connor. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agents have the training and authority to conduct investigations into the commercial exploitation of wildlife, among other things.

As part of the investigation, Agent O’Connor arranged for two undercover operations at Lor’s place of business. During both undercover operations, agents were sold parts of endangered species. During one of these undercover buys, Lor actually explained how she was able to illegally bring these items into the country. In addition, she told the agent because these items were illegal to possess, he needed to be careful how he transported the items to ensure he wasn't caught with them.

“Thanks to the great work of our undercover agents and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Forensics Lab, we added a few missing pieces to the puzzle,” said O’Connor. “We knew this wasn’t a misunderstanding, this wasn’t because of any communication barriers or lack of knowledge. Pa Lor knew what she was doing was illegal and she intentionally tried to hide her illegal activities. This was a case of pure profiteering at the expense of hundreds of endangered species. Pa Lor did this for pure profit.”

Cultural Traditions
In addition to making a profit, another reason for bringing these endangered species into the U.S. is because of their use as traditional medicines. Many Asian cultures – as well as European and other cultures -- have been using plants and animals to heal people for generations. Many of the items are mixed into teas or made into powders or lotions and used for a wide variety of ailments. Some items are used as a talisman to bring the strength or the spirit of the animal to the wearer.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is not making any judgment on people’s beliefs,” commented O’Connor. “I sometimes wear a crucifix around my neck because of what I believe. I know people who carry a rabbit foot for luck. I usually make myself of bowl of chicken soup when I get a cold. I can’t call another person’s beliefs any stranger than mine.”

“However, my desire to have chicken soup is not causing chickens to go extinct. The soup has been legally transported and inspected. I am not knowingly, or unknowingly breaking any laws,” said O’Connor. “People who illegally import wildlife are breaking United States laws, International laws and driving species to extinction. I can accept why people use these items, but it doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t make it legal.”

Why We Protect Wildlife from Illegal Commercialization
While it is nearly impossible to get a firm number on the amount of illegal wildlife trafficking occurring on a world-wide scale, it is estimated to measure in the billions of dollars each year, second only to the illegal drug trade. This illegal trade is the primary threat to many endangered species. Tigers, elephants, rhinos, sea turtles, macaws and a wide variety of other animals are just hanging onto existence. The greed associated with the illegal wildlife market could be enough to push any of these species, and many others, over the edge. According to Agent O’Connor, “One of the fastest ways to cause a species to go extinct is to commercialize it.”

What Is Being Done
Laws
Over the course of our nation’s history, we have created several federal laws designed to protect our wildlife. Some of the best known examples include the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Lacey Act and the Endangered Species Act. The international community has also created several laws designed to protect wildlife on a world-wide scale. Beyond all the other country-specific and international laws, an over overarching international agreement designed to protect endangered species is the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as CITES. Eighty countries signed CITES in 1973 and today more than 174 countries are participants.

Education
Wide varieties of state and federal agencies, as well as local and non-profit organizations, are working in the U.S. and internationally to help protect wildlife. Link in the “Learn More” section of this website will provide you more information on what these groups are doing, and help you find ways that you can help to protect these endangered species.

For More Information
For more Information on this case, or what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing to protect wildlife nationally and internationally, contact the Midwest Region of the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service at 612-713-5360 or email at: r3fwsnews@fws.gov

- Chuck Traxler, USFWS Public Affairs

A Good Sunday Afternoon

2009-01-10T06:37:00.000-08:00

For me, Sundays in the winter generally involve a couch and football on TV. However, after my team -- the Carolina Panthers -- were handed a horrendous defeat by the Arizona Cardinals on Saturday night, I suddenly found myself with nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon.

So, to help take my mind of the dismal play of my favorite team, I decided to take my son out for a walk. An inch of snow had fallen Saturday night and this it easy to see animal tracks.

My son and I drove to a waterfowl production area not too far from my house. There were no car tracks in the parking lot, so we would be the first to walk through the new snow.

So far this winter we've gotten about 10 inches of snow. It has thawed and melted over the last few weeks, so there was a hard "crust" of ice on top of the old snow. This crust was covered with layer of fresh snow. Not really thinking this through, I hadn't brought snowshoes, so walking through this snow was quite a workout.

My son didn't have any trouble, he was light enough so that he didn't break through the crust. Not being as light as I used to be, I broke through with each step. My son cruised along with no problem, but I was sweating and out of breath in no time.

Thankfully, nature helped me out in the form of wild turkeys. A large group of turkeys were feeding alongside a hill on the other side of a small wetland in front of us. I pointed them out to my son who spent the next 10 minutes watching them through his binoculars.....I spent most of those 10 minutes catching my breath.

After the excitement of the turkeys wore off, my son was ready to go again. To slow him down a little, I asked him to help me look for animal tracks in the new snow.

Rabbits and pheasants seemed to be the top critters that had been moving around in the area we visited.

The fresh snow made it easy for us to follow the tracks and see what they animals had been up to that day.

It was a nice way to spend an hour. We both got some needed exercise, and my son learned a few things about the animals that call this waterfowl production area home.

And, most importantly, to me anyway, I was able to forget about the Carolina Panthers for a few hours.

To learn more about waterfowl production areas and the Small Wetlands Program, visit the website. http://refuges.fws.gov/smallwetlands

Sights and sounds of a winter walk through a WPA.

- Chuck Traxler, Public Affairs, USFWS Midwest Region

A Sincere Thank You

2009-01-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says Thank You to the Bowhunting and Archery Industry

A cold and windy Indy hosted the annual Archery Trade Association (ATA) Trade Expo, the largest archery and bowhunting trade show in the world, from January 6 -10, 2009. The Indiana Convention Center hosted more than 3,500 exhibitors, manufacturers, distributors and retailers - all in the business of bows and arrows.

More than 8,000 people filled the Indiana Convention Center on the first day of the trade show.

“Our registration area was snowed under when the doors opened Thursday morning, and we were out of breath by the time noon arrived,” said ATA CEO/President Jay McAninch.

Representatives from the industry's leading manufacturers and distributors including Trophy Ridge, Darton, Easton and Mathews showcased their products with exhibits spanning the more than 300,000 square feet convention hall. Shooting lanes were set up around the edges of the convention hall for buyers to test various longbow and crossbow brands.

As bow hunting and archery equipment manufacturers promoted their latest product lines, staff from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Indiana Department of Natural Resources took time to educate manufacturers and retailers about the benefits of the excise taxes they pay on their products on the sport and art form they know and love.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Wildlife Restoration Program administers grants that benefit wildlife and people by allocating funding for hunter education programs and wildlife restoration projects. The funding comes from a 12.4 percent excise tax on hunting equipment, including bows and arrows.

Hannibal Bolton, Assistant Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program, and Joyce Johnson, Chief of Policy and Programs, as well as Midwest Region representatives, represented the Service at the trade show. Service staff presented two seminars for trade show attendees discussing the benefits of wildlife restoration efforts from excise taxes generated by the bowhunting and archery industries. A representative from the Internal Revenue Service also answered specific questions from manufacturers and distributors about the collection process.

“We come to these shows to educate folks on tax law and to address any concerns they may have,” said Freda George, tax analyst with the IRS and member of a Federal Excise Tax Working Group. “We also provide materials that list what items are taxable and not taxable.“

"By showing manufacturers and distributors how the money they pay in taxes is used to benefit the industry they are part of, we are promoting the future of bowhunting and archery," said Fabian Romero, Federal Aid Grants Administrator for the Midwest Region. "They want to know where the money is going, and it's our job to educate them." Just this year in the state of Indiana alone, more than $5 million in federal funding was distributed state DNR to help fund hunter education programs and on the ground wildlife restoration.

Archery education programs like NASP (National Archery in the Schools Program) are just one of the many hands-on initiatives supported by federal grants. State agencies, like Indiana Department of Natural Resources, apply for both competitive and noncompetitive grants, often in partnership with non-profit or other conservation-oriented organizations. Gary Armstrong, Indiana DNR State Grant Coordinator said this year Indiana DNR partnered with Purdue University to conduct research on the wood rat, an endangered species in the state. With federal aid dollars, Indiana also has built several archery ranges that facilitate positive outdoor experiences for both children and adults. Armstrong also said the Indiana DNR spends a lot of time working with private landowners, since around 90 percent of Indiana land is privately owned. Wildlife restoration funds generated by these excise taxes help fund technical assistance initiatives to educate landowners on how to deal with invasive species, and enhance wildlife habitat on their land.

Wildlife Restoration funds have also helped build archery ranges in DNR's Fish and Wildlife Areas around the state. Just this year, an archery range was dedicated in a park in Lake County, Indiana. "We are also excited to start opening up archery ranges in more urban areas, because archery is such a healthy way for kids to get outdoors and enjoy themselves," Armstrong said.

Dirk Studebaker is the Hunter Education Coordinator for Indiana. Dirk described to me how he has seen archery transform the lives of children who have otherwise not had many opportunities for outdoor recreation. Some of the students Dirk works with are physically disabled, and he adapts his equipment to accomodate for their specific disability. He recalled one moment when a physically disabled girl shot her first bow and arrow. “The smile on her face only matched the smiled of her parents.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Wildlife Restoration Program benefits not only wildlife, but people as well. We would like to say thank you to the entire bowhunting and archery community for contributing to the future of outdoor recreation and ensuring the future of so many wildlife species. Thank you.

If you are a part of the archery or bowhunting community and would like to see how much federal funding is going to wildlife restoration and hunter education in your state, visit

http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages/GrantPrograms/WR/WRFinalApportionment2008.pdf

Or, you can check out a new interactive presentation that explains how excise taxes on hunting and archery equipment are being used to fund wildlife restoration and hunter education across the nation. Click the link below to view the presentation. (Presentation size: 20mb)
http://www.fws.gov/midwest/FederalAid/Powerpoint/WildlifeRestoration.ppt

For more information about the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program, visit http://wsfrprograms.fws.gov/Subpages/GrantPrograms/WR/WR.htm

Ashley Spratt, Public Affairs Specialist, USFWS Midwest Region

Photo credit: Wisconsin DNR

Don't let the cold weather stop you from visiting a Refuge

2008-12-11T13:17:00.001-08:00

Up here in the northern portion of the Midwest Region, it is starting to get pretty cold. Often times that makes some of us decide to stay inside and keep warm.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea. However, there are still plenty of things to do outside on your National Wildlife Refuge System. Cross-country skiing, snow shoeing and ice fishing are just a few. Once snow covers the ground, it also offers a unique opportunity to see the tracks of all the critters that call the Refuge home.

The below map will help you find a nearby Refuge Visitors Center. I encourage you to visit one of these Refuges to find out all that is going on, both inside and out, during the winter months.

You can find out more about the 54 National Wildlife Refuges and 12 Wetland Management Districts in the Midwest Region by visiting our website at: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/refuges/

Midwest Region Refuge Visitor Centers

View Larger Map

Get outside and enjoy winter!

- Chuck Traxler, USFWS Public Affairs Specialist

Iron River National Fish Hatchery

2008-11-14T14:17:00.000-08:00

Mentally unprepared and most likely ill-equipped, this Sunday I will depart on my first field experience since joining the Midwest Regional Office in July.

When I received the email from my boss a few months back that said "You should try this," I wasn't sure if he was serious or testing out my sense of humour. With a shaky sense of enthusiasm marked by a half-smile, I said, "Sure, why not.

The task: Assisting Iron River National Fish Hatchery staff with coaster brook trout spawning.

I've never worn long johns. I've also never been to northern Wisconsin in November. Did I mention I'm a flip-flops and tank tops kind of girl? But more importantly, I've never squeezed eggs out of fish. And until I joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I thought I'd keep it that way.

My educational background is in journalism. I'm a writer, not a biologist. But any good writer knows that to tell the real story, you have to roll up your sleeves, and sometimes put yourself in situations you otherwise never find yourself in. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a federal agency that works to protect fish, wildlife and their habitats for the benefit of the American people. And in order to tell the Service story, and the story of the coaster brook trout, I'm rolling up my sleeves and slipping on a pair of waders with the staff of Iron River National Fish Hatchery. Hatchery biologists and staff rear lake trout and coaster brook trout for stocking in the Great Lakes, and provide eggs to other federal and state hatcheries for collaborative restoration efforts.

Accompanying me on my hatchery adventure is my colleague, Ryan Aylesworth, who works in congressional affairs at the Regional Office. As Ryan and I approach Duluth, two hours northeast of the Twin Cities, I catch my first glimpse of the North Shore of Lake Superior. Never having been this far north in the Midwest, I've never seen the Great Lakes. My first look at Lake Superior reminds me of looking out into the Gulf of Mexico from Texas' Galveston bay, or the Indian Ocean off of Africa's southernmost tip. It's amazing to think that a lake locked by land could just as intimidating as an ocean that knows no barriers. Lake Superior has swallowed more than forty ships -documented and undocumented wrecks- since the late 1800s. The most famous of which was the "Mighty Fitz", or SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest Great Lakes freighter of her time. The Mighty Fitz left the port of Superior, Wis. on Nov, 9, 1975. By the evening of Nov. 10, the 729 ft. freighter, carrying 29 crew members and a full cargo of taconite, was at the bottom of Lake Superior.

Just as the Great Lakes continue to serve as a network of shipping highways, they are also home to dynamic ecosystems of fish and wildlife. Lake trout and coaster brook trout are two of of the most treasured native fish in the Great Lakes watershed.

Ryan and I are out the door of the Lumberman's Inn by 6:15 a.m. on our first day in Iron River. It's still dark as we scrape the lake effect snow off the Jeep's windshield. After six cups of coffee between the two of us, we're ready for whatever the hatchery has in store. Little did I know that I would be forced to overcome my phobia of fish so quickly. After a brief morning meeting outlining the day's agenda, Kurt Schilling, Iron River NFH Assistant Hatchery Manager, leads us to the raceway building that houses thousands of lake and coaster brook trout. Lake trout spawning finished up at the hatchery in early November, but the spawning season for coaster brook trout, which began back in October, will carry on through the first week of December.

Armed with waders, a rain jacket and latex gloves, the spawning process begins. Jess, a hatchery technician, jumps into one of the raceways with a net and catches the first group of female coasters - all four years old. The fish are first anesthetized in a tub to make them easier to handle. Kurt says, "Don't worry, you won't hurt them, just get a firm grip." I reach into the tub for my first fish. The water is frigid - a mere 42 degrees. "Grab it by the tail, and hold it upside down close to your body, like a football," he explains.

Following Kurt's instructions carefully, I move my thumb up and down the stomach of the fish, and pop, pop, pop... the bright orange eggs, the size of pellets from a beebee gun, shoot out in a stream and drop into a Tupperware container. The average hatchery grown female coaster reaches maturity around 3 years old, and can produce up to 3,000 eggs in just one year. A female lake trout will be mature around 5 years old and can produce as many as 4,000 to 6,000 eggs in one year. After collecting the eggs from this first group of females, it's time to bring in the boys.

During the spawning season, the hatchery pairs up male and females from different age groups. The eggs from this first batch of females were paired with 2-year-old male coasters. The selection process for matching is entirely random, which is important to increase genetic diversity in production.

The first group of males thrash in defiance in the net, but calm down after a few minutes in the sedation tub. I grab my first male coaster and hold him like a football, this time right-side-up. I pinch below his pelvic fin, just as Kurt had shown me, and a single drop of milt drops into the Tupperware container with the eggs of a single female. Carey Edwards, a fishery biologist, pours water into the container and swirls, which ends the fertilization process. Then the milt of a second male is added. With this batch, the eggs of one female were fertilized with the milt of two males. "It goes a lot quicker with the males." Just one milliliter of milt is potent enough to fertilize numerous eggs.

After several hours of massaging and pinching fish stomachs, I start to lose feeling in my fingers. The temperature in the raceway building is just a few degrees warmer than the outside temperature, around 40 degrees, and each time I dip my hands in the freezing cold tub of fish, my knuckles get that much stiffer. By lunch, I estimated our team of five had spawned around 200 males with 200 females, producing up to 350,000 fertilized coaster brook trout eggs.

In a given coaster spawning season, between October and December, Iron River NFH produces around one million coaster brook trout eggs -a remarkable accomplishment for a staff of only seven. Between August and November, the hatchery produces 4.5 million lake trout eggs. Out of the total number of eggs, usually more than 70 percent survive to become fish.

The fertilized eggs are soaked and hardened in iodine to kill any bacteria that may be present, and then rinsed in water. After the hardening process, they resemble kernels of corn.

Taking a break from the raceways, Ryan and I pay a visit to Nick back in the main building, who is busy sorting, measuring and counting viable and non-viable eggs. Newly fertilized eggs are sorted and separated by year class into incubator stacks, and each tray in a stack holds about 20,000 eggs. After 30 days in the incubator trays the non-viable (dead) eggs are removed using an automatic sorting device. The device recognizes the color of each egg - a white egg indicates the egg is no longer living, if the egg is yellowish-orange, it made it through the 30 day incubation period.

On day two we get a later start, arriving at the hatchery around 7:30 a.m. Dale Bast, Hatchery Manager who has worked at the hatchery for 17 years, invites us to tour the 1,200 acre property. The property is a popular site for hunters, and Dale scans the dense woods for signs of the local hunters. We hear that there's a big buck in the area, and notice some scrapes along the side of the road (where the deer kick up the dirt to mark their territory). Dale takes us to several streams that run through the property and provide a water source that is critical to hatchery operations. The hatchery uses millions of gallons of water a year, and the streams provide a continuous source of freshwater. As we drive, Dale explains the history of the landscape and the prominence of sugar sand. We stop at the base of a hill and Dale picks up a handful of the sugar sand, the color of clay, and runs it through his fingers. "The deer love to play in the sand, we're not sure why, but we always see their tracks right in this spot." As we head back to the hatchery building, I look out the window and see a grouse emerge from the side of the road and fly into the densely wooded forest of aspen and pine.

Back at the hatchery, Kurt is already working hard cleaning out the raceways. He points us in the direction of the clipping trailer, where hatchery employees, many of whom have worked at the hatchery for years, are busy clipping the fins of lake trout fingerlings. Marty, who has been at the hatchery for 20 years, is a pro-clipper. She grabs a fingerling out of a tub, cuts the right fin, and drops it into a tube that sends it back to the raceway. In just five minutes, she clipped close to 200 fish. Just one worker can clip close to 5,000 fingerlings in an eight-hour day. "They are a critical workforce at our hatchery. By clipping these fingerlings, we will be able to tell them apart from other hatchery or wild fish, and we can keep track of them once they are released," Kurt explains. These fingerlings will be released in April of next year.

Ryan, Kurt and I leave the fin clippers to their work, and head back to the hatchery building that houses the coasters we spawned the day before, and other coaster broodstock. Kurt explains that today we would sort female broodstock based on whether they were "ripe" (ready for spawning) or "green" (still in the egg production stage). Ryan and Kurt anesthetize the female coasters in the sedation tub and begin to sort, as I record the number of green and ripe in the hatchery journal. When I switch roles with Kurt, I realize I seem to have lost my touch with the fish. I struggle to grab my first female out of the sedation tub, and she slips out of my fingers on to the table. I regain my composure, pick her up like a football, and apply pressure to the abdomen. "Green!" She's not yet ready for spawning, and I throw her into the section of the raceway designated for "green" females. She floats to the bottom, belly up. She's conked out from the anesthesia, but fully recovers in about ten to twenty minutes.

After lunch, Ryan and I head down the road thirty miles to the town of Ashland, where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Ashland National Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office is stationed. It's refreshing to be able to sit down and meet with the biologists, project leaders, and Service staff who are on the ground carrying out the mission of our agency. From the Regional headquarters in Minneapolis, our external affairs office has the benefit of getting a broad perspective of program efforts, but it is challenging to maintain a daily working knowledge of the more the 15 fisheries field offices in our eight-state region. We are warmly welcomed by fishery biologists Pam Dryer, Henry Quinlan, and Frank Stone and they are eager to share with us some of the upcoming events and ongoing projects their office is involved with. The Ashland NFWCO is primarily responsible for Great Lakes restoration efforts involving native species like lake sturgeon and coaster brook trout. They also manage aquatic nuisance species in Lake Superior. Henry and Frank were preparing to electrofish for lake sturgeon along the north shore of Lake Superior that evening.

Lake sturgeon can grow up to 6 feet in length and 200 pounds. Once abundant throughout the Great Lakes, ninety-nine percent of their pre-colonial population has since been lost due to uncontrolled overfishing and polluted habitat. The gentle giants were gutted for their eggs - their caviar being a coveted delicacy among early settlers. Raw sewage, fuel and other pollutants contaminated the waters of the Great Lakes, and it was not until the Clean Water Act of 1974 that these waters began to recover from the impacts of years of human ignorance and mistreatment.

Our last day at the hatchery begins at 7:30 a.m. and Ryan and I are anxious to soak up every last drop of hatchery knowledge before our time at Iron River comes to an end. Today we would shadow Nick as he prepares lake trout eggs to be sent to Wisconsin DNR, Jordan River NFH, and White River NFH. Nick scans the 16 columns of egg trays and I can tell he's carefully calculating egg numbers in his head. He reaches for a calculator to double check his math, and writes down 9.8 ml on the clipboard. Ryan measures out the volume of the eggs from tray SAW03 using a beaker. These are eggs from 2003 broodstock, captured near Apostle Island. "S" denotes Lake Superior, "A" denotes Apostle Island, and W denotes "wild." "We do have to estimate because the numbers are so large- in the thousands. It's better to overestimate and provide the hatcheries with more eggs than requested, because we know that some of the eggs will die," Nick explains. I mark the names of the receiving agency or hatchery on each one of the trays and record the volume. This particular shipment of more than 600,000 lake trout eggs will be transported to Jordan River NFH on Monday for stocking in waters of Lake Michigan next spring.

After finishing up sorting egg shipments, Nick takes us to the lab and explains how the hatchery uses oxytetracyclene to mark bones of fish which are too small to fin clip. Oxytetracyclene is an antibiotic often used with poultry. "There's not a lot of room for error using chemicals. In this business... when it comes to chemicals we have to be sure to use the right concentrations, because if we don't they could be lethal."

After a coffee break around 10:00 a.m. we head down the road with Nick to clean out intakes by the streams that are the water source for the hatchery. I grab a net, Ryan grabs a brush, and we jump down into the chilly water to scrape the algae and leaves off of the screens. "We have to do this a couple times a week during the winter months, to clear out any debris that falls on top and algae that accumulates to make sure we have a clean source of water flowing to the hatchery," Nick explains. After a couple more filter cleaning stops, we head back to the warmth of the break room in the main hatchery building.

As we say our goodbyes to the hatchery staff, I realize how labor-intensive maintaining hatchery operations really are. It's a 365 days-a-year responsibility, and the job has to get done rain or shine, ice or snow, sometimes in sub-zero temperatures - thousands of lake and coaster brook trout are depending on it. As we drive across the bridge crossing Duluth harbor, I quickly grab the camera to recapture the moment I first saw the waters of the Great Lakes just three days before. A flock of Canadian geese fly across the chilly waters. I take a quick snapshot, and then put the camera down. I realize that no picture could every accurately portray the beauty of the fish and wildlife that call these waters home. On the three hour drive back to the Twin Cities, I take a moment to mentally process the past few days, and realize I have developed a complete admiration and fascination for the Great Lakes, the coaster brook trout, and the hatchery and fishery staff that work to conserve them both. Thank you, Kurt, Dale, Jess, Nick, Clark, Laurie and Carey for inviting me to be a part of your inspirational work.

To learn more about the Iron River National Fish Hatchery, visit www.fws.gov/midwest/ironriver. The hatchery is open to the public to tour, so stop by for a visit next time you're in iron country. Whether you are a local, a visitor, or just passing through between Duluth and Ashland, it will be an experience you will never forget.

-Ashley Spratt, Public Affairs Specialist, USFWS Midwest Region