National Wildlife Refuge

Basically, we're maintaining truck stops for birds. The birds stop in, refuel, and then keep on truckin'." - DAN HILL, a biologist who maintains the Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge, a 5,000-acre reservation in Sussex County, N.J., that's a popular stop for migratory birds during their autumnal trek from Canada's breeding grounds to the warmer climates in the southern United States and Mexico

Ronald M. Tillier, a retired Ford Motor Co. executive and longtime Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge volunteer, died Sunday. He was 72. Mr. Tillier, who enjoyed competitive clay and skeet shooting, was attending a meet Sunday afternoon in Kennedyville on the Eastern Shore when he was stricken. "He was just preparing to call for targets to be thrown by the trapper when he simply dropped where he was standing," said his wife of 48 years, the former Margaret "Peggy" Clare.

U.S. Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest joined yesterday with those supporting legislation that would limit the size of a 3,200-home golf resort planned near the entrance of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. "We have a juggernaut of developers seeing open space where they can develop houses," said Gilchrest, an Eastern Shore Republican. "Do we sit back passively so we can be consumed by more impervious surfaces and more landfills?" Gilchrest spoke at a hearing in Annapolis on a bill sponsored by state Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat, that would prohibit construction in environmentally critical areas within 1,000 feet of rivers flowing into national wildlife refuges.

The Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge - home to migrating ducks and geese along with the bald eagle and Delmarva fox squirrel - will be taken over by a bunch of sweaty bicyclists when the USA Triathlon National Long Course Duathlon Championship comes to the 27,000-acre preserve in Cambridge next June. "It's a great place to hold an event," said TriColumbia president Robert Vigorito, whose organization also hosts the Iron Girl Columbia Triathlon as well as the the Ironman 70.3 EagleMan, a qualifying event for the world's most famous Ironman event in Hawaii This marks the second time that Vigorito's organization has held a duathlon in the refuge.

A bill to protect Garrett Island in Cecil County as a wildlife refuge was passed by the House of Representatives yesterday. The House cleared the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Act on a voice vote. "It passed all the hurdles, and no one had any objections," said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, the 1st District Republican who sponsored the bill to designate the island as a wildlife refuge. Garrett Island, in the mouth of the Susquehanna River, is the only rocky island in the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The island encompasses 189 acres and is about 1 1/2 miles wide.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Mollie Beattie said recently that reports of the demise of hunting programs on national wildlife refuges this fall have been greatly exaggerated.No hunting programs will be discontinued this year on any of the 250 refuges that currently allow hunting, Beattie said."I want to emphasize that the Fish and Wildlife Service has not changed its long-standing policy of supporting compatible outdoor recreation such as hunting and fishing within the National Wildlife Refuge System," Beattie said.

The Chesapeake Bay is slated to get $50 million in funding, thanks to an appropriations bill that passed the Senate last week and awaits President Barack Obama's signature. In Maryland, the funds will include $1 million for the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network, which provides support to more than 160 parks, wildlife refuges and museums around the Chesapeake Bay, as well as 22 water trails. The bill also includes $2 million for the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, and $500,000 for the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail.

WASHINGTON -- Environmental groups are urging the federal government to purchase and preserve more than 1,700 acres of land adjacent to six parks and wildlife refuges in Maryland.The Wilderness Society led a coalition of conservation groups in calling for land purchases at the Antietam National Battlefield, Monocacy National Battlefield, Assateague Island National Seashore, Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge, Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and land between Fort Washington and Piscataway Park in Prince George's County.

CHINCOTEAGUE, Va. - I think everyone needs a Chincoteague, especially after the horrific terrorist assault on our nation and individual psyches. For me, Chincoteague is a place to retreat for spiritual reflection and some assurance that there is a divine plan in which order ultimately materializes out of chaos. I never needed that assurance more than immediately after the bloody events of Sept. 11. Chincoteague is more than an abstraction for me. It is actually a 10,000-acre national wildlife refuge situated on Assateague, a barrier island bordering the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia coast.

ROCK HALL -- Phil Cicconi and nearly 200 diligent volunteers at the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge keep the place going - running the visitor center and bookstore, building wildfowl observation decks, leading tour groups and cutting hiking trails through the bramble of the isolated Eastern Shore island. But they don't work alone. The deal, say the Friends of Eastern Neck, is that they contribute the labor, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides professionals to lead and direct their group of enthusiastic amateurs.

The Chesapeake Bay is slated to get $50 million in funding, thanks to an appropriations bill that passed the Senate last week and awaits President Barack Obama's signature. In Maryland, the funds will include $1 million for the Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Watertrails Network, which provides support to more than 160 parks, wildlife refuges and museums around the Chesapeake Bay, as well as 22 water trails. The bill also includes $2 million for the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Dorchester County, and $500,000 for the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail.

Initiatives imperil birds Bush backed On Oct. 20, President Bush announced a new initiative to finance migratory bird habitat conservation ("Bush supports fish, fowl," Oct. 21). It is ironic that he announced these protections even as two of Alaska's - and the world's - most critical bird habitats face imminent threats. Teshekpuk Lake in Alaska's Arctic region is threatened by an administration bid to allow oil and gas drilling in its fragile and irreplaceable wetlands. Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, located at the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, faces the destruction of internationally recognized wilderness lands for an unnecessary road project supported by Alaska's congressional delegation.

LAUREL -- Grass goes uncut, voices are library-soft, and people walk softly when whooping cranes are hatching. Life is stirring again at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, the center of the universe for those trying to restore the endangered bird. One egg hatched two weeks ago. Another one last week. Four more last weekend. By the end of the month, there should be nearly two dozen chicks, members of an exclusive club that numbers fewer than 500. "The whole year of work is to get to this point," says Sharon Marroulis, a biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

MIAMI -- The fate of a generation of endangered migratory whooping cranes now rides on the fragile wings of a 10-month-old chick known as No. 15. He is the sole survivor of the Class of 2006, 18 crane hatchlings that followed four costumed ultra-light aircraft from Wisconsin to Florida wintering grounds in December as part of a project to introduce a second migrating population to North America. Conservationists with Operation Migration had originally feared all of the brood had perished in the storm that killed 20 people in central Florida on Friday and put hundreds of residents from their homes.

Basically, we're maintaining truck stops for birds. The birds stop in, refuel, and then keep on truckin'." - DAN HILL, a biologist who maintains the Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge, a 5,000-acre reservation in Sussex County, N.J., that's a popular stop for migratory birds during their autumnal trek from Canada's breeding grounds to the warmer climates in the southern United States and Mexico

ROCK HALL -- Phil Cicconi and nearly 200 diligent volunteers at the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge keep the place going - running the visitor center and bookstore, building wildfowl observation decks, leading tour groups and cutting hiking trails through the bramble of the isolated Eastern Shore island. But they don't work alone. The deal, say the Friends of Eastern Neck, is that they contribute the labor, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides professionals to lead and direct their group of enthusiastic amateurs.

SULPHUR, La. - This is the White House's vision of oil and gas production on the nation's environmentally sensitive lands: At Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, dozens of terns lay their eggs on a temporary board road through a marsh, within yards of a state-of-the-art, low-impact oil drilling rig. This is the environmentalists' view: At a gas well in the middle of Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge, a pipe carries wastewater laden with salt and toxic...

U.S. Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest joined yesterday with those supporting legislation that would limit the size of a 3,200-home golf resort planned near the entrance of the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. "We have a juggernaut of developers seeing open space where they can develop houses," said Gilchrest, an Eastern Shore Republican. "Do we sit back passively so we can be consumed by more impervious surfaces and more landfills?" Gilchrest spoke at a hearing in Annapolis on a bill sponsored by state Sen. James Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat, that would prohibit construction in environmentally critical areas within 1,000 feet of rivers flowing into national wildlife refuges.

A bill to protect Cecil County's Garrett Island as a wildlife refuge was passed by the House of Representatives yesterday. The House cleared the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Act on a voice vote. "It passed all the hurdles, and no one had any objections," said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest, the Maryland 1st District Republican who sponsored the bill to designate the island as a wildlife refuge. Garrett Island, in the mouth of the Susquehanna River, is the only rocky island in the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The island encompasses 189 acres and is about 1 1/2 miles wide.