Wildlife Refuge

Events scheduled at Patuxent center The Friends of Patuxent will present the 20th annual Patuxent Wildlife Art Show and Sale from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 29 at the recently reopened National Wildlife Visitor Center, 10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop, Laurel. An artists' reception, with hors d'oeuvres, live music and a silent auction fundraiser, will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $40 in advance; $45 at the door. Information or to order tickets: 301-497-5789 or www.friendspwrc.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- This splendid stretch of mucky marshland along the Blackwater River is Ted Abbott's winter domain, a remote sanctuary that never fails to deliver a dose of frigid solitude that is his idea of a vacation. Abbott, a muskrat trapper for most of his 67 years, revels in the stillness he shares with his prey - an unseen army of furry nocturnal rodents that paw through a maze of flooded tunnels, pausing to raise their heads to breathe amid Blackwater's brackish rivulets.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- Glenn A. Carowan Jr. figures he's tried just about everything -- propane cannons, shotgun blasts, Mylar balloons. He's even looked into buying border collies to shoo away a flock of 5,000 Canada geese that have settled year-round at this 25,000-acre preserve in Dorchester County.So far, nothing has fazed the squatters, which seem to know a good thing when they find it. And the voracious birds, whose numbers are increasing each year, are wreaking havoc on fragile marsh habitat and crops meant to provide a fall and winter feeding ground for tens of thousands of their migratory cousins who will begin arriving from northern Quebec in about a month.

To save fox squirrel, expand the refuge and protect open spacesAs conservationists in Maryland, we think Joel McCord's article about the impact of Congress' conservation funding legislation on Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and the endangered Delmarva fox squirrel ("Environmental groups fear for prospects of endangered squirrel" Sept. 10) captured the essence of the debate: Congress has an opportunity to expand the refuge and protect the squirrels, but could squander it by including "poison pills" in the legislation that could undermine its goals.

Everyday wildness nourishes us like good bread, while true wilderness remains - for most of us - a place we may go only occasionally, or never at all. But just knowing it's there is a reassuring part of our reality, and we rest easier with the sense that such places exist.When the Wilderness Society listed America's most endangered wild lands last year, they were most concerned with the value of these places as reservoirs of wildness. These places rank at the top because of their natural resources, national significance and immediate threats to their integrity.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- There's a war going on here, and the bad guys are winning.To look at this peaceful scene, where late autumn sunlight shimmers on the wings of a soaring bald eagle and turns the still waters mirror-bright, you would not know that the marsh's heart is literally being eaten alive.But a South American rodent called nutria is rapidly helping to destroy one of the East Coast's loveliest and most productive wetlands. Lacking natural enemies in North America, the nutria chews up marsh grasses at the root, turning the dappled mosaic of rushes and shrubs into miles-wide swaths of shallow, lifeless water.

State and federal officials plan to start restoring Poplar Island in the Chesapeake Bay next month to serve as a wildlife refuge and dredge deposit site, with final approval expected today from the state Board of Public Works.The board's approval would finalize a private corporation's sale of four remaining fragments of the eroding island to the state. The Maryland Port Administration, with federal assistance, plans to replenish the former resort using mud and silt scooped from the port of Baltimore shipping channels.

ST. MARYS, W.Va. -- Smack in the middle of the Ohio River, two federal agencies are proving that it's possible to save a refuge with refuse.The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is teaming up with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to prevent parts of the Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge from washing away. To cut costs, corps planners are using materials that ordinarily have been burned or trucked to some faraway landfill."We're pretty proud of the approach we're taking," says Mike Spoor, an engineer and hydrologist for the corps.

On Saturday, activities around the state will be staged to celebrate Earth Day, including National Wildlife Week at Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Kent County.Among the planned activities at the refuge on the Eastern Shore will be bird walks, beach cleanups, "Scales and Tales" presentations, a bus tour of the refuge and an open house at the lodge.Exhibits will include wildlife displays, endangered-species presentations, a touch table and arts and crafts activities for children.DNR's "Scales and Tales" program includes live-animal displays and offers instruction on Maryland's varied forms of wildlife.

ST. MICHAELS -- For visitors to the Eastern Shore outside the Ocean City resort area, much of the attraction is that most of the region has not been overly developed or commercialized. It has an authentic, unspoiled feel about it.The Eastern Shore is a nine-county chunk of Maryland between the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean. Many of its communities - Chestertown, St. Michaels and Cambridge, for example - are on tidewater tributaries that flow into the bay.The Eastern Shore has no dominant attraction puts it on the map. Nothing of national historic significance took place here, unless you count George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers who passed through while traveling between Philadelphia and points south.

Release of proposals for bay cleanup is delayed a day The promised public release Wednesday of new federal proposals for jump-starting the lagging Chesapeake Bay restoration was delayed by a day and is now planned Thursday, officials said. The state and federal bay "partnership" had announced that it would release a series of draft reports outlining proposals for accelerating the pace of cleaning up the Chesapeake and safeguarding its fish and wildlife Wednesday. But late in the morning, Jim Edwards, deputy director of EPA's bay program office, said the documents were still being finalized, particularly one report that focuses on restoring and maintaining the bay's "living resources," including bay grasses, oysters, crabs, fish and other wildlife.

Events scheduled at Patuxent center The Friends of Patuxent will present the 20th annual Patuxent Wildlife Art Show and Sale from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. March 29 at the recently reopened National Wildlife Visitor Center, 10901 Scarlet Tanager Loop, Laurel. An artists' reception, with hors d'oeuvres, live music and a silent auction fundraiser, will be held from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $40 in advance; $45 at the door. Information or to order tickets: 301-497-5789 or www.friendspwrc.

Birds -- Artist Ernie Muehlmatt is showing his life-size and miniature wooden sculptures of birds (one of which is shown above) at Patuxent Research Refuge's John Hollingsworth Art Gallery in the National Wildlife Visitor Center until early next month. During a 25-year career, he has made more than 6,000 carvings of songbirds, wildfowl and birds of prey. Showing with him is sculptor and painter John Neal Mullican, a featured sculptor/carver at the Chesapeake Wildlife Art Expo, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and other venues.

BLACKWATER NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE -- This splendid stretch of mucky marshland along the Blackwater River is Ted Abbott's winter domain, a remote sanctuary that never fails to deliver a dose of frigid solitude that is his idea of a vacation. Abbott, a muskrat trapper for most of his 67 years, revels in the stillness he shares with his prey - an unseen army of furry nocturnal rodents that paw through a maze of flooded tunnels, pausing to raise their heads to breathe amid Blackwater's brackish rivulets.

Cambridge -- The Ehrlich administration announced yesterday that it plans to spend $10.4 million to preserve about two-thirds of a contested development site near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. The effort to save 754 acres of Eastern Shore farmland marks a change in direction for the administration, which previously declined to get involved in what it called a mostly local land-use decision. The purchase agreement will still allow developer Duane Zentgraf to build more than 600 homes, marketed to senior citizens, on 326 acres of farmland on the southern fringe of this city.

A state commission voted yesterday to block a proposed $1 billion golf resort near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, handing a surprise victory to environmentalists who feared the huge project would clutter one of the Chesapeake region's most beautiful landscapes. The state Critical Area Commission, which reviews construction in waterfront areas, said the developer cannot build a conference center, hotel and retail complex on 313 acres of farms and wetlands next to the Little Blackwater River.

As a state commission considers voting today on whether to allow a 2,700-home golf resort near Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, it must weigh whether state law prohibits such intense development in an area surrounded by protected wetlands and farms. But even as debate over the $1 billion Blackwater Resort continues, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. - whose administration had called approval of the project a mostly local decision - is studying requests to preserve some of the land with state money, an aide said yesterday.

CAMBRIDGE -- Plans for a billion-dollar golf resort community that has drawn protests from environmentalists won approval yesterday evening from the Cambridge City Council. The 2,700-home Blackwater Resort project - which opponents view as sprawl that would endanger the nearby Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge - now must receive approval from a state commission appointed by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. that reviews construction within 1,000 feet of Chesapeake Bay tributaries. Supporters hope the construction on top of wetlands and farm fields will bring thousands of new residents - and millions in tax dollars - to a city of about 11,000 that has lost population since the 1960s.

The Maryland Senate killed a bill yesterday that sought to limit development near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore, handing a victory to advocates of growth and local control. Sen. James Brochin, the Baltimore County Democrat who sponsored the legislation, attributed the defeat to an influx of lobbyists working for the developer who wants to build a $1 billion resort community near the refuge. But even Democratic leaders -- Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden of Baltimore -- voted against the bill, which would have barred construction on about a third of the 1,080-acre site in an environmentally sensitive area along Little Blackwater River.

Local officials have told the developer of a proposed resort and conference center near the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge to modify his plans, a move that is expected to delay the project for several months. The Cambridge City Council had been scheduled to vote on the final plan for the 3,200-home subdivision last night. But the vote has been put off while the developer, Duane E.E. Zentgraf, prepares a redesign that moves about 180 homes so they are at least 1,000 feet from the Little Blackwater River, said Anne Roane, city planner.