Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 14:42:52 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Speicher, James (NIH/NIAID)" Subject: Re: Blackwater Tree Planting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Denise Ryan wrote: Assuming that half the acreage is water, 30,000 more trees is an average of just two more trees per acre. That's a pretty good analysis that this event will likely have a "low impact" on BW-NWR. A quick search turned up two web links. The first indicates that some pretty respectable organizations are involved. The second indicates that historical forest habitat may well be in need of restoration. The second (FWS) link has a "contact" e-mail, but i won't list it here. Bottom line - this is probably NOT something to get excited about. Jim Speicher jspeicher@niaid.nih.gov Bethesda @work:( FRED Co @home:) http://www.friendsofblackwater.org/plant.html Text includes the following: Volunteers needed for our spring tree planting at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge! On Saturday March 8, the Friends of Blackwater will plant 30,000 tree seedlings as part of a joint habitat restoration project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the AmeriCorps organization. If you would like to contribute to the future health of Blackwater Refuge, please come join us. http://blackwater.fws.gov/index.htm The third paragraph on the FWS home page has this information: "Before its designation as a Refuge, the marshland along Blackwater River was managed as a fur farm. Muskrats were the primary species trapped. Most of the wood-lands, including islands, had been timbered. Remains of old drainage ditches and furrows which crisscross in some existing woods indicate past agricultural use." ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================