Walking the River

Click image to read the full story (Credit: Ryan Hagerty/USFWS)

Some of us merely enjoy nature as a place to visit – others take action to protect it. Gary Lang, a fly fishing guide in Elkins, West Virginia, has done some of both.

In his 40 years on Elkins’ crystal-clear rivers, Lang has not only made a living guiding his customers to some of the best trout fishing in the Northeast, but has also partnered with the Service and others to preserve those rivers for future generations. Having served as the president of his local Trout Unlimited chapter, Lang has worked to restore riverbanks, remove invasive species, and keep the rivers pristine for wildlife and people to enjoy. His efforts have helped improve conditions for native species like brook trout, and have also helped put the rivers of Elkins on the map for fly fishers across the region.

“There is nothing better than spending your day outside in beautiful surroundings, in a country you know and appreciate,” said Lang.

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Gary Lang’s story is featured in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Nature’s Good Neighbors series, which highlights people across the U.S. who depend on the land as much as the land depends on them. These modern-day stewards of the land are working with nature to make a home for people and wildlife. 

A Sweet Solution to a Sticky Problem

When you’re a biologist at a site named for a legendary environmentalist, you feel a responsibility to do your job with the planet in mind.

Just ask Dr. Susan Adamowicz, Land Management Research and Demonstration Area biologist for the Northeast Region of the Fish and Wildlife Service. Stationed at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Maine, she is tasked with finding innovative ways to manage wildlife habitat and takes inspiration from the renowned author.

Service biologist Dr. Susan Adamowicz examines Spartina patens, a native salt marsh cordgrass, at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Steve Droter)

Rachel Carson conducts marine biological research in 1952. (Credit: USFWS)

In 1962’s Silent Spring, Carson, who also worked for the Service, sounded the alarm about pesticides that imperiled wildlife and people alike. She knew that many of the synthetic chemicals used to control unwanted plants and insects were dangerous to more than their targets.

For a healthy environment, Adamowicz seeks other solutions … and hopes she has found one with the help of a University of New Hampshire researcher.

A “Consummate Invasive Species”

Phragmites australis, or common reed, is an aggressive, nonnative marsh grass that pushes out native wetland plants. You’ve probably noticed its tall (up to 18 feet!), feathery, golden stalks in your neighborhood or along the freeway.

Phragmites is plentiful in the high salt marsh of the Great Marsh, the largest continuous stretch of salt marsh in New England. Three thousand acres of the 20,000-acre marsh in eastern Massachusetts lie within Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, in eastern Massachusetts, protects 3,000 acres of the Great Marsh, the largest continuous stretch of salt marsh in New England. (Credit: Matt Poole, USFWS)

A boardwalk passes through a stand of Phragmites australis at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Steve Droter)

Phragmites changes the structure of the salt marsh, filling natural channels and tidal pools where waterbirds, fish, and invertebrates find food and safety. Many wildlife species find its dense patches impassable, and in the fall, when the stalks die back, stands of the plant turn to tinderboxes primed for wildfire, putting nearby homes and businesses at risk.

Biologists have long searched for effective ways to control Phragmites. It’s a determined adversary, however. Like those birthday candles that re-ignite, just when it seems defeated, it springs back to life.

According to Adamowicz, “Phragmites is the consummate invasive species. If you cut it or burn it, it comes back. If you can flood it for six months, that might kill it, but flooding is not always feasible.”

Phragmites grows along a marsh at Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge in Rhode Island. (Credit: Tom Sturm, USFWS)

While restoring natural tidal flow to coastal marshes is the preferred way to fight Phragmites,  replacing culverts, filling ditches, and improving drainage can take a long time. Treating it directly is necessary to keep it in check in the meantime.

Sadly, there’s been no good way to do that. Herbicides work in certain locations but pose a risk to native vegetation and groundwater — certainly not a solution Rachel Carson would embrace.

So Adamowicz teamed up with Dr. David Burdick, research associate professor and interim director of the Jackson Estuarine Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, to explore innovative ways to control Phragmites. One of the methods they tested was sweet and simple.

Turning the Tables

Burdick had a hunch that sugar, the same kind you put in your coffee, might be Phragmites’ Kryptonite.

Dr. David Burdick takes notes at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Gregg Moore, UNH)

Each summer, rising air temperatures and increased plant growth stimulate bacteria in salt marsh soils to convert organic matter and oxygen into carbon dioxide, water, and energy — a process called aerobic (“with air”) respiration. The activity quickly uses up soil oxygen, forcing other groups of bacteria to make energy using anaerobic (“without air”) respiration.

One by-product of anaerobic respiration is hydrogen sulfide gas, a potent toxin for plants as well as people. At typical levels, the gas is not deadly to most native plants, but it can be toxic to Phragmites.

Burdick thought increasing bacterial respiration, and therefore hydrogen sulfide levels, could kill the invasive.

“Because Phragmites is a master at getting oxygen to its roots for its own respiration, we could use this strength to kill it,” he mused. “By elevating soil hydrogen sulfide levels, we might stimulate the plant to oxidize the gas into a strong acid that it may not be able to tolerate.”

While he couldn’t control air temperatures, he could increase fuel for the bacteria — using glucose in the form of table sugar.

Pour Some Sugar on It

Burdick and his team first tested their idea in the greenhouse. They soaked Phragmites plants with bay water for three hours every two weeks to mimic the flooding that high-marsh plants get during the extra-high “spring” tides that come with the full and new moons each month.

Some plants (the control) received only the bay water; others got water with table sugar; still others water with extra salt; and the remaining, water with sugar and salt.

In the greenhouse study, plants receiving sugar or sugar-plus-salt (right, top and bottom) showed clear signs of distress within weeks of treatment. (Credit: Gregg Moore, UNH)

Both the sugar and sugar-and-salt treatments showed signs of stress within weeks and eventually died. Only the plants that received plain bay water or bay water with added salt lived.

The sugar-treated plants had very high soil acidity, possibly caused by sulfuric acid, the product of hydrogen sulfide oxidation. This supported Burdick’s theory.

Next, Burdick and Adamowicz headed to Parker River Refuge to set up a field study in the northern part of the Great Marsh. The research was supported by federal funds for Hurricane Sandy recovery and resilience projects.

Following the greenhouse trial, Burdick and his team tested the treatments in the Great Marsh at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. (Credit: Gregg Moore, UNH)

They isolated individual Phragmites plants and applied the same treatments as in the greenhouse. Sugar and salt were put on the plants every two weeks, after the spring tides flooded the marsh.

The plants that got sugar had far greater mortality than the other treatments, even with uncontrollable environmental factors, such as rain — a clear sign that sugar is not sweet to Phragmites.

Refining the Technique

Adamowicz is pleased with the study results so far and eager to set up more field trials. She’s exploring ways to treat Phragmites with sugar and salt more efficiently and broadly, perhaps using a backpack sprayer to apply corn syrup at more-frequent intervals than every two weeks.

“This is another tool in our toolbox, and it’s nontoxic to wildlife, which is very desirable,” she said. “The more complicated response to Phragmites is ecosystem restoration, but in the meantime, we need a fast-acting tool to help native plants come back and buy time.”

If Rachel Carson were alive today, she would certainly approve of this environmentally sound method — and just might be thinking, “Sweet!”

A Conservation Success Story: A Landowner’s Perspective

Today we’re sharing the story of Tom McAvoy and his success in creating habitat for the New England cottontail and many other species.  The original story by Denise Coffey can be found here. 

When Tom McAvoy moved into a 1760 farmhouse on 115 acres in Scotland, his goal was to restore the land to what it looked like when it was a working dairy farm.

McAvoy had a soft spot in his heart for the land. His friend’s grandparents owned it, and McAvoy and his friend used to hunt there when they were younger.

When the opportunity presented itself, McAvoy secured the farm. He wanted to clear the overgrown pastures.

“My objective was simply to bring it back to the 1960s,” he said.

In the process of bulldozing the barways between the pastures, he had a visitor: biologist Travis Goodie, from the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.

Goodie asked McAvoy if he could conduct a study on the property, to see if New England cottontail rabbits lived there. McAvoy, who didn’t know much about the rabbit, agreed. A year-long study revealed significant populations of the species.

Goodie asked McAvoy if he’d be willing to talk with some people about a restoration program for the rabbit. He agreed. One day, 12 vehicles pulled into his driveway. Representatives from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency walked the property with McAvoy.

The discussion that ensued centered around the importance of preserving the habitat for the New England cottontail, a species of rabbit headed for listing on the Endangered Species Act.

Tom McAvoy has spent years working to preserve habitat for New England Cottontails, at Cottontail Farm in Scotland. (D. Coffey/Courant Community)

“I still didn’t know why it was important,” McAvoy admitted. “I thought there were plenty of rabbits.”

The truth is, there are plenty of eastern cottontails, but not plenty of New England cottontails, the only species native to New England. And while the two species share many of the same characteristics, the latter has experienced a population decline because of habitat loss and fragmentation. New England Cottontails need early successional forests, rather than mature forests. They require thickets and shrubs, both for food sources and cover from predation.

McAvoy learned that the Scotland property was perfect for restoration efforts. Significant populations of the New England cottontail were found on 75 acres of the farm. He would be eligible for about 75 percent of the project’s cost. The catch was that funding would be taxable to McAvoy.

That prospect raised red flags for the banker and estate planner. But he told them he would consider it. USFWS Biologist Ted Kendziora offered to talk with McAvoy about all of his options and help assist and coordinate the agencies involved.

That assistance was important to McAvoy, who eventually agreed to the plan. Seven years, 25 contracts, and more than $50,000 later, the property has been made even more hospitable to the New England cottontail. But it was a labor intensive project that was developed in phases. The property was divided into sections and one section at a time was ‘transformed’ so as not to disturb the rabbits already there.

Non-native invasives like autumn olive, multiflora rose, and bittersweet had spread throughout land that had once been pasture. The plants grew quick and strong, leaving canopies that crowded out any other plants that might have tried to take a foothold in the understory.

The invasives crowded out native plants that provided food and protection for the rabbits. So one of the first orders of business was to pull the invasives up by their roots, leave the plants to die in the field, and let their bulk offer thickets for the rabbits to hide in.

Native shrubs were planted, and fencing put around them to keep deer from eating them. Piles of boulders were established on the property to provide habitat for the rabbits. Native shrubs were planted around those boulders and browse protection put in place. Protective channels were created where hedgerows existed between open fields. Trees and invasives were taken down so the rabbits could move more safely. Trees in a wooded lot were cleared and in their place, wild blueberry and raspberry flourished.

This is a New England cottontail. Credit: Tom Barnes / USFWS

“Improving habitat for the New England cottontail actually improved the habitat for lots of species,” McAvoy said.

Visitors to the farm have found acres of milkweed and monarch butterflies that depend on it for food. Rare birds have been identified. McAvoy said the land supports populations of turkey, deer, hawks, bobcat, and fisher cats.

“Anything we do to improve habitat is beneficial to a range of species,” he said.

It will take time to gauge the success of the restoration program, but McAvoy has traveled to Maine and Colorado to speak about its success with other conservation agencies and organizations. That has given him an opportunity to learn about habitat improvement projects around the nation.

In New England, projects are typically smaller, because of the size of available land parcels and the fragmentation due to denser human populations. But recognizing contiguous parcels of land and developing partnerships with private landowners has shown great promise.

“It’s critical to have a strategic approach,” McAvoy said. “And agencies have to be accountable to the public. You can’t just spend money without results.”