Friends of the Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges - Home

A Message from the Refuge Manager

3/30/2020

Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges
COVID-19 Communications

While outdoor sites remain open at the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges during the current coronavirus pandemic, we urge visitors to follow CDC guidelines.

Maintain adequate social distancing, avoid overcrowding and exercise good hygiene.
If a parking lot is full when you visit, please do not stop. Pay strict attention to social distancing guidance and do not crowd overlooks, piers, or viewing areas by compromising this guidance.

We understand that the outdoors can help relieve stress, but these guidelines must be followed for our public health and safety. For now, the refuge visitor center and other public facilities are closed and most scheduled events have been postponed. For more information please visit our webpage, FWS Coronavirus Response.

The Refuges take their responsibility very seriously in protecting the public safety and welfare. We will be forced to close our public outdoor areas if visitors will not police their own social distancing precautions. Please respect the guidance provided by the Centers for Disease Control.

Any questions, call/text Andrew Gude at 703.622.3896.

A Message from the Refuge Manager

3/23/2020

The Refuges Are Open

The Refuges are open! Please adhere to CDC, State of Florida, and local directives on this pandemic event. Our lands, waters, trails, roads, fishing, turkey hunt season, boardwalks, fishing piers, viewing areas, boat launches, etc. are there for you to safely and responsibly enjoy. As long as we have cleaning supplies, we will maintain the public restrooms. We are all eager to stay healthy and keep others healthy as well.

The Refuge is big enough that we can keep a safe distance from each other and enjoy nature's beauty in Spring. The trails and roads are here for you. Come enjoy fishing, see the butterflies and the birds, put your boat in at McCormick Creek, Shellmound, or Shired Island launches. Drive the Nature Drive. Walk down the River Trail to the gazebo and sing a verse of Way Down Upon the Suwannee River.

We will miss visiting with you at headquarters; we have had to close the headquarters building and rest room because of Coronavirus precautions. But please, come on out and enjoy the nature-based recreation that the Refuge is known for.

Stay well! ~ Andrew (call or text 703.622.3896).

Butterflies

3/21/2020

photo by Friends board member Barbara Woodmansee

This is prime time for watching Spring butterflies get their start on the beautiful new flowers popping up all over the refuge. The Juniper hairstreaks are flying and the swallowtails are visiting the many gigantic purple thistle blooms that are showing up along the roadsides.

Work on the River Trail

3/18/2020

photo by Donna Thalacker

Board member John Thalacker installed several new signs along the River Trail to help with plant identification. Next in the ongoing work to keep the trail visitor friendly for all will be flattening or covering about 40 spots along the path to the Tram Trail from the east end of the parking area, in order to make the path more accessible for wheelchair users.

Suwannee Arts and Nature Festival

3/15/2020

Board member Debbie Jordan at the Festival

On March 14, board member Debbie Jordan staffed a Friends of Refuges table at the Suwannee Arts and Nature Festival. Though not as many came as in former years, many local folks attended. Others came from Gainesville to participate in a festival kayaking expedition led by Lars Anderson. Musicians, including Friends board member Matt Chatowsky, provided live entertainment.

Offering brochures about the Refuge, membership applications and Swallow-tailed Kite T-shirts, we raised almost $200 for the Swallow-tailed Kite Migration Fund and recruited nine new and renewing members.

According to Debbie, the most fun part of the day was having a chance to tell people about the incredible 10,000-mile migration of Swallow-tailed Kites. The Friends partnered with National Audubon to outfit and track Suwannee, “our” Swallow-tailed Kite for two years. Through the tracking research, we are learning first-hand where the kites go when they leave our area . . . all the way down to Mato Grosso, Brazil!

Breaking Good News -- Suwannee has returned to Florida! You can see his migration path here https://www.audubon.org/news/the-secret-lives-swallow-tailed-kites Amazingly, as this photo shows, on the final leg of his return trip, he flew directly across the Gulf of Mexico and did not stick to being over land as he did on his trip south.

To donate to this cause, you may mail a check to
Friends of Refuges, P.O. Box 532, Cedar Key, FL 32625
Please notate Suwannee’s Migration Fund.

Musician photos by Hailey Wilson

Board member Matt playing at the Festival

2020 Annual Meeting Brings Close to 150 Participants

2/29/2020

The weather was perfect and the crowd was large for the 2020 Annual Meeting. From the Friends' perspective, President John McPherson provided an overview of the year's actions and a preview of what is planned for the coming year. Refuge Manager Andrew Gude did the same from the refuge perspective.

Meet and greet time

Starting soon

John McPherson, Friends president

2020 Annual Meeting Presentation by Friends President John McPherson

2020 Annual Meeting Presentation by Refuge Manager Andrew Gude

About the Friends and the Refuge

Andrew Gude, refuge manager

The membership elected new officers and directors. Their photos and short bios are available on the About Us - The Board tab. We also ratified changes to the Bylaws to bring them up to date. They are available on the Records Archives - Bylaws tab.

The excellent featured presentation was by Dr. Ken Meyer of the Avian Research and Conservation Institute in Gainesville, FL. He talked about their tracking studies and conservation issues of Swallow-tailed Kites. ARCI has been studying Swallow-tailed Kites since 1988, discovering their migration routes and winter range and all aspects of needs and threats along the way.

featured speaker, Dr. Ken Meyer

Fund raising for Suwannee, our Swallow-tailed Kite

The Friends sponsored the tagging of a Kite, named Suwannee, who spends part of his year on the Refuge. At the meeting, T-shirts were available to purchase to support our Suwannee-tracking project, and donations were also accepted, reaching more than $600 during the meeting. The shirts are available at the town of Suwannee Art Festival on March 14 and at the Welcome Desk in the headquarters at the refuge. This article includes an interactive map that tracks Suwannee on his migration. Scroll down in the article to find the map. Use the dot in the caption to "fly" him from the Refuge to Brazil and as far back as he is so far.

Forming a lunch line

After lunch, catered by Ken and Rose McCain, everyone walked to Vista to see the property that will eventually be added to the Refuge. It is gorgeous Suwannee riverfront acreage with several buildings. With grant support, Friends is currently having an architectural firm evaluate the historical, cultural, and structural characteristics of the property for planning purposes.

On the way to Vista

On the Vista property

Relaxing on the Vista dock

Taking in the scene

Hearing about the consultants' findings

Old house boat at Vista

Near the dock

One of the vista buildings

At the river's edge

Friends members Sue and Jim Connor relaxing at the dock

Native azaleas

Friends members Richey and Sandra Smith, Bob and Carol McKinstry, and Bob's sister Elsie talking at Vista

Another of the Vista buildings. Note the rooftop resurrection fern.

Friends members Peg Hall and Sandra Smith at Vista

March Welcome Desk Volunteer Hours

2/29/2020

UPDATE: The Welcome Desk is CLOSED as a Coronavirus Precaution

The volunteers at the Welcome Desk greatly enjoy having lots of visitors. Come on out. Learn about the refuge and pick up maps and trail guides!

Where's Andrew?

2/16/2020

Refuge Manager Andrew Gude spent the week of February 9 to 14 at the National Conservation Training Center in West Virginia learning more about Land Conservation Easements .

A significant portion of the wildlife habitat in the continental United States is privately owned. Conservation easements are a valuable tool for protecting working landscapes and habitat values on private land that is adjacent to refuges, and impacts the wildlife and natural resources protected on the refuges.

This course provided information on the planning, acquisition, management, and enforcement of conservation easements that enhance refuges like our Lower Suwannee Refuge.

Discussion topics included how to:

Determine if a conservation easement is the best way to proceed in a given situation
Engage with the potential sellers, the community, and potential partners in situations when a conservation easement would serve the best interests of the refuge and the property owners
Acquire conservation easements in accordance with all regulations and relevant policies
Develop and maintain working relationships with landowners and communities
Effectively manage conservation easements and their uses once they are established
Ensure the taxpayers’ interests in the land are protected

Impact of M-CORES Highway Project on our Refuge

2/16/2020

photo from Fox 51 Gainesville

Multi-Use Corridors of Regional Economic Significance (M-CORES) is a massive, landscape-scale development across the remaining rural areas of Florida, including refuge lands in Levy and Dixie counties. If implemented, it represents the greatest challenge to Florida conservation in 40 years. It may go through Levy and Dixie counties just north of the Refuge boundary.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed it into law in May 2019. He says it “is intended to re-vitalize rural communities, encourage job creation and provide regional connectivity while leveraging technology, enhancing the quality of life and public safety, and protecting the environment and natural resources.”

Friends of the Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys NWRs is concerned about the overall degradation that this project will cause to the ecosystem of the Refuge and the surrounding region. Since the late 1970s, when such a project was last proposed and when the Refuge was established, in part, to counter that proposal, the Lower Suwannee Refuge has been a buffer preserving the quality of water in the Suwannee River and the Gulf, protecting and preserving the flora and fauna of this last stand of undeveloped coastline in the country. A byproduct of the Refuge’s protection of the wildlife is that it also protects the fishing- and tourism-based economies that are the core of our way of life.

If this highway project proceeds, the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge is not large enough or strong enough to protect the wildlife, or us, against the direct and indirect degradation that M-CORES would bring to the environment and natural resources that the Governor says he wants to enhance.

Tonight, February 12, on PBS -- Wild Florida

2/12/2020

During the 2018 nesting season, the Avian Research and Conservation Institute (the featured program for Friends Annual Meeting in two weeks) worked with a dedicated BBC film crew on a new addition to their Florida Wildlife series (which airs in the U. S. on PBS Nature), this time featuring Swallow-tailed Kites. They were particularly interested in describing this species’ dramatic pre-migration communal roosting behavior, the national population monitoring program ARCI has built around this incredible phenomenon, and the importance of protecting the kites at these critical sites, including the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge.

Dr. Gina Kent and Dr. Ken Meyer have not seen the resulting piece, so we can all see it revealed together, tonight. Gina says it will most likely be 10 minutes of kites or less. There's a chance there are behind the scenes interviews at the end, so keep watching :)
Here is a trailer with a brief description of the program:
https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/florida/2020/02/04/florida-pbs-show-focuses-nature-wild-animals-gators-pythons-manatee/4649916002/

The Refuge is open daily from dawn to dusk.

The Refuge Manager Andrew Gude can be reached by text or phone at 703.622.3896.

Hunting Information from the Refuge Manager

The print version of the 2019-2020 Hunt Regulations Brochure is now available at Refuge headquarters. For a digital version,
click on the photo below.

For Information about getting a Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge Hunt Permit and a Deer Bag Report, Click Here

To Apply for a Permit to Hunt on the Lower Suwannee Refuge,
Click Here

For a copy of the Deer Harvest Log, Click Here

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CEDAR KEY NWR
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