The Friends booth will be part of the first ever Suwannee Spring Art Festival on Saturday, April 21, where we will spread the word about our wonderful Refuges. Hope to see you there.

Earth Day began in 1970 to focus attention on conservation of our natural resources. Come celebrate the 48th Earth Day as Friends of the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges presents three informative expert presentations: April 20th, 2018, 9:15am - 12:00pm
Location: Lower Suwannee Wildlife Refuge Office Complex, Highway 347 at 16540 NW 31st Place, Chiefland, FL 32625.

Free. All welcomed.
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Our three experts cover marine mammals, fisheries, and the health of our rivers
9:15 - “Marine Mammals and Marine Debris”, presented by MacKenzie Russell of University of Florida.
10:15 - “How FWC Manages Marine Fisheries”, presented by Hannah Healey of Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
11:15 - “Water Quality Monitoring - How, Where, When, and You”, presentation by John Quarterman of the WWALS Watershed Coalition (Suwannee Riverkeepers)
Attend one or all presentations. Other nearby recreational opportunities include the River Walk, Tram Ridge Trail, and Shell Mound.

Travelers on the Dixie Mainline, one of the favorite trails on the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, can now enjoy new bridge murals by Old Town resident Clint Wynns.

Wynns, a 66-year-old former professional chainsaw carver always wanted to paint murals to enhance the Mainline bridges. He hunts in the Refuge every day from archery through regular gun season and is always looking for ways to help out on the land he knows so well. Yet he hesitated because he thought a mural would attract graffiti and didn’t want to waste his time. When Debbie Meeks decorated one of the bridges with an alligator painting last year—and it went unmolested—he decided to try.

Clint says his ideas just come to him. “Hogs and deer because that’s the Refuge. Then there are turtles, a manatee, and an alligator. Someone suggested an otter so I added one.”

He cuts templates out of thin luan plywood. This technique shortens the amount of time he spends on the bridge. First he tapes up the inner shape and paints the background. Then he reverses the template by taking down the inner shape and protecting his painted background with the surrounding plywood sheet while painting the animal. Once the whole painting is dry he ties both pieces of the template together which allows him to spray paint the cut line for a dark outline without hand tracing. 

"So many people have stopped while I was working—all classes of people—to tell me how much they appreciate what I’m doing. Kids get out to look and I show them how they can help.” Clint says.

More murals are needed. You can adopt a bridge by calling Larry Woodward, Deputy Refuge Manager, at 352-493-0238.

With an estimated 150-170 attendees, good weather, great food, a flash sale of logo merchandise, and the all-time favorite speaker, University of Florida archaeologist Dr. Ken Sassaman, the March 10 event met and exceeded all our expectations.

We all know Shell Mound, or so we think!

However, as our featured speaker, Dr. Ken Sassaman of the University of Florida, may change our minds about what we think we know. He has amazing new information for us about this site in our backyard, on our own Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge. A few of the amazing details --

• Shell Mound was a portal into another world for the people who lived here in the centuries before the arrival of Europeans; they regarded it literally as a gateway to the underworld.
• The sand dune on which Shell Mound stands was formed by strong southwest winds during the last Ice Age. It is oriented to the winter/summer solstice. Because of that orientation, it was an annual ceremonial gathering place for peoples from all over the southeast . . . and it was a sacred burial place for centuries.
• The people who lived here and hosted these huge annual gatherings, practiced oyster mariculture and used fish trapping to sustain the abundance needed to feed the crowds who came.

Much of what you learn will be new to you. If you want to prepare your mind for this brain-adventure, read the draft of the new guide, Shell Mound: A Portal into Another World before you come.

 The Nominations Committee has set a Slate of Officers and Directors. It will be presented to the members for a vote at the Annual Meeting on Saturday March 10. Terms of office extend from annual meeting to annual meeting. The dates in parenthesis indicate the year when a term will expire at the annual meeting. Short profiles of each current and proposed  Board member are on the Board page of the website.

President: 
Bill Dummitt (2019)
President Elect:
John McPherson (2019)
Past President:
Russ Hall (2019)
Treasurer:
Mackenzie Russell (2020)
Secretary:
Ed DeHaan (2019)
 
Directors
Presented for Re-election
Libby Cagle (2020)
Debbie Meeks (2020)
Margy Van Landingham (2020)
Presented as New Board Members
Bob Lewis (2020)
Miriam Wiley (2020)

Directors Whose Terms Continue for Another year
Jim Hoy (2019)
Debbie Jordan (2019)
Dan Kline (2019)
Kit Lane (2019)
Doug Maple (2019)
Roger McDaniels (2019)
John Thalacker (2019)
Linda Tyson (2019)
Directors Leaving the Board
Peg Hall
 Maria Sgambati

Famed nature photographer, Clyde Butcher has been visiting and photographing our Refuges. As  announced a few weeks ago, he visited Cedar Key March 3 and promised he will be doing more work here in the future.

Several of us were clearing the new section of the Shell Mound trail today, preparing for the Friends Annual Meeting. To our surprise, a group of Road Scholars showed up. Maybe we are not as far off the main trail as we think we are!

Refuge staff assisted the State archaeologist in the removal of human remains recently discovered on Seahorse Key.

The Refuge staff continue the planning and research to determine the best way to restore hydrology across the Lower Suwannee Refuge into the Gulf. The natural flow was altered decades ago by timbering. Restoration would likely be a significant enhancement to habitat for the local wildlife, fish, and shellfish populations.

Longtime refuge hunter and part-time refuge mural painter, Clint Wynn, has been adding beauty along the Dixie Mainline. Thanks from all of us, Clint.

Now that the weather has warmed up and we’ve had rain, we should start to see flowers blooming in the Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge!  On our walk last month, the only flowers we saw blooming were tiny violets.  Even so, there was plenty of bird activity and we even saw butterflies, including one monarch trying to nectar on a tiny violet!

If you have any questions or would like to meet us in the refuge rather than Cedar Key Town Park, please email me at donna.kreft@gmail.com or call me at 352-543-6738.
 
I hope to see you Friday!

SEATING/TICKETS: Seats are free for the lecture, but limited because of the room’s size. Reserve your seat and get your tickets by visiting Eventbrite.com. Both venues are handicapped assessable. Street parking is available.

• SCHEDULE FOR MARCH 3, 2018:
  
  • LECTURE AND BOOK SIGNING Cedar Key Community Center, 809 6th Street, Cedar Key, FL
    
  • 1:30 pm Book Signing by Clyde Butcher at the Community Center
    
  • 2:00 pm Lecture by Clyde Butcher
    
  • OPENING RECEPTION Cedar Key Arts Center, 547 2nd Street, Cedar Key, Florida 5 – 7 pm Enjoy light refreshments and Clyde himself.
    
• SCHEDULE FOR MARCH 4 – APRIL 30, 2018:
  
  • GALLERY EXHIBIT Cedar Key Arts Center, 547 2nd Street, Cedar Key, Florida 10 am – 5 pm daily Butcher’s exhibit will be open in the Arts Center Gallery.

Post Cleanup Update
Friends Peg Hall, Jay Bushnell and Debbie Meeks helped volunteers Charlie Adkins and Carolyn Nobbs pick up litter along CR 347 that borders the Refuge on the Levy county side. The group collected 20 bags of litter. Later that week Charlie and Carolyn finished the entire 9 miles of roadside and totaled 77 bags.

Original Cleanup Announcement
Friends are needed to pick up litter along 9 miles of CR 347 that border the Refuge on the Levy county side.

• Meet at Refuge Headquarters at 10 am or find us on the road
• Wear bright clothing
• Bring gloves if you've got some 
• Trash bags and grabbers are provided

Two new maps make it easy to learn about sites on the refuge to visit and to download trail guides and brochures that describe each.

One is available on the refuge website as the top item in the pull-down menu under MAPS/TRAILS, or it can be accessed by clicking here.

The whole map looks like this. You can zoom in to get more detail and, by clicking on one of the little icons, you can call up a brochure. For example, clicking on the paddling icon nearest the bottom of the map calls up the brochure for the Barnett to McCormick Creek paddling trail.

Save the date, Saturday March 10, 2018. This year's event will be mostly like those of the past, with good food, good company, the great outdoor spaces of the refuge, and a captivating speaker. Our keynote speaker will be the ever popular Ken Sassaman. Dr. Sassaman will tell attendees about surprising discoveries he and his students have made at Shell Mound and nearby sites. Then, in a break from the past, following lunch we will travel from refuge headquarters to Shell Mound. There Dr. Sassaman and students will guide us around the site, showing us where and how their discoveries were made.

Based on these recent findings, a rerouted trail is being laid out, brochures with two different levels of detail are in preparation, and a series of permanent informative panels will be installed at key locations along the trail. We expect some or all of these products to be available by the time of the meeting, and attendees will get to be the inaugural visitors to the new trail.

Even without the expected influx of visitors, volunteering at the Refuge is a great way to spend a morning or afternoon. This day was windy and in the 30s, so the porch rockers were not as inviting as normally.

The Friends volunteer visitor contact program began in December with more than 30 volunteers taking turns greeting visitors at the refuge. Volunteers were on duty most weekdays, with the exception of Fridays and the Christmas to New Years' interval when the refuge office was closed. Visitation has been sparse, but is expected to increase dramatically when the increased level of services available is more widely known. Volunteers have been reorganizing the refuge reception area, working on training materials, developing a chat room to share experiences, and boning up on brochures about refuge features and activities to be shared with visitors. In the future it is expected that volunteers will lead field trips for visitors and expand coverage to include weekends during the winter season.

Additional volunteers will be welcomed. In addition, our needs list includes: a laptop computer with wifi connectivity, a computer printer, a wall-mount computer or television screen, and one or more desk chairs in good condition. In the future we may want to obtain a golf cart to ferry people with disabilities to sites in the headquarters area.

This crab wasn't caught right on our refuges but I thought it might interest our members. Tagged blue crab caught locally raises eyebrows

One of the Mainline bridges has a new mural. Debbie Meeks fed a few hungry sand gnats while painting this alligator with a red reflector eye.

Hunting:

• Archery season closed on Oct 15.
• The 9-day muzzleloader hunt season closed on Oct. 29.
• The general gun hunt season opened on Nov 4.
• Refuge staff members are increasing the mowing and maintenance on hunting and hiking trails to enhance access for outdoor recreation.

Hydrology:
Work continues restore the natural hydrology of the Lower Suwannee Refuge in order to enhance wildlife habitat and improve fresh water flow into the River and estuary.  The staff members are looking at impediments to natural hydrology. Where their removal would be a net gain for the wildlife, changes are planned.

Interagency Collaboration:

• In December, the Refuge is welcoming international researchers for a mosquito study hosted by the US Department of Agriculture
  
• The Refuge is collaborating with the Nature Coast Biological Station to support attendees at the National Conservation Training Center fisheries/ecological population modeling course being held in Cedar Key.
  
• Collaboration with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC) on research and management issues especially of lands in close proximity to each other continue.
  
•  Refuge staff members are working with several agency archeologists to care for pottery and bone fragments that became apparent because of erosion of an ancient site on a non-refuge island.
  
• Refuge staff are working with the UF Veterinary School to analyze the remains of a bald eagle found on Atsena Otie. The carcass will later be turned over to the National Eagle Repository.
  
• On December 1, with Friends sponsorship, the Refuges will host the annual Collaborators Luncheon at Refuge headquarters for about 100 researchers and agency colleagues who have worked at and with the Refuges this year.