Notes from Refuge Manager Andrew Gude

The Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys NWRs welcome our Summer 2021 Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) Team:  from left to right, Katie Vandegrift, Jeffery Schleede, and returning Youth Leader Shelby Holland.  We feel very fortunate to have these high school student colleagues!

Deputy Manager Larry Woodward is leading a raccoon control team to the Cedar Keys NWR islands to live trap raccoons to protect nesting shorebird populations of plovers, oystercatchers, and terns.   Shorebird nesting habitat is rare; predator free shorebird nesting habitat is even rarer.  Raccoons are nuisance predators on nesting shorebirds. 

Our summer interns, Jasmin Muslimani and Nicolle Montero, are completing a  forestry photo plot project. Photo plots provide qualitative data to help with monitoring change over time.

Engineering Equipment Operator George Pelt is on a Wildfire Severity Detail in Big Cypress.

Forester Daniel Barrand used the Tiger Cat to complete needed mulching and is now, with the help of the YCC crew, preparing to move the machine for St. Marks for their use.

Peter Frederick speaking at a Friends Annual Meeting about the Lone Cabbage Oyster Reef Restoration project

Fire Management Specialist and Wildlife Biologist Vic Doig will represent all of us from the Refuges at Professor Peter Frederick's retirement from the University of Florida's Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences where he manages the Frederick Lab in Wetlands Ecology and Conservation.  Peter has been a staunch partner, researcher, and supporter of the Refuges and has done many projects on our lands.  Peter's work also involved the seminal Lone Cabbage Oyster Reef Restoration Project.  We wish Peter all the best and will miss him as a regular colleague.