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Natural History Hike at Yankauer Nature Preserve

Saturday, March 6, 2021 @ 10:00 am - 12:00 pm

There was a time discrepancy in the original posting of this event. Please note that the start time for this event is 10:00am – meet the group at the pavilion at the front of the preserve at 10:00am. 

Natural History Hike Leader: Jim Cummins

PVMN Continuing Education Recertification Eligible

Everyone is welcome to join this Natural History Hike, however, registration is required and limited to 9 participants; please register below.

PVAS is committed to ensuring the health and safety of all of our community. In order to do this, we are implementing the following WV State Guidelines for this gathering. Please read them carefully and contact Krista Hawley at AdultPrograms@PotomacAudubon.org if you have any questions:

  • Registration is limited to 9 participants.
  • Masks must be worn when physical distancing is not possible.
  • Respect the 6 feet apart/physical distancing guidelines.

PVAS President, Jim Cummins, will be leading this ‘walk & talk’ at Yankauer Nature Preserve. Join him as he leads the group on a stroll, intertwining the natural and human history in our region.

 Two examples that he will be discussing on this ‘walk & talk’  are regarding the changes in our local landscape:
1) In the 1840s John James Audubon observed a flock of passenger pigeons he estimated to have over 1 billion birds.  A flock was noted as 1 mile wide by 100 miles long.   They were perhaps the most numerous bird on earth, Audubon felt they made up between 25 and 40 percent of the total land bird population in the United States.  The last one died in 1914.  Their demise was due in part to mass hunting but the biggest impact was the loss of their forest habitat from the Big Cut –  the clearcutting of the Appalachians from the mid-1870s to about 1920. Today, eastern forest health is compromised without the nutrient cycling that this now extinct species once provided and thus many plants and animals remain affected by their loss, and
2) 100 years ago there were so few deer in our region and most of the mid-Atlantic that they essentially were absent.  Imagine that!  It became illegal to hunt deer in MD from 1902 until 1929 because there were only about 300 deer in the entire state.  In WV we don’t have such an estimate, but in the 1920s WV, MD, VA and PA all started major deer restocking programs which ran for decades.  Now we have more deer than perhaps the landscape ever had, but the problems associated with having too many are much easier to resolve than the problems of having too few or, at its worse, none.

 

Participants will meet at 10:00 a.m. at the Pavilion at the front of Yankauer Nature Preserve.

Trip leader, Jim Cummins, is a retired freshwater ecologist. Jim and his wife Nancy, a retired Jefferson County teacher, live in Bakerton. He has a Masters of Science (1985) in Biology from George Washington University. Jim co-started the District of Columbia’s fisheries program where he worked from 1985 to 1988. From 1988 until his retirement in 2016, he was the Director of the Living Resources for the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin. His projects included biological assessments of streams and rivers in WV, MD, PA and DC, environmental flow studies, habitat restoration and fish passage, especially in regard to the Little Falls Dam near Washington, D.C. and a linked American shad stocking program with integrated student and volunteer involvement. Jim enjoys woodworking, gardening, fishing, canoeing, playing music, working at various scales to improve the community, reading, and trying to keep a beagle named “Abe” from causing trouble.

Those who participate should be sure to dress warmly, wear sturdy footwear and bring along a mask that covers both your mouth and nose.

If you have questions, please contact Krista Hawley at adultprograms@potomacaudubon.org or call the Cool Spring Preserve Nature Center at 681-252-1387.

If we need to cancel this hike due to poor weather conditions, we will post a decision on the event and send an email to all registrants by noon the day prior.

Details

Organizer

  • Krista Hawley
  • Phone 681-252-1387
  • Email adultprograms@potomacaudubon.org

Venue