| Share this: | ||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wildlife For Everyone Partners At Pymatuning Wildlife Area
|
|
Pymatuning Wildlife Management Area – a place synonymous with some of the best waterfowl hunting and waterfowl watching that Pennsylvania has to offer – needs some touch-up.
Soon after the 17,088-acre Pymatuning Reservoir was created in northwestern Pennsylvania in 1935, ducks and geese began using the wetlands around it for critical nesting grounds and migration stopover. The Game Commission enhanced the attraction and benefit of the area for waterfowl in the 1960s by building many small impoundments throughout the area.
But that was a half-century ago, and time has worn down the productivity of the manmade enhancements. Ponds are leaking, have filled with sediment and are under attack by invasive plants. Additional wetland areas, with better managed water levels and plant growth, are needed.
A collection of hunting and conservation organizations, and businesses – local, statewide and national - have come together in the Pymatuning Partnership to begin the restoration of those waterfowl-boosting wetlands, the first 639 acres of which have been targeted with an accumulated investment of about $400,000.
The Wildlife For Everyone Endowment Foundation has played a key role in locating and bringing together the many funding sources responsible for that $400,000, including a federal grant through the North American Wetland Conservation Act.
"This is a great way to leverage your money and to get the most out of your local money," said Vern Ross, executive director of the foundation.
"This group is an example of bringing together common interests from diversified groups to make something really important happen, to take care of what past generations have provided to us and maybe to make it just a little bit better," added Phil Poux, director of development in the Mid-Atlantic Region for Ducks Unlimited.
Major, in-kind contributions also are included in the mix, such as the $30,000 installation of a well to provide a controlled flow of water into a system of new shallow impoundments that was provided by Moody Associates, a well-drilling firm from Meadville. The well will allow Game Commission managers at Pymatuning to regulate the water levels throughout the system of wetland impoundments.
"They are not ponds," explained Jerry Bish, the commission's land management group supervisor in northwestern Pennsylvania. "They're not going to have water in them year-round. They're not going to have 10 feet of water in them."
He explained that about 18 inches of water, timed to produce optimum growth of food and cover in the impoundments, will best serve a range of wetland birds, including ducks and geese, during their spring and fall migrations through the region.
"We're finding in our studies that a limiting factor (on waterfowl populations) is when they're coming back on their migration," said Kurt Dyroff, manager of conservation programs for DU. "They just don't have the foods they need."
Ross noted that meeting such a critical need for wildlife is a big part of the mission of the Wildlife For Everyone Endowment Foundation.
"This is where the foundation really shines," he said. "We like to put our money onto the ground to benefit wildlife. And, this project fits in nicely with our mission of working with the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
"While Pymatuning might be in the northwestern corner of Pennsylvania, it's important to all of us concerned with wildlife and habitat, because it lies right in a major migration corridor and because overall our state has limited wetland acreage."
Additional partners in the effort include California University Foundation, Ducks Unliminted, Fort Pitt Retriever Club, Northwest Pennsylvania Duck Hunters Association, Richard King Mellon Foundation, RRI Energy, The Pennsylvania Waterfowl Heritage Society, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners Program, and Waterfowl USA.
|
|
5/10/2010 |
| Go To Preceding Article Go To Next Article |