Personnel Updates
Taylor Hackemack joined us in November from Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge in Texas as our new assistant manager. This is potentially a four-year position. ∙ We are in the process of interviewing candidates for a full-time permanent administrative assistant position.
We expect to be advertising for two seasonal biological technicians and two invasive species summer interns soon. Contact Linda if you know anyone who might be interested or have questions about these positions.
We will be hiring a Student Conservation Association intern for Visitor Services again this summer.
We will also be hiring (advertising coming soon) for a Youth Conservation Corps Crew Leader and 3-person crew for the summer.
Land Acquisition
We have been working with Ducks Unlimited to purchase a beautiful 136-acre property in the northwest corner of our official acquisition boundary. This tract has mature forest, agricultural fields, and an emergent marsh impoundment. We will host one or two MARSH events to collect bathymetric data in the impoundment and are planning to seed the agricultural fields with a mix of native species that are beneficial to pollinators via a grant from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative.
Biological Program
We are in the process of entering and summarizing data from 2021 and planning management and monitoring for 2022.
The USFWS Northeast Region has some equipment that is shared amongst all the northeast refuges, and Montezuma had the regional Fecon (check it out at fecon.com) for two months to clear vegetation at Esker Brook. Nick and Taylor kept the machine running in very cold temperatures and got the entire target area cleared to maintain early successional habitat with a lot of “edge habitat” adjacent to mature trees. Some species of conservation concern we expect to benefit from this work include blue-winged warbler, field sparrow, and willow flycatcher.
Visitor Services Program
Hunting season harvest and hunter numbers are attached, minus Youth Waterfowl Hunt Information (we can send an update later this week). Small game and snow goose are open.
Thank you to Steve Benedict for sending checks from the Hunt fund to pay our Fall Visitor Services Interns! It worked out very well to have them cover the Hunter Check Station and Visitor Center over the weekends. Sonja did an exceptional job on Saturdays, especially at the Hunter Check Station.
Andrea is working on three new interpretive signs to be placed at the Centennial platform, the bald eagle sculpture platform, and Knox-Marsellus Marsh.
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