| Something big
happened in Columbia on April 5 th at 10 a.m. No, there was no major
traffic accident on Main Street. Tyrrell County folks have too much common sense to be in that much of a hurry. A Wal- Mart opened in town? I hope not! The Food Lion on U. S. 264 will do. The founding meeting of the Friends of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge took place at the Refuge Headquarters and Visitors Center. The conference room was filled to capacity, with 20 people attending, representing among other important environmental and wildlife-oriented groups, the Red Wolf Coalition, North Carolinians Opposed to the OLF, the Pocosin Arts Folk School, the Partnership for the Sounds, Cypress Group of Sierra Club, Startrak Video and Sound Productions (producers of the A Winter Day - Lake Mattamuskeet DVD, and others), Pettigrew State Park, and U. S. Fish and wildlife Staff and Volunteers. The room was electric with enthusiasm for the venture being launched and momentum continues as things get organized and plans are made for the Friends' promising future. The mission of the Friends of Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. is to serve this vital migratory bird refuge as "a friend" to help protect its natural treasures for ourselves and our posterity. Among the tasks of the Friends are raising funds, providing willing hands for various needed projects, and promoting informed public awareness of the refuge and its importance. Fortunately the initiative to found the Friends of Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. comes at a time when there is a surge of interest in this refuge. People from the region and across the state were awaked to the fact that they almost lost this internationally significant National Wildlife Refuge to the U. S. Navy's misguided plan to build an outlying landing field a mere 7 miles from the refuge, on farm fields where Snow Geese and Tundra Swans graze, under the air space where these birds almost constantly fly. In a cruel but saving irony these threatened waterfowl came to the rescue of over 125 farm families about to lose their homes, their land, their livelihoods, and heritage and way of life. Their property rights had no standing against federal rules of Eminent Domain, yet the Environmental Impact Statement issued to vindicate the outlying landing field proposal was so profoundly flawed that federal court injunctions were forthcoming to halt the Navy's project. The last nails in the OLF's coffin was surely pounded home when the Draft Revised EIS disclosed that the Navy planned to poison the waterfowl to make simulated carrier landings safe for its planes and pilots in training. This recent history was our wake up call that Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. and other wild and cherished places require our vigilant concern and protection. What is so special about Pocosin Lakes National wildlife Refuge? My friend Mike Dunn, Coordinator of Teacher Education at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, has described this refuge as the "Yellowstone of the East". But where are the geysers and hotsprings, the bison herds, one might ask? Yellowstone was designated by President Ulysses S. Grant as this nation's first National Park for the diversity, uniqueness, and grandeur of its western landscape and wildlife. Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. is no less special as a wild and wonderful place in eastern North America. There are those who have yet to visit the refuge, but now surely know it by name given recent history with the Navy OLF. So let me take you on a brief tour. Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge is one of over 545 National Wildlife Refuges together covering over 100 million acres and creating the world's largest system of nature preserves. It is one of 11 National wildlife Refuges in North Carolina, more than any other state in the east except Florida. This refuge, located south of Columbia NC in Washington, Tyrrell, and Hyde Counties, extends over approximately 113, 500 acres. The refuge is aptly named for the unique densely vegetated shrub bog ecosystem it preserves, found only in the Atlantic Coastal Plain from Virginia to Georgia. About 70% or 2.2 million acres of pocosins are located here in North Carolina, and there are over 100, 000 acres of pocosin within the refuge's area. "Pocosin" is an Algonkian word meaning "swamp on a hill", which still stands as the best simple definition. This term, encountered by John Lawson during his travels through our region 300 years ago, is commonly used today to describe this ecosystem and keeps turning up in place names in the region, such as Pocosin Arts and Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. Pocosins are freshwater wetlands in flat "upland" areas, intermediate in elevation between other uplands and swamps and marshes. Poor drainage due to "peaty" soils and proximity to large streams make pocosins a place to get your feet wet. Hence the paradox of a "swamp on a hill". These conditions of soil and hydrology make for a unique vegetation community, dominated by evergreen shrubs such as (Loblolly, Magnolia, and Red) Bay, Wax Myrtle, Honey Cup (zenobia), Titi, and Ink Berry, and interlaced with tangles of vines and briars such as Catbriar and Honeysuckle. Depending on the depth of the underlying peat layers, there will be a scattering of pines, mostly Pond Pine; and plant curiosities such as insect-eating Venus Fly Traps, Sundews, and Pitcher Plants are common. This verdant throng creates a veritable jungle. Although animals as large as American Black Bears move easily through it, exploring a pocosin on foot can be a challenge that some have compared to making your way lengthwise through a privet hedge. Jan DeBlieu in Hatteras Journal, an excellent book on the human and natural ecology of our region, offers a colorfully apt quote in the local idiom describing this habitat: "It's so thick in there my hound dog has to back up to bark". Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. abounds in wildlife. An internationally important migratory waterfowl refuge, it provides winter sanctuary for tens of thousands of Tundra Swans, Snow Geese, a variety of duck and goose species and other birds. This refuge and other sites on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula are the wintering feeding and resting grounds for 80% of the eastern population of Tundra Swans, a magnificent bird with a 7 foot wing span and weighing up to 20 pounds. The refuge is home to the Red Wolf, a rare and Endangered Species, and perhaps the largest concentration of American Black Bear in the state. Of the 100 to 120 Red Wolves on the Ablemarle-Pamlico, 5 packs (3-7 per pack) are known to be on the refuge; and as many as 500 American Black Bear (about 3.5 bears per square mile in suitable habitat). But let us not leave Pocosin Lakes N. W. R. without lingering for the poetry of this place. As the sky welcomes evening with crimson, magenta, and rose, thousands of Greater Snow Geese appear overhead, preceded by the musical tumult of their calls. Flying in undulating skeins that make a mobile tapestry in the sky, they descend as gently as falling leaves on Pungo Lake to spend another night. It leaves you utterly speechless and breathless. |