Outdoors Maryland; 607

When Gummer a village in the Maryland suburbs of Washington D.C.. Is a planned community of more than 30000 people. He will come here to live to escape the city grind. They like the predictability of a designing town. And the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors. Strict building covenants govern everything from flower beds to fences and decks. Now an unruly group of neighbors is moved in building at will and without permits. The community is sharply divided over this eruption of uncontrolled nature. Mark Swift is the Montgomery Village staff naturalist. But we received a lot of resident comments about the beavers return and some of the folks look at what the beaver had done and likened it to a war zone. The trees were devastated that the shrubs were gone that it looked like they were skeletons of the trees lying all over the ground. At the same time we had people that you know cried out we've got to do something to protect the beaver and at the same time protect the natural resource. So we've started

to develop policies based on those reactions. One more beavers have built an elaborate system of dams along the north Creek deep in the heart of the village beavers build dams primarily to back up the water behind the dam for transportation purposes and to protect the entrance to their bank dens or their lodges here in North Korea. We're worried about this location because the beaver dam has backed water up close to one of our hiking paths. At the same time it's become an attraction for young people who have actually come in with their snorkels and their friends and their masts and are using it to swim in. And so we're concerned about safety as well. Mark is taking a humane approach to relocating the problem before. The strategy is simple. Install a drainage pipe to lower the water level behind the beaver dam. And the beaver will decide to move elsewhere. Hopefully. A lot of the stuff the beaver will probably reuse. Why trust a. Three dam a section but I'd rather have it use something that's already cut down and have to cut something

new. To try to plug the hole that we're going to create. Water levels dropped a little bit since. We started. To get a heck of a hole here. Try Scott I think they were in pretty good shape. That's kind of what a drain down from old betta not come back and see if we can get the baffling the baffle is the pipe that Mark will install in the new hole in the dam. The pipe is specially designed with many holes to literally baffle the Beaver's tenacious attempts to repair the land. We think in this location that the beaver wants the water level has lowered will probably choose to move to another location. We feel that may be a good location for this beaver is downstream on the other side of North African lake where we have a rather large wooded area and we hope that the beaver will find a home down there.

Among them are going to the foundation has developed a policy through their board of directors to co-exist with the beavers here in the village and basically what that means is to look at each site site individually to look at each Beaver individually and to try to develop a plan that will manage the behavior appropriately for that location. We like to see the behaviors we think it's a good sign that nature of its rays returning to areas that we've changed so much people moving back into areas like North Korea because they are available habitat. Beavers are migrating into urban and suburban areas because of a rebound in population after being completely trapped out of Maryland and the northeast by the beginning of the century. Now undeveloped areas are few and far between. And beavers simply have nowhere else to go.

They are going to say another gallon. Fine let's go take a look at that. We talk about build bridges and there's a freelance wildlife biologist. Yeah over number two I think they were there right. He's an unusual line of work takes him to unlikely places throughout Maryland. Bill has worked as a consultant to help manage beavers that moved on to this country club's golf course upon. Its number two pontoon and as a free lance wildlife biologist you have to do a lot of different things and the beaver problems that are occurring throughout central Maryland area next to no other opinion too are becoming increasingly part of a big part of my time. They really did a number on this little growth of all there is here in there. Typically people initially just want me to come in and trap and remove. It but I like to try to work towards different kinds of solutions trying to help people

live with the beavers protect the trees to control the flooding that they do which is usually the primary problem. There's actually pretty significant benefits to having the reason in so many of the streams typically in urban areas where flooding and sedimentation can be a problem in the streams of beavers dams and sound you help you control that in and clean up the streams. So they create really tremendous habitat for a wide variety of wetland animals that use the shallow slow moving waters that are created by the dam. An important part of Bill's consulting work is keeping up with developments in urban Bieber's management techniques. A lot of the research is going on to try to deal with behavior problems is is being done in kind of an ad hoc basis just by people on site using materials in hand and and in trial and error. Bill I want to show you one of three different Beaver battle designs that we have here in the Research Center and this is a design that is very simple for a homeowner making a

fifth of a orange diameter piece of PVC pipe two pieces connected with a 90 degree elbow. And it has a series of one inch diameter hole drilled in it all on the upstream end here right in the back all along the lower bottom all the way out. And there's just not a strong enough current There are enough flow from the water that can be able to sense that and try to plug it up. Holly you have a different arrangement for the fights here what. Why do you have like this is another Bieber bankrolling the flooding beavers cause is only one aspect of a management policy that strives for coexistence. Another strategy is protecting trees from Bieber's impact. How do you decide which is the rap on that. Well here in the park we obviously can't protect every tree but we decided to protect certain significant trees such as trees that were planted a memorial to people's loved ones you try to work out solutions to those problems to the actual damage they're doing as opposed to managing the beaver population and try to live with them because beavers are here to

stay and they're going to continue to be moving in. So Amy tell me what you're working on here now working on a repellent with these trees. What I'm using here some apple trees. And what we're going to be doing is putting a pan on the branches that has sand in it basically to make it a texture kind of gritty thing that the urban beavers challenge he's out to match their amazing adaptability to an environment needed they nor humans can completely control. How we resolve the drama of coexistence will depend on how well we protect existing while. And how our natural values evolve with an evolving landscape. Deep in Maryland's most remote forests there are more than lingering memories of the grandeur that it once was is a quiet secret places but the imagination needs little to see glimpses

of the way things were. They are places to be walked in quiet reverence for the purity of nature has been preserved and for the secrets of forgotten skills still linger. Before the arrival of Europeans in the States trains ran clear and the waters of the Chesapeake were filtered and cleaned every four days by the bay as millions of oysters. The process that now takes nearly a year. Often little appreciated is the part that the workaholic LEIBLER played in keeping pre-colonial Maryland's waters clean. A naturalist will be unlikely in the name of Dan Bloom explains the Chesapeake Bay as the recipient of hundreds of miles for the Cure. In the pre-colonial landscape a very high proportion of the watershed. And its headwaters had behavior problems.

These Beaver ponds acted as. An immense. Sediment trap. That helped to filter the water quality and improve the days. Carrying capacity for other. Animals a life that required. Clean pure water. But the beaver and other fur bearing on a mo soon became the primary source of cash for settlers. Thousands if not a million or more pallets were shipped from the colonies to Europe in the early sixteen hundreds. Gone with the mass killings with the thousands of sediment traps that once protected the state's waters. On Maryland soil. The tall grass that bison once grazed still grows in some small isolated areas. Well the last buffalo was shot in 1775. The grassland areas throughout. Western Maryland and surrounding regions were important clearly

established because they were very convenient to homes that they didn't have to clear the trees. They had a convenient source of hay and browse material for the cattle. Before the settlers brought their cattle. These small plants at the edge of a Western Maryland Marsh depended on the now long gone bison and L for their survival as characteristic of plants that require the kinds of disturbances that occurred in the pre settlement landscape. Those that might have been formed by Buffalo wallowing in the outlines or by the heavy grazing by. The created openings that it was in the stir in the soil that allows it to grow. Giant trees like this depended on being left alone for their very survival. This is Maryland's largest surviving meadow at one point in the state's history.

Its one hundred six foot high wouldn't have been considered noteworthy. That was before settlers harvested the trees as a valuable commodity. It said the two skilled men using crosscut saw us like this would merely duplicate the efforts of modern lawyers on. Chancellor. Thank you. But for some reason this grand and now more than two hundred forty five year old red gold was left to grow. This tree's remnant of what a forest used to look back in the colonial times before the white man came when actually the Indians were here or what. During colonial times being at county it was close to the eight thousand nine hundred twenty that a white man actually came here and actually started his temple harvesting. It's germination dates back to about 1750. So it was

here during the time of revolutionary war. There are a few examples that tell the history of Marilyn's trees as dramatically as those on either side of this road in Potomac state forest on the left side grows a forest clear cut 25 years ago. While on the right is a forest that remains much as Indian song one of the characteristics of cut of a forest is the presence of multiple trunks. This is where the trees one severed send up several leaders to make use of the full sunlight and each of those become separate trees. It often leads to overcrowding which causes many of the side branches to die which may be infection points for the main stem. Further lowering the quality of the wood. In contrast to the early succession will cut over for us on this side of the road. Here's an example of the original type forest here that was evident in the pre

colonial or pre-contact landscape. One of the major differences in old growth forests is the structural complexity. When you look into the forest you see trees of all sizes which represent all ages of foliage and there is the earth. You have many different species and you have vegetation profile from the forest floor to the canopy and old US forest tree tops are common and they create a complex pattern in forest soils allowing organic matter to fill the holes that are created sort of compost that in a single 10 square mile area. Some of Maryland's ancient forests supported more than seven hundred fifty thousand trees three million shrubs 50000 squirrels 400 deer and 0 7 cougars. But only 10 to 20 people. Whoa.

And how many of us choose to live in places for ever changed and still changing. There is a comfort to be found in knowing that places like the bogs of Garrard counties will swamp remain much as they have been before the first Europeans set foot in Maryland Bonser the interface between the off ones stream systems and hence warm and important landscape feature in filtering water quality. They help to exchange nutrients and also was important habitat for many specialized forms of life. Yet change is inevitable. The rolling green hills of Baltimore gave way to early settlements. Which gave way to the skyscrapers of today. These stately trees hint at the natural grandeur of what precise moment in Garrett County. Must of been.

In. Setting wilderness aside is a great bang red. It must be remembered that. Man is so altered the naturalist services that have perpetuated. The diversity of life in this region. We really can no longer let nature take its course. We have to recognize that basic patterns of disturbance need to be managed. But the role of. Humans and perpetuating the diversity of life here is going to require us to take a much more active role in stewardship. Although much has changed much Romane rather than dwelling on our losses. We can use them to appreciate what we say and to remind us of the importance and delicacy. How about dollars Maryland. Worldwide extinction of species. Is the most disastrous and

irreversible activity. In which modern society is now engaged. Every form of life on earth is the result of over 20 million years of evolution a life form once gone is gone forever and with its destruction. Our Earth's fragile web of biological diversity is further diminished. As the ember sun sets to blows another day world wide. Three more species have now become extinct lost to us forever. At this rate one fifth of all species on Earth today may be extinct by the year 2000. Less than a decade away. And mountain lions once roamed these ancient forests. Elk and bison once grazed the vast valley grasslands and

waterfowl once blackened the sky above the Chesapeake spewer waters. But that was long ago. Before surveyors and politicians carved Maryland into a political entity. The time when animals were free to wander wherever food and shelter let them amid mouse and strain was following the same pathway as generations have evolved. Unhindered by modern roads farms more factories. And. Rich in its diversity of landscapes ecosystems and species. Maryland harbored a natural wealth that made her the envy of the new world. Today hundreds of animal and plant species have vanished. Gone are the wolves elk. And mouse. Over 200 plant and animal species once found in Maryland. Are now extinct. Here are. In many instances whole ecosystems have vanished.

And all for the lush native wetlands. They're like 25 percent now remain. Yet nature is resilient. And today pockets of native plants and animals. And even whole ecosystems survive as they did before. In these isolated forests. Rocky outcrops. And wetlands survive Marilyn's natural diversity a rich diversity that seems out of proportion to her small size. Perfectly framed by the Appalachians. And the Atlantic. Biologists speculate that up to 30 percent of America's known species grow slither creep crawl jump walk or fly. In Maryland. And that is our sign.

To travel the state from mountain to Marsh in search of its fragile web of biological diversity. Given just 48 hours. Outdoors Maryland producer videographer Bob. Will traverse Maryland's five Vizio graphic regions. Exploring through the lands each one's unique natural diversity. Amid the mist of a cool mountain morning our trek begins. Lying furthest west the Appalachian plateau encompasses all of Garrett County and has to be our first region explored. With an average elevation of 2400 feet. This ancient mountain chain stays much cooler and wetter than the rest of the state. The key factor which allows rare far northern species to survive in these

southern latitudes. Fins will swamp is such a place here peat bogs and weapons still support the Arctic species which flourished during the last ice age fifteen thousand years ago called a frost pocket. This micro climate is created by the swamps high surrounding mountains which trap and hold the cool moist air found in these high elevations. With a diverse natural community Finns will swap is not only a sight to behold but also a place to treasure the. Further east Washington and Allegheny County is make up most of the ridge and valley region. Here within the rain shadow of the Appalachian plateau this region's western edge has become the most arid area in Maryland.

Amid the old town shale barons. The steep slopes of Devonian shale shed quickly any rain that's able to traverse the mountain ridge add to that the southern exposure and thin soils and a rare desert like habitat is found as a result. The living community has adapted fleshy stems spines and narrow leaves are adaptive features. Shale barren plants use to conserve any precious water. The hostel. This habitat is home to skanks copperheads and warblers throughout the year. Only 15 miles wide the Blue Ridge is the smallest of Maryland's five regions occupying the western half of Frederick County. It reaches from the banks of the Potomac northward into Pennsylvania.

Beneath the thick forest canopy fern draped Brooks and cascade. Share this emerald world with dogwoods mosses wild flowers and a host of the forest floor creatures. Here the hardwood forest dominated by oak maple. Ash. And the. Shelter beneath them the rare mountain sand with. A delicate flower that is more commonly found atop the cool Misty Mountains of Vermont. And Maine. As the eastern edge of the Catoctin Mountains fade the Piedmont region begins to roll eastward toward the coastal plain. Characterized by rolling hills and fertile valleys. This area has seen the most impact by human suffering. Yet here lies soldiers delight.

The largest of the wild serpent teen barons remaining unknown. And like all such barons it too is home to a uniquely rare and natural community. Yes an open grassy barren surrounded by forests. Soldiers delight is an excellent example of how geology and climate determine the character of an area's biodiversity thin and nutrient poor. The soil is from the Serpentine bedrock have created a micro climate that is hot and dry and inhospitable and thus the name barren. Yet it is here in these harsh conditions that a unique living community survives. Typically a flat and Sandy landscape the coastal plain is the largest and most diverse of Maryland's five Vizio graphic regions

with Southern Maryland and all of the eastern shore within its range. It enjoys a moist moderate climate. Due to its proximity to the ocean and Bay. Made the wetlands provide an extraordinary ecological value for wintering and nesting the water spawning fish and nutrient production which is so vital to the bay's survival. One of the northernmost stands of bald Cypress and the only one on Maryland's western shore is found amid Battle Creek swamp in southern Maryland. Bald Cypress have existed here for millions of years. These present days Cyprus are descendants of trees that occupied the area 15000 years ago just as the Ice Age departed. Today some trees stand over 100 feet tall and four feet in diameter.

While aerial root systems break through the surface from a submerged forest floor here the unique nature of Battle Creek strong. Creates a rich landscape of its own. Yes at the end of its run the coastal plain gives way to the barrier islands of the Atlantic coast. Along the beach and amid the do the island's unique natural community provides a rich contrast. To Marilyn's biodiversity. Both. The very existence of human life is completely dependent upon maintaining the earth's biological diversity. To do this we must ensure the health and survival level both

ecosystems little and the millions of species meet with which we share they. Will. Not go away. You're right.