Outdoors Maryland; 2205

Out to is Marilyn dismayed by the NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Coming up natural encounters up close and personal. One Eastern Shore talent salute to the Chesapeake. Bay and discovering the beauty of Maryland's water trails next. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources DNR. Inspired by nature guided by science. And as I came into the kitchen the bear was coming through my screen door.

They opened up the gate. And all sudden chargin at me so I quickly shut the gate back up what we advised was snakes. Every year the Maryland Department of Natural Resources fields about 10000 wildlife public response calls. Dealing with animals that don't always do we expect them to do. We're dealing with people who don't understand animals and men. Kerry says if we have him on the phone and we think they truly have an emergency there's an imminent public safety threat. We go in we go right away. DiDio is director of the wildlife and heritage service a raccoon in the backyard to one person is much more complex and emergent than it is to another person who looks at it as an opportunity to engage and enjoy wildlife. So much of what we do is try to educate people and sort of raise their tolerance bar for having animals around to learn to appreciate that if you live in a place where wildlife likes to visit it's actually a good thing.

Western Maryland is big mountain country but increasingly developments are growing where forests used to be setting the stage for human wildlife encounters. Clarissa Harris is a wildlife response manager for the state's four western counties responders on call 24/7 for true emergencies calls range from reports of injured animals to home intrusions response trucks come equipped with an arsenal of tools to catch and relocate smaller animals. Emphasis is on safety for people and wildlife. We have of course catch Powell's dealing with Kitten recommends groundhogs things out of people's houses bird nets bat nets to deal with snakes in this region we have rattlesnakes copperheads we have a pet carriers to carry animals to rehabbers and and say like injured birds and hawks and nails and things like that. So we're pretty much set to respond anything that we need to.

Responders are also equipped to tranquilizer euthanize distraught or badly injured wildlife. OK. There's the bear in the house now. Today Ranger Harris's team is responding to a bare home intrusion call. Denise Homburg moved to Garrett County to enjoy nature. But this encounter came a little too close to home. As I came into the kitchen the bear was coming through my screen door with one pole forward and it shoulder and nose looking right at me. And it must have come in to get the cat food. So I hollered at it to get attention. And it turns out it ran off the dash. I was having to bang on the table in order to scare it away. In these cases the DNR sets up a bear trap baited with donuts and molasses. Now the next step. Wait for a catch. Denise had followed most of the recommendations for discouraging bears to

avoid conflicts with Bear or other wildlife. Keep trash tightly covered. This is a problem especially with uninformed vacationers. Feeding wildlife invites trouble. Bird feeders and pet food should be inaccessible clean outdoor grill fairs have a powerful sense of smell. Human in bear population growth has pushed there into new territories. Mary Pat Hollis and her husband have lived in Sky Valley for 17 years and had enjoyed seeing bears before but this one came through the second floor kitchen window. This is the tree we thank you used to climb up onto the deck in order to get into the house. He had taken his claws and flashed the screen into direction and then he proceeded to leave pawprints across my countertop as he came to the basket. He Nord the donuts and the muffins

but he went after the cashier bread. I don't think I'll be buying that anymore. The DNR caught the Roman bear the next day in a bear trap and after gathering data subjected to negative adverse conditions. Pepper spray and rubber pellets usually deter bears from returning. If no one is hurt repeat offenders get three strikes before they're put down. In spite of increasing bear encounters no one in Maryland has been injured today by a black bear. Now if you do encounter a bear you know make sure that they see you and they smell you and and you don't corner and you give it plenty of space. The DNR monitors Marilyn's blackberries so they respond to vehicle strikes to this baby bear was probably feeding on roadside berries when it was struck. Ranger Harris collects data that helps DNR monitor black bear health and population.

This map will be donated to the Environmental Education Center so it will definitely put him. In central and eastern Maryland. Most wildlife calls involve small and medium sized animals and deer. Most calls are handled by phone. In the 1950s we had an estimated 15000 there on the landscape now we have 200000. Your concern is that the dog though has been killed because you haven't seen her. OK OK all right just let me give you some information here. The problem the Lowy is central region manager DNR in Gaithersburg because what we try to do is with each one of these calls is to educate them give them some basic facts about let's say foxes for example or raccoons deer. So what we really try to do is is foster an appreciation for these animals that they are seeing. We're all sharing these neighborhoods together. Gary Stubbs was the manager of this Walgreens in Bel-Air. Where deer jumped a high wall and became trapped in the trash enclosure.

So I quickly shut the gate back up so I can get out in one so it won't hurt me. It was kind of going all over the place trying to get out but I don't want to hurt the deer because we have a road right out here that could render the highway and get hit by a car. The DNR responded in a timely fashion came out and said Ed. And I moved here without anybody getting hurt. No cars no customers. And best of all the deer the deer was safely released to gunpowder Falls State Park. Over populated deer crossing roads pose a serious threat to drivers and to themselves. Officials are working to humanely decrease runaway deer populations with managed funds. Despite their fun this for suburban lawns. Do you suffer from two close encounters. The DNR had to tranquilize this starving animal to release it from a plastic jar. Red Fox and raccoons have also adapted to neighborhoods. Usually they're not aggressive. But both can carry rabies.

Common sense dictates to keep your distance away from them. Suburban animal sightings draw a lot of attention in the local news. It's the end of the road for the representatives from the Department of Natural Resources said they just didn't want to take any more chances so they capture the bear behind us our beautiful home right here and sent it out west. Most of the time all those bears are doing is moving through that that part of the world because their territory has essentially been felled in western Maryland as developments continue to overtake natural areas. Chances are good that human animal encounters will increase the key concept. Enjoy a co-existing with our wildlife. It's kind of a sink or swim thing that they're being forced to adapt or perish. But if we can charge people to change their behavior then typically the animals will respond. It's no easy matter to build and maintain a replica of an historic wooden

sailing ship. That's why the elegant vessels the grace the waters of the mid-Atlantic typically hail from a major port city. In order to gain access to the public and private resources needed to support such a costly venture. And then there's this old town and this nearly perfect reproduction of an 18th century schooner was largely financed and built by the citizens of Chestertown Maryland. Population. 4000. The reason this tiny Eastern Shore town embrace such an ambitious project. Has much to do with the special mission in vision for the boat. She was to become a floating classroom for children throughout the region. Bringing Bay related lessons. Vividly to life. Chris Serino is the sole Tana's education director. The two curriculum areas that we cover are colonial maritime history and

Chesapeake Bay ecology. And what's unique about what we do is that we try to be very very hands on an experiential. They actually raised the sales and they're actually pulling on the lines and getting everything set up. And lower down and then we break them into small groups and rotate them through the ship where we have different educational stations set up. They love the handling of live fish crabs eels because many of them have seen these things but they've never actually been right up close. Crabs we noticed during our programs really started showing up. This time the river only about maybe three or four weeks ago and now there's quite a few crabs up in the river. And yeah you're another one in there who wants to touch is. Going to take a good look at him and he's all right. That's on. Top of that one. More heart all the way. They love steering the boat many of them have never been on a boat let alone steer the ship that's 100 feet

long with no actual steering wheel we have a tiller. We do fire our swivel guns on board to demonstrate some of the armaments that sultanas used in our own programs and we do that. That's always a big hit. They might go down below to learn about a day in the life of a sailor in the 18th century. These are all punks here. And we've been here one time and they are also really amazed by how different life was in terms of food clothing shelter medical practices standards of living all of these things are real eye openers for today's 21st century John. While classrooms generally spend a half day on the boat during the school year in summer the Sultana plays host to smaller groups of students who actually live aboard the ship for up to five days at a time. Those are really neat trips because we can really expand on some of the concepts that we can just

touch upon in a three hour session. The easy. Part. Back on why I don't know why I tanked. Right. Now. Because that's really where they have yet another side of sultanas especially on his little board programs as the big GM building component and if you're like that Tyler is a student at Senator Hill Middle School. Yet to work with each other. You let someone tell you to do in that respect that scandal with. Someone like their teachers and parents tell us that they tend to come back more confident more upbeat more willing to help around the house. So there's a real confidence builder inherent to the live aboard program. The original Sultana was a British Royal Navy vessel that spent time. The Chesapeake Bay in the tumultuous years leading up to the American Revolution chasing down Colonial ships trying to smuggle tea and other contraband into the colonies.

And that helped to make the Sultana a good fit for Chestertown. Drew McMullan is one of the original organizers of the boat building project. She was in the right time period Chestertown as a colonial ports and as a colonial ship. But the thing we really loved about it was that the British Navy kept absolutely perfect records of it. That's really unusual you can't do that very often in this day and age build a real exact replica of the historic ship. Well a multimillion dollar ship building project would be an ambitious one for a town of any size. Chester town's residents rallied behind the idea. Contributing funds would for the boat's keel rivers and thousands of hours of volunteer labor shipped right John Swinney oversaw the process. We were two and a half years old and still would figure that if we could just build it with a professional share price it would have taken us about a year but we slowed it down for education you know to have the

process more interesting people. It was all part of making as many people part of this boat as we could during the construction. And what that does for you. And then when the boat is finished and in the water a lot of people have ownership of the boat. I work. Go. Ahead. Next a big difference in a long term commitment to the voters. Finally in March of 2001 the Sultana was ready to be launched. It was only one problem. The shipyard was located on donated land several blocks from the water. So the project's organizers had to figure out how to move the huge boat through the winding three hundred year old streets of Chester town. We had to take all the power lines down all the phone lines down close the streets shut everything down. And there were just thousands and thousands of people watching as it went down. It was almost like a dream moment because it was two things that shouldn't be together you shouldn't have an enormous

50 concept in the middle of a town moving down the street. That's why everyone smiled the whole planet was happy it was just great. At water's edge a massive crane lifted the boat into the water and now came the moment of truth. Although a naval architect had reviewed the Sultana's plans to be sure the boat would be sea worthy no one was sure how a boat built from two hundred fifty year old plans would actually handle. None of us had really ever sailed a vessel that was this close to the original design of an 18th century ship so. I will say that she's not the fastest boat in the fleet never worn like a schooner as we usually come in dead last but you know that really wasn't why she was built. Ultimately the reason the Sultana was built was to help instill a love for the bay in a new generation of children. In hopes that they would someday work for its protection. That's really what we're all about is creating future stewards of the Chesapeake. You're.

If you want to explore the waterways of Maryland on your own terms a canoe or kayak may be your best bet. Although there are thousands of miles of shoreline it can be hard to find a place to launch your boat. A problem with the Chesapeake Bay as far as I know and less than 2 percent of its And public domain as far as accessibility is difficult. But in 2007 the Department of Natural Resources began creating designated water trails. They surveyed and mapped dozens of bays rivers and creeks around the state paying particular attention to public access. When they build these water trails they're taking the accessibility how to get to the water trails into account. This made life a whole lot easier for Steve roars and Julio Prez to certified instructors who operate kayak training dot com.

Stephen Julio is going to scout three water trails with markedly different surroundings. First up is Smith Island a popular destination for kayakers. A Smith Island trip means taking the ferry over from Chris Field staying in a bed and breakfast and setting out the next morning for in the enjoyable day on the water. OK guys we're taking the channel down to Highway I think what we like to do is introduce the beginner kayak there to the sport and the adventure that is kayaking. We're here to look at the water trails and assess what level of competence our students would be required to be able to manage these water trails. The plan today is to take a group of three friends around Smith Island for a Scout very shallow water. The tidal waters of Smith Island are tricky. The water trail map shows a tempting passage called Indian Creek. The entrance here is a real shower

complete with all your power with one of the most interesting trails is only available at high water. This is the kind of local knowledge that a professional guide must have. They paddle south down Tyler creek. Not again for a place the eternal west in the roads point comprehends road point it's the smallest of the three towns out here on the Smith Island. It was all salt marsh corn grass on our right here. Hank McComas is a veteran caster. And he loves dodging anyway extern and the marsh is an amazing place. It's it's a really quiet area and you can hear the birds calling for a long leg and a kayak is a really wonderful way to see it. It's quiet you're making hardly any noise you can even sneak up on fish as the tiny white houses of roads point glide by.

The kayakers pass exposed mudflats home to dozens of species of water birds and we've got a real menagerie here. Black dark grey blue heron. Lisa Gardner loves being on the water. One of the things that's great about paddling is your child about the same speed as you do walking. You really notice everything around you. Smells sights sounds and you know that's that's something that a lot of people never get a chance to experience. They turn into the bay with a face nothing worse than a mild chop for the two guides. It's been a very useful reconnaissance. The trails here Smith Island are wonderfully laid out trails and pretty much anybody can handle one or more of these trails with the water trails. You've now created accessibility for people with very little equipment a requirement to come out here and really enjoy this. The party approaches you will in the days ahead.

We all have such a melancholy feeling when with coming back and we just start slowing our strokes down we don't want to get back to the dock too soon and we just don't want that particular trip to ever end. On the western shore the four water trails of Charles County all tie into the Potomac River. And then enjoy creek. The county has built the public where Steven Julio are leading a group of paddlers from the Canton coyote club of Baltimore to check out the man's human life. Although the creek is only 30 miles from Washington it is remote and seldom visited for its narrow winding passages. Bring the kayakers into intimate contact with nature for. Fine then your boy has enchanted Megan Gardner for a kayaker you feel very connected you're not in the large boat or even a small boat. Your body is like partially into the water so you can feel very easily connected to the

environment. A creek is perfect for beginners and satisfying for experts. Its meandering course teaches a kayak use curiosity. Each time we come upon each corner it's a genuine curiosity of what's on the other side so it's perfectly supplies what a kayaker is looking for. They paddle further and further upstream relishing the tranquility of a soft summer morning. Adam Gardner is impressed the water trails are a great benefit for kayakers. Water is great. It's nice and calm. It's very clean. Perfect for beginner crackers. Summer is peak kayak season but fall can be magnificent for. Western Maryland has abundant opportunities for paddling. The Potomac alone has hundreds of miles of designated trails. Steven Julio who brought a small party to Fort Frederick where the water trails map

indicates the public put in. This part of the upper Potomac will be a new experience for them. They had this spectacular day of good weather and we're the only people on the river. There are long sections of the river up the harbor and tell me where you have no development on either side of the river. So when you're out there it's just you. And the scenery. When the river is safe or kayaking it's easy current and abundant public ramps make it an ideal place to bring a group in terms of taking students out to a place where they can really appreciate nature where they can really appreciate what Marilyn was like 100 years ago. This is a classic.

The biggest gift of the water trail system is access not only to the water but to the unimagined experiences there for the taking. I realize I don't have to go far for adventure I don't have to go far for discovery. I have it right here. Drop into our website at w w w dot MP t dot o r

g to send us your comments and suggestions. Learn more about Maryland's diverse natural beauty on our website and in our magazine. Dno are inspired by nature guided by science. Our tour is Maryland is made by NPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.