The
Seney National Wildlife Refuge [245687] is a managed wetland
in Schoolcraft
County
in the U.S. state of
Michigan
. It
has an area of 95,212 acres (385 km²). It is bordered by
M-28 and
M-77.
The nearest town of
any size is Seney,
Michigan
. The
refuge contains the Seney
Wilderness
Area and the
Strangmoor Bog National Natural Landmark within
its boundaries.
Birds, animals and wilderness
While the Seney
National
Wildlife Refuge is oriented towards maintaining living space
for bird life,
river otters,
beavers,
moose,
black bear and
gray
wolves also live in the refuge. 211 separate species of birds
have been logged at Seney, including
ducks,
bald eagles,
trumpeter swans,
osprey,
sandhill
cranes, and
common loons. On the
western side of the National Wildlife Refuge, a parcel is
officially designated as a
wilderness
with an area of 25,150 acres (102 km²).
The Seney NWR's western wilderness area, designated by federal law
as the
Seney Wilderness Area, includes the
Strangmoor
Bog National Natural Landmark. The Strangmoor Bog was
landmarked as being the best surviving example in the 48 states of
a
sub-arctic patterned bog
ecosystem, characterized by rapid glacial meltoff from an exposed
sandy plain. The friable sand, exposed to the weather, was sculpted
by wind and water into parallel strips of dune highland and
wetland.
History
The Seney
National Wildlife Refuge is built upon the remains of the Great
Manistique Swamp, a perched sand wetland located in the
central Upper
Peninsula
.
After its forests were heavily exploited in 1880-1910, promoters
attempted to drain the swamp for farmland. The drainage was a
failure and left the wetland criscrossed with canals, ditches, and
drainage ponds. Much of the property was then abandoned for unpaid
property taxes.
During the 1930s, work crews employed by the
Civilian Conservation Corps
(CCC) rebuilt, restored, and expanded the wetland drains, this time
for active wetlands management purposes. These CCC ponds and drains
are still used by the wetlands managers that staff the current
National Wildlife Refuge. The Seney National Wildlife Refuge was
established in 1935.
Canada geese
When the Seney National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1935,
the
Canada goose was a threatened
species. Widespread, year-round
hunting
(legal and illegal) had reduced the North American population of
free-flying Canada geese to a trickle of birds who avoided human
beings as much as possible. One of the priorities of the new Seney
NWR was to establish a refuge for free-flying Canada geese.
In January 1936, during the first winter of the Seney Refuge's
operation, the refuge trucked in 300 pinioned Canada geese. These
flightless geese were given a fenced-in
pond
area within the Refuge and were fed. It was hoped that they would
produce a crop of goslings that would establish a migratory pattern
of behavior and voluntarily return to the Refuge. The goslings were
banded so that if they returned, the Refuge's small staff would
know it.
Every year a shrinking crop of Canada goslings was hatched and flew
south for the winter, but few or none returned in the following
spring to Seney.
Poaching was apparently
continuing in the geese wintering grounds and on the flyways.
Meanwhile the parent population of wing-clipped Canada geese
diminished between 1936 and 1945 from 300 to 45.
March, 1946 saw the first significant return of sixteen banded,
free-flying Canada geese. This tiny
flock bred
true in the following years. The Seney Canada goose breeding
population had multiplied to 3,000 birds by 1956, and continued to
expand thereafter even after local hunting was re-legalized. The
Seney National Wildlife Refuge's Canada goose project is considered
to have been one of the key programs in re-establishing the Canada
goose as a major wetland bird of North America.
Seney NWR today
As of 2007, the
U.S.
Fish and Wildlife
Service, administrator of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge,
was reporting that the refuge hosted approximately 88,000 visitors
annually.
Seney NWR acts as the administrative unit for the following other
refuges:
References
- Roger L. Rosentreter, "Roosevelt's Tree Army: Michigan's
Civilian Conservation Corps", Michigan History May-June
1986, accessed December 3, 2007.[1]
External links
/Huron National Wildlife Refuge in Lake
Superior.
conducts research on migrating birds.
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