What a perfect day to give a shout out to our Refuge law enforcement officer, Sterling Valentine!
Read about her work and how she came to this important career on our Meet the Refuge Staff page.
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Vic Doig has retired! We wish him the best but hate that he is no longer with us at the Refuge. He has been the Refuge's Fire Management Officer and a Wildlife Biologist, for almost 20 years, leading and participating in prescribed burns and wildfire response activities across the state, region, and country as a field supervisor, instructor, and helicopter manager. He was a Division Supervisor with the Southern Area Tp 1 Blue incident management team and trained in wildlife management at the University of Florida and N.C. State University. Prior to coming to Lower Suwannee NWR, he worked for the State of Florida for 15 years . . . seven years with the state park system as a biologist and land manager, and eight years for the state Fish & Wildlife Commission as a biologist and land management supervisor. With Vic, Friends members worked to control invasive species and to do flight line bird counts. It was Vic who spotted the first Roseate Spoonbill in Cedar Key several years ago and called all of us to attention as they started become regulars here. The national and international media turned to Vic to help puzzle out the reasons behind the abandonment of the Seahorse Key Rookery in 2015. His presentation skills built strong relationships between the community and the refuge. We miss you already Vic. Thanks for years of service to the people of Florida and the nation. Best wishes for your future adventures.
For the 5th year in a row, Winter solstice was cold and windy at Shell Mound.
About 35 hearty folks came out to celebrate the shortest day of the year with Friends of Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys NWRs. The hot tea was a hit and disappeared quickly. The iced tea and lemonade . . . not so much. Musicians John Thalacker, Doug Lindhout, and Sandy Lindhout came to entertain, but their instruments and fingers refused to play in the misty cold. Donna Thalacker led a guided walk along the Dennis Creek Trail and Peg Hall along the Shell Mound Trail. We all stood on the pier and watched the sky where we knew the sun was setting behind the clouds. We thought good thoughts about our Indian ancestors and about our Refuge that protects this legacy for all of us. We will be back for Summer Solstice in June and maybe next December, we will see the Winter Solstice sun set in a cloudless sky near Palmetto Mound. Plan to come! Friends will host a Winter Solstice event at Shell Mound on Tuesday December 21 starting at 4:00 and ending with the setting of the sun near Palmetto Mound. All are welcome, rain or shine, and the event is free. For the past several years, the weather has been cold, overcast, rainy, even stormy. It has nevertheless been a wonderful place to be for the solstice. This year, we hope for warmer and sunnier. Why at Shell Mound? Shell Mound is a large shell-bearing archaeological site that was once the location of special gatherings for Native American groups across the broader region. This 10-page booklet tells the Shell Mound story. A major part of the story is that Shell Mound is on one of the arms of a huge, U-shaped dune, much of which has eroded since it was formed by ice-age winds. The dune is aligned with the solstices. The sun sets near the open end of the dune and rises over the closed end, as the booklet linked above relates. Palmetto Mound is at the other end of the two arms at the open end of the dune. Native peoples buried their dead at Shell Mound, near where the sun sets at Winter Solstice. Shell Mound is a sacred and storied site. You will hear more if you can come and join the event. The event will include:
Lower Suwannee NWR Hunt Season is in full swing. Archery/Crossbow and Muzzleloader have passed and now we are into three General Gun Hunts:
George and Jason are doing a Special Project, rehabbing and improving Fishbone Creek, Dixie County access road, parking area, boat launch, and a ground-level fishing platform. We do not yet have the funds to replace the observation deck. Also, George finished the trenching for the new fire radio tower's electrical system and has been coordinating contractors doing the work. Friends board members John McPherson, Debbie Meeks, Peg Hall, and John Thalacker are working with the Refuge to prepare for the eventual transfer of the Suwannee River's Vista Estate to the Refuge. Meetings are on-going to make plans on how to raise funds to repair, maintain, and promote this historic location for public access and interpretation. Meanwhile the Refuge is working with the USFWS on the administrative side of this transfer.
Avoid all those supply chain headaches! Do your holiday shopping online and support the Friends of the Refuges. Shop early for the best selection of custom-designed t-shirts and hats and -NEW- earrings and Blue Goose National Wildlife Refuge Passport books. Our volunteers will have your order mailed out within a few days. The pandemic has been the mother of invention for many things, including our store. It's been a great success and we want to thank all who bought t-shirts and hats over this last year, and the Friends Board volunteers who have made it happen. NOTE -- If you want us to ship to an address other than your billing address, you MUST enter the shipping address where it is requested, not your billing address! Postage is calculated automatically and charged to Friends when you submit the order and it is based on the shipping address you include. After the order is submitted, we cannot change the address without having to pay the postage a second time. Ahhh, the joys of automation :)
Coalition of Refuge Friends and Advocates is a national organization that connects Friends groups across the country with each other to share ideas and to pool our thinking and power on issues that affect us all. Friends of Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys NWRs worked closely with CORFA last year during the review of the Partnership Agreement that the Fish and Wildlife Service requires all Friends groups to sign.
This fall CORFA highlights Friends of Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys NWRs in its national newsletter. It also highlights Friends of St Mark’s NWR, our nearby refuge on the Big Bend of Florida, which is being honored as the Friends Group of the Year for 2022. And, CORFA showcases an idea from the Friends of Balcones Canyonlands that looks like something we would love to implement for our Friends! Vendors and visitors were excited to be at the Cedar Key Seafood Festival. It was good to be back at the city park talking to visitors about the Lower Suwannee and Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges. For Friends, the reason to have a booth at a festival is not raising money – although that is important – but it is learning all the reasons people like the refuges. The Friends volunteers in the booth struck up conversations on hunting, fishing, kayaking, butterfly watching, hiking, driving tours and bats. There was a lot of interest in bats. Our bat earrings, bat brochures and upcoming Halloween probably spurred the topic. Both days of the event were crowded with visitors from outside the area who kept our booth volunteers busy. We sold all the remaining owl and eagle t-shirts for which Friends member Ann Kamzelkski had provided the art and many of the new butterfly t-shirts for which Friends member Barbara Woodmansee provide the art. Overall sales were in-line with past festivals.
Ron’s career started in the Navy right out of high school. Next stop was college, graduating in natural resources. First job out of college in 1964 was with the U.S. Forest Service. He spent 30 years in government service before retiring and moving with his wife, Christine, to Cedar Key. Apparently, retirement wasn’t for him. As a Friends volunteer, he agreed to a 10-year commitment in 2009 to undertake the maintenance of the Refuge’s Shell Mound archaeology and recreational site which was not staffed at the time. His responsibilities at Shell Mound varied from maintaining trails, trimming vegetation, and facilities management, to giving impromptu guided tours to visitors of the archaeological site when his maintenance schedule allowed. He and other Friends’ volunteers worked with UF Archaeologist Ken Sassaman providing input as it related to the culture and history of the people who constructed Shell Mound.
Andrew Gude related that, “Ron will be sorely missed. He was a highly dedicated staff member who always interacted with the public, guiding them around the Shell Mound area and interpreting the history of the unit. We wish Ron the best in his full retirement (it might be his third).” “What a gift Ron has been to the Refuges," said Friends' president Peg Hall. "He has provided thirteen years of dedicated service, personal friendship, and protection of the area's precious natural resources. He’s irreplaceable and we’re so grateful.”
At the July 2021 board meeting, the board reviewed the changes that had been made to the Partnership Agreement that the Fish and Wildlife Service now requires Friends groups to sign in order for their refuges to continue their relationship with Friends. A motion to sign the revised partnership agreement was approved. The agreement has now been signed by all parties. Through the combined efforts of the 200+ Friends groups around the nation, the revisions to the original agreement were adequate to address our primary reservations. In summary:
We are happy to report that there were no significant glitches in our operations during the brief dissolution of our formal relationship with our refuge.
We are equally happy to have been part of the solution to this knotty problem that several of us saw as government overreach into the operations of nonprofit Friends groups. This beautiful video of the Milky Way was taken at Shell Mound by Kathleen Finnerty. Refuge Manager Andrew Gude was able to provide a Special Use Permit to allow access at night to do the filming. She granted permission for us to share the video with you. Click the photo to view it.
Someone stole a unique sign from Seahorse Key. The Refuge Manager and Law Enforcement Officer would greatly appreciate any information you can provide to help apprehend the thieves.
As you see in the photo, the sign was affixed on three telephone poles and well embedded into the dune. It has survived tropical systems since 2015. Refuge Manager Andrew Gude noticed it was missing on 27 Aug 2021 at 10 am. The cost of ordering, sign production, shipping, and replacing will be upwards of $5000. It is a custom produced sign that identified Seahorse Key, Cedar Key NWR, and the partnership with UF and Sante Fe College. The Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge has 200+ days of hunting, with ten different types of hunts between September and April.
The National Park Service received the 2021 Silver Telly award in Public Service & Activism for a series of videos on climate change that it made in conjunction with the graphic illustrator who recorded our 2021 Friends Annual Meeting in February. You can access these videos by clicking the photos below, all drawn by Karina Branson, of ConverSketch .
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June 2024
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![]() Friends of the Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys National Wildlife Refuges
P. O. Box 532 Cedar Key, FL 32625 [email protected] We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. |
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