USFWS Plans Southern Maryland Land Grab

USFWS map shows the proposed
areas of the national wildlife refuge

Chesapeake Bay Mag wants us to Weigh In On New National Wildlife Refuge Proposed For Southern MD. Not just no, but hell no!

A new national wildlife refuge could be carved out in Southern Maryland and now is your chance to weigh in on the plan. If approved, this would be the first national wildlife refuge in the Bay region in 26 years.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is looking for about 40,000 acres of woodlands, farm fields and wetlands for the wildlife refuge. Those acres would be in sections within a much larger framework of 577,400 acres over five counties.

Dan Murphy, of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Chesapeake Bay Field Office, says those acres wouldn’t necessarily be contiguous. Rather, the agency wants to create a network of “habitat hubs of forests and streams and corridors between those hubs” to help protect threatened and endangered species, waterfowl and migratory birds.

He said it would be modeled after the Rappahannock wildlife preserve, which was established in the 1990s. USFWS used federal money to acquire the rights to 20,000 acres in the Rappahannock River valley in Virginia and looked to state and non-government agencies as partners to help preserve more land.

In Southern Maryland, the agency would be working with the American Chestnut Land Trust, Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, The Maryland Environmental Trust, the Chesapeake Conservancy, Charles County and others on the project.

“This gives us the opportunity to spend money in that landscape and pursue the most important places to protect,” Murphy said.

The plan is based on a 2018 conservation plan that USFWS developed in partnership with the Southern Maryland Conservation Alliance after three public listening sessions that year. You can see the draft proposal, land protection plan and environmental assessment at fws.gov/project/evaluating-new-refuge-lands-southern-maryland. You can submit comments on the plan at FW5southernmarylandplan@fws.gov from now through Aprill 22.

The Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge would be the seventh such refuge in the Chesapeake region, including Blackwater, Nanticoke, Eastern Neck and Martin on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the Patuxent and Rappahannock River Valley refuges in Maryland and Virginia on the Western Shore. It would stretch across Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles, Prince Georges and St. Mary’s counties and be divided into four units based on watersheds: The Lower Patuxent – Calvert Unit, the Nanjemoy – Mattawoman Unit, the Zekiah – Wicomico Unit, and the McIntosh Run – St. Mary’s Unit.

Murphy said USFWS would purchase land outright or acquire development rights from willing sellers.

Willing, or "willing" sellers. How much will they be willing to offer after they've restricted you from being able to do much on your land.

A closer look at Biden's win over Trump in Maryland

I see that virtually all of Calvert County is in the desired area for some reason or another, as well as large chunks of St. Marys and Charles County. Is it a coincidence that the designated area bears a substantial similarity to the map of the results of the 2020 Presidential election ?