Biden Admin Gives Southern Maryland a Going Away Present

 The Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge

On December 13, 2024, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams joined partners and community members in Nanjemoy, Maryland, to celebrate the establishment of the Southern Maryland Woodlands National Wildlife Refuge (SMW NWR) as the 573rd and newest unit of the National Wildlife Refuge System.‍

Nearly 15 years in the making, this is the first national wildlife refuge established in the Chesapeake Bay watershed in more than 25 years and the first in Maryland in over 60 years.

Chesapeake Conservancy is proud to be a contributing partner in creating the SMW NWR. The Service worked closely with the Southern Maryland Conservation Alliance, comprised of core member organizations including the Chesapeake Conservancy, American Chestnut Land Trust, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Maryland Environmental Trust, Charles County and The Nature Conservancy to establish priorities for habitat management and land acquisition for the new refuge.

A 31-acre parcel near Nanjemoy in Charles County, Maryland, is the first of several intended donations by The Nature Conservancy that over the next few months will permanently protect and conserve more than 300 acres of interior forest and riparian wetlands habitat, supporting northern long-eared bats, forest-interior songbirds, box turtles and several species of salamanders that are of conservation concern.‍

The Service will continue working with partners and willing sellers to secure voluntary conservation of up to 40,000 acres of important wildlife habitat within four watershed-based focus areas in Anne Arundel, Prince George’s, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s counties. As proposed, the new refuge will consist of four watershed-based units: the Lower Patuxent-Calvert Unit, Nanjemoy-Mattawoman Unit, Zekiah–Wicomico Unit and McIntosh Run-St. Mary’s Unit. The acquisition boundary covers about 577,420 acres.

dwarf wedgemussel

The areas identified for conservation through this new national wildlife refuge support a wide range of species including waterfowl, shorebirds, forest-interior and grassland-dependent birds, and threatened and endangered species such as the dwarf wedgemussel, Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon, puritan and northeastern tiger beetles and the northern long-eared bat.

I just don't know what we will do without the Dwarf Wedgemussel or Northern Tiger Beetle.

The good news is that, with 31 acres a year, or even the hoped for 300, it will take a very long time to capture 40,000 acres.