IN THIS ISSUE

Volunteers Treated to
Falcons Football

Upper Chattooga River

Swamp Diversity

Great Outdoors Show

Purple Martins

Camo Coalition

Great Outdoors Show

February 12-14, Perry, GA

FEATURING

Grand America Turkey
Calling Contest

Call Makers Gallery and Competition

Snake Shows

Kids Fishing

Educational Seminars

Loads of fishing, turkey hunting and outdoor
product vendors

  Check the web site, www.gwf.org for more information and updates on the show.  

Join the Camo Coalition

The Camo Coalition action system is FREE and easy to use. We need your help in building the membership with an additional 2,000 active and engaged conservation-minded citizens.  Visit the Camo web page and review “current issues” to learn more about past efforts. 

www.camocoalition.org

Early Birds

The largest of North American swallows, the Purple Martin is a popular tenant of backyard birdhouses. They are one of the first birds to arrive from their southern wintering grounds in Brazil and arrive around February 1st in the southern part of Georgia and late February to early March in the northern part. East of the Rockies Purple Martins live only in human-supplied housing while west of the Rockies they nest in abandoned woodpecker holes. Since martins feed solely on flying insects, they need good weather conditions in order to eat. Insects do not fly much during rain, snow, cool temperatures and heavy winds. If weather like this lasts for more then 2 or 3 days martins begin to die of starvation. Heat waves and droughts can also decrease the number of flying insects. Contrary to what some people think martins do not eat mosquitoes. They feed during the daytime and high in the sky where mosquitoes don’t fly. Not only do martins eat on the fly but they also drink on the fly by skimming the surface of a pond and scooping up water in their lower bill.

Purple Martins have specific housing requirements and like to live in houses or hollowed out gourds that are located 40 to 60 feet from houses, trees or tall bushes and on a pole 12 to 20 feet high. Gourds should be painted white to reflect heat and keep the birds cool. Several pairs will live in boxes with multiple compartments which is unusual among birds. A boat dock is an ideal location to place a house. Once they have nested successfully in an area they will return year after year.

Sources: Purple Martin Conservation Association Web site, Cornell Lab of Ornithology Web site 
Photo by JJ Cadiz.

GWF Volunteers Hank Ohme, Suzy Downing, and Scott Harriss photograph icy creeks and waterfalls at the Wharton Conservation Center in North Georgia. Their work, shown above and in the header, has played an important role in documenting the natural resources found at the Wharton Center and Mill Creek Nature Center in Buford.

GWF Volunteers Treated to a Season
of Falcon Football
By Robert Phillips, Volunteer Coordinator

GWF’s volunteers are exceptional for what they give to their communities and their environment. That’s why GWF has cooperated with the Atlanta Falcons and their defensive tackle Kroy Biermann to treat 300 volunteers to an Atlanta Falcons home game.

While growing up in Montana, Biermann enjoyed hunting and fishing. When the Falcons’ Community Relations and Youth Programs Manager Chris Millman brought up the idea of distributing tickets to an organization that could provide youngsters with a Falcons game day experience, Biermann embraced it. Recalling the importance of the outdoors in his own childhood, he requested that an environmental organization receive the tickets. The GWF, selected as the recipient of this community outreach initiative, was pleased to reward the hard work of its young volunteers and their parents. The group, nicknamed the “Biermann Blitzers,” sported red Atlanta Falcons jerseys provided by Biermann and Millman.

GWF would like to thank Biermann, Millman, and the Atlanta Falcons for providing our hard-working volunteers with this excellent opportunity.

Pictured above are the Junior Bass Busters at a Falcons game. This group has participated as volunteers in the GWF Adopt-a-Stream program and the Rivers Alive cleanup since 1996. Additionally, club members and their parents always volunteer their help at our Atlanta and Perry Buckaramas and Great Outdoors Show.

Remember that from February 12-14, 2010 the Great Outdoors Show will be at the Georgia National Fairgrounds in Perry, Georgia. If you are looking for a volunteer opportunity, please give Robert Phillips a call at 770-787-7887 or email him at rphillips@gwf.org.

Forest Service Withdraws Recent Decision on
Use of the Upper Chattooga River
By Shirl Parsons,
Conservation Issues Coordinator

Georgia’s only congressionally designated Wild and Scenic river is the Chattooga, which begins in western North Carolina, flows through the Ellicott Rock Wilderness in northeast Georgia and forms the boundary between Georgia and South Carolina before emptying into Lake Tugaloo.

The Chattooga is a popular recreation area for anglers, hikers, campers, boaters and other outdoor enthusiasts but for many years a conflict has been raging over recreational use of the Chattooga.

Since the Chattooga flows through the Nantahala, Chattahoochee and Sumter National Forests, the U.S. Forest Service is charged with managing the resources of the river. Since 1974, rafts, kayaks, and canoes have been prohibited above the Highway 28 bridge northeast of Clayton, Georgia, but are allowed below the bridge. The Upper Chattooga flows through the Ellicott Rock Wilderness and is a popular place for trout fishermen and hikers. It is one of the premier places in Georgia where an angler can enjoy a truly wild experience free from the intrusion of boats.  Boat use on the lower river has increased as population has grown.

In 2006 American Whitewater filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service demanding unlimited access by boats to the Upper Chattooga even though boats are allowed on the lower two thirds of the river.  The appeal was followed by a series of public meetings and comments about the recreational uses of the Chattooga. Georgia Wildlife Federation took the position that the Upper Chattooga should not be open to boating. A unique solitude fishing experience is what brings anglers to the Upper Chattooga and this was the intent of the Forest Service when they made the decision to separate the boaters from the anglers.

In August 2009 the Forest Service released their final decision on recreation uses of the Upper Chattooga which gives boaters very limited access. Boating will be allowed on the main stem of the Chattooga from the confluence of Norton Mill Creek in North Carolina to Burrells Fords Bridge in South Carolina between December 1st and March 1st and only when the river reaches approximate flow levels of 450 cfs or more at the Burrells Ford gauge. The Forest Service estimates that this would probably result in six boatable days in an average year. At flow levels this high there would probably not be many anglers using the river.  
   
American Whitewater immediately appealed the Forest Service decision but now there has been another turn of events. Just before Christmas the Forest Service voluntarily withdrew their decision. Decisions were issued by the three forests that manage the river and some inconsistencies were found between the decisions. Additional analysis will be done and then the forests will issue three new decisions, probably in early spring. In the meantime, the Upper Chattooga remains closed to boaters.

The Hidden Diversity of the Swamp
By Kevin Tarner,
Conservation Programs Assistant

On a recent winter afternoon, a perceptive visitor to the Alcovy Center asked me why GWF considered the Water Tupelo forests of the Alcovy unique and diverse, considering they were essentially a monoculture of the same species.

Somewhat surprised by the question, I immediately recalled the writings of the late Dr. Charles Wharton, one of Georgia’s most respected ecologists and stalwart defender of the Alcovy River from channelization in the 1960s and 70s. Wharton, who spent much of his life studying Alcovy River’s plants, animals, and geology, would certainly disagree.

To answer the visitor, I explained that while the overstory of the tupelo swamp may have appeared monocultural, the richness of the Alcovy swamps lay in other areas. For example, the fertile, seasonally inundated soils sustained a rich midstory and understory of Red Maple, Pawpaw, Alder, River Birch, Blackgum, seedling Swamp Chestnut Oaks, Rivercane, Arrowhead, and Lizard’s Tail.

The animal community of the Alcovy River, however, is perhaps its most unique component. The first reason behind the Alcovy’s diversity is the variety and abundance of food sources. The productive swamps are constantly fertilized, both by the Alcovy with its silt deposits as well as by the tupelos with their berries and decaying leaves. These organic deposits feed untold numbers of microscopic life, such as worms, crustaceans, and insect larvae. The moist, shady conditions of the swamp are perfect for fungi, which not only break down organic deposits but whose fruiting bodies serve as food sources for many small animals. In winter, sunlight passes down through the bare tupelo branches, striking the motionless floodwaters and allowing algae populations to flourish and produce oxygen for amphibians and small fish to breathe. Plant foods, too, are abundant. The tupelos, whose flowers nourished bees and butterflies through the summer, now in fall and winter feed all manner of mammals and birds with their large purple drupes, which resemble strange miniature eggplants. Squirrels, wild turkeys, wood ducks, raccoons, quail, deer, songbirds, turtles, and small rodents depend on the plentiful amount of fruit produced by the tupelo stands during fall and winter. And that’s just one species of plant! Thus, one secret to the Alcovy’s rareness is that the bottom of its food chain is extremely rich.

Along with ample food supplies, the Alcovy River supplies relatively unpolluted drinking water for wildlife. Additionally, the swamps provide high-quality habitats, including irregular patchworks of dry and wet pools, numerous trunk cavities, and abandoned animal burrows. Small pockets of shelter and air are also found in spaces between the fallen leaves and limbs of bottomland plants. Amphibians and reptiles in particular favor these areas. As a result, disjunct populations of Coastal Plain species like the Bird-Voiced Treefrog and Mole Salamander combine in the same habitat with dozens of species of aquatic turtles, terrestrial and water snakes, frogs, toads, and lizards. Many of these animals, in intricate symbiosis, reside in the abandoned, flooded tunnels of turtles, armadillos, foxes, snakes, crayfish, or small and rarely seen burrowing rodents. Several Alcovy River plants and creatures exist nowhere else in the Piedmont.

We must always remember that looks can be deceiving. Peering at the Alcovy bottomlands from a distance, the fluted gray trunks of the tupelos can be monotonous to some and breathtaking to others. Such a scene might never suggest, to the untrained eye, the immense diversity that lies beneath the reflections upon the calm waters, the floating tupelo fruits, the thick layer of fallen leaves and twigs, and within the tunnel networks of the fertile black Alcovy silts.