This Land, Your Land

Lake Mattamuskeet, the largest natural lake in North Carolina at 40,000 surface acres, is the heart of the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge in Hyde County. It is best known as a wintering spot on the Atlantic Flyway for hundreds of thousands of migratory waterfowl, including Tundra swans (below), Canada geese, snow geese, ducks and coots.

The refuge is also open to fishing and crabbing, and hunting for waterfowl and deer in season.

We visited last Saturday and joined one of the annual tram tours of wetland impoundments on the lake's eastern shore.

Except for ducks and coots in the canal along the dikes the tram followed, the tour mostly provided the opportunity to see birds from afar. The refuge provided a spotting scope at one stop.

Most of the refuge's levee system is closed to the public from November through February, but roadsides and observation decks provide several spots for bird watching. The causeway bisecting the lake, which is a part of N.C. 94, has several places to stop.

A gazebo on the causeway, below, is part of the Charles Kuralt Trail, a series of similar spots on the 11 refuges in North Carolina and at the national fish hatchery in Edenton dedicated to the North Carolina-born journalist's fondness for out-of-the-way points of interest.

Lake Mattamuskeet attracts birds because its waters are shallow - ranging from half a foot to 4 feet deep and averaging 1.5 feet deep - and clear, Stanton said. The Fish & Wildlife Service also allows farmers to plant 125 acres of cropland on the refuge, and some corn is left unharvested to feed the birds.

The group of Tundra swans below includes two juveniles, identifiable by their gray plumage.

A small visitor center has a few exhibits, some merchandise for sale and staff offices. Across from it, the quarter-mile New Holland Trail provides a scenic walk through a stand of bald cypress and open marsh.

Beyond the New Holland Trail, the dike passes one of lake's two state-operated boat ramps on the Central Canal, below, and ends another quarter-mile away at a photo blind on the lake shore.

Find our entire report, with additional photos and video, at Carolina Outdoors Guide - Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has put together a photographic recap of 5 Key Moments of the Lateral West Fire in Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.

The fire, which burned for 111 days from August 4-9 to November 21, consumed more than 6,500 acres and cost more than $12.5 million to suppress, it says.

The fire on the 111,000-acre refuge also briefly crossed into Dismal Swamp State Park, which had closed in anticipation of the approaching flames.

Most of the refuge's forested wetlands are in Virginia but a portion extends into Camden, Pasquotank and Gates counties in North Carolina west of U.S. 17. Lake Drummond, a 3,100-acre natural lake in Virginia, is at the heart of the swamp.

The state park is just south of the Virginia state line in Camden County.

The refuge is conducting bus tours to Lake Drummond on December 13 and 27, which will provide the first public views of the Lateral West Fire zone. Reservations are required. Phone 757-986-3705.

The refuge continues to recover from the fire's effects, and some areas remain closed because of safety concerns.

Environmental groups are fighting plans for an 11,000-acre wind energy farm to be built near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, saying the farm's 492-foot windmills threaten thousands of migrating birds, The News & Observer reports this morning.

The N.C. Utilities Commission will hear arguments for and against Pantego Wind Energy's plans at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in room 2115 of the Dobbs Building, 430 N. Salisbury St. in Raleigh.

Several environmental groups claim that giant blades of the Pantego Wind Energy farm's turbines, which would spin at more than 100 mph, "will bat birds out of the sky as they fly to surrounding farms to forage during their winter migrations," The N&O says.

The wind farm would consist of 49 turbines rising 492 feet to the tip of their blades. Some are to be built as close as three miles from the refuge while others would be more than 10 miles away.

Invenergy, the parent company of the farm, expects the 80-megawatt Pantego project to generate electricity between 25 percent and 36 percent of the time, according to the Friends of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Invenergy currently operates 1,200 turbines on 26 domestic wind farms.

The same groups complaining about the wind farm - the Southern Environmental Law Center, Sierra Club and Friends of Pocosin Lakes NWR - stopped the U.S. Navy from building an airfield near the Pocosin Lakes refuge a few years ago.

The refuge attracts more than 100,000 wintering snow geese, tundra swans, and many species of ducks, as well as tourists who travel to the Beaufort County refuge to see them.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has also suggested that the rotating blades could pose a danger to bats, songbirds, bald eagles and migrating waterfowl in the area, and the wind-energy company is counting birds until the end of the migration season in the spring, the newspaper says.

Many area landowners have already signed leases to let the company build turbines on their land, The N&O says. One quoted in the report says area farmers whose crops have been eaten by the wintering birds for years are looking forward to payments from the energy company.

Swans flock to the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in a News & Observer photo from 2004 below.

Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge begins taking reservations tomorrow morning for next month's guided tours to see wintering waterfowl at one of the best birding sites in North Carolina.

Four one-hour tours in open-air trams are scheduled for Saturday, December 17. The refuge got "overwhelming positive feedback" after offering the tours last year, a news release says.

Lake Mattamuskeet, North Carolina's largest natural lake, has significant wintering populations of ducks, Canada geese, snow geese and tundra swans (below). Bald eagles also winter at Lake Mattamuskeet and are frequently seen perched in trees along the shore, the release says.

Tours are set for 7:30, 9 and 10:30 a.m., and 12:30 p.m. Refuge staff will begin taking reservations, which are required, at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday (November 29) at 252-926-4021.

"Unless the weather is so bad it poses a safety hazard, the tours will go on, rain or shine, windy or calm," Refuge Manager Deb Pierce says in the news release.

"It is critical that participants dress for cold weather, including heavy coats that will break the wind, scarfs, gloves, and especially hats," the release says.

Tundra swans at Lake Mattamuskeet on the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge near Swan Quarter. Click on the photo for more information.

Miller-McCune magazine in a November feature profiles a pilot project at the 154,000-acre Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge to determine whether man can slow rising sea levels and the inevitable loss of land and habitat.

The world's sea level has been stable for about 5,000 years, Jim Morrison's 2,600-word report says, but "today, melting glaciers and rising sea waters have accelerated the transformation, making larger areas vulnerable to flooding, erosion, saltwater intrusion, and loss of wetlands and biodiversity."

At the Alligator River site, the Nature Conservancy has built oyster-shell reefs to slow currents and lessen the impact of waves to stave off erosion. Other efforts include filling man-made drainage ditches and installing gates in others to slow the advance of salt water, and planting salt-tolerant trees such as bald cypress and black gum.

Orrin Pilkey, the Duke University professor who is well-known for his warnings about the vulnerability of North Carolina's coast, says the state should plan for a rise of 7 feet. Meanwhile, models demonstrate that a 1-foot rise in sea level would flood up to 469,000 acres of the Albemarle Peninsula, the article says, and a 20-inch rise might inundate nearly 750,000 acres, more than a third of the peninsula.

Morrison quotes an independent report co-written in 2008 by Jim Titus, an EPA expert who has been considering the dangers of sea-level rise for three decades. About North Carolina, Titus concludes "there is no explicit plan for the fate of most low-lying coastal lands as sea level rises."

The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, beset by a fire and hurricane damage over the last month, will partially reopen Tuesday.

The refuge's website says the headquarters, the Washington Ditch Trail entrance, and the Jericho Ditch Trail entrance will reopen to the public for regular hours, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Dismal Swamp State Park, near the southern reaches of the swamp in North Carolina, remains closed.

Rains from Hurricane Irene, which hit the East Coast August 27, have greatly helped efforts to douse the Lateral West Fire, which began in the Great Dismal Swamp with a lightning strike sometime prior to August 4.

But, because of the fire, wet roads, hazard trees, and roads needed for firefighter access and escape routes, September deer hunts on the refuge have been cancelled. Hunters with current permits can get a refund. Call the refuge at 757-986-3705 for more information.

Get information here about October and November deer hunts at the Great Dismal Swamp.

The eight National Wildlife Refuges on North Carolina's coast remain closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene, and the Fish & Wildlife Service says "typical damage suffered by these refuges" includes damage to structures, roads and natural resources.

The Great Dismal Swamp NWR, which is administered in Virginia but stretches into North Carolina, also remains closed to the public. The reserve only has partial power and a single phone line, and radio communications remain out.

Irene did bring some good news to the Great Dismal Swamp, F&WS says. An aerial flight after the storm showed the fire that had been burning there for most of the month was mostly under water. Still, up to 40 hotspots continued smoking.

Scroll down for reports from other areas.

The Wilmington Star-News published this photo below of an inlet created by Hurricane Irene just south of the freshwater ponds on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on Hatteras Island.

Where fear of explosions won't keep people away from a certain stretch of beach at Currituck National Wildlife Refuge, officials are hoping fear of a parking ticket will.

Signs warning visitors of unexploded military shells in the sand dunes north of Corolla have not kept people away, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers wildlife refuges, is adding “No Parking/No Stopping" signs, a news release says.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in 2007 that unexploded rockets, bombs and machine-gun ammunition lie within 182 acres in the Monkey Island Tract of the Currituck refuge, about a mile north of Corolla. They were left from Naval training during WWII.

The Corps has decided the area needs to remain closed despite cleanup efforts.

This week, Refuge Manager Mike Hoff said signage identifying the danger in the area “has proven ineffective.” The refuge has documented more than 650 trespass incidents last year within the affected area.

The Monkey Island Tract is about a mile wide and a mile across, according to the Virginian-Pilot. People often use the beach, but the area west of the dunes is seldom traveled except by Corolla wild horses.

The new no-parking zone extends from the end of N.C. 12 north 1.5 miles to Mile Post 14.

Update: The North Carolina Division of Forest Resources said Sunday is has determined that a lightning strike caused the fire on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Earlier speculation focused on arson.

The fire, which started May 5, has consumed some 25,000 acres, but firefighters had it 75 percent contained Sunday night.

Look for updates on the Pains Bay fire here.

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A wildfire burning since Thursday has engulfed nearly 21,000 acres of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge while wind, low humidity and state budget cuts hamper efforts to fight the blaze.

The state-owned CL 215 "Super Scooper," which has the capability to scoop up 1,621-3,000 gallons of water and drop it on fires, is not available to firefighters. It has been grounded to save money, Tom Crews, fire management officer for the refuge and incident commander on this fire, told the press Monday according to the Outer Banks Sentinel.

A Type 1 helicopter, which carries about a third of what the CL 215 can scoop up, was being used to fight the fire from the air Sunday.

The fire began in wetlands between Pains Bay and Parched Corn Bays on the south side of U.S. Highway 264 just south of Stumpy Point, a tiny fishing village on Dare County mainland, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By Tuesday morning it had burned 20,954 acres.

A 10-mile section of U.S. 264 between Stumpy Point and Engelhard was closed Tuesday morning. A temporary flight restriction is in effect in the airspace above the fire.

On Monday the fire was approaching Stumpy Point, according to the Virginian Pilot, and it was possible that the 220 or so residents would be evacuated.

Crews told The Associated Press that arson and human carelessness may have caused the fire. "From the air, there were three fires spotted in one location, and that is suspicious," he said.

The Humane Society and the Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust have joined to double the reward money offered in the death of a red wolf in Dare County on the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.

The $2,500 the groups are offering for information leading to the arrest of whoever killed the animal will be added to $2,500 offered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers wildlife refuges.

The red wolf (Canis rufus), protected under the Endangered Species Act, was found dead Monday. Officials say it was intentionally killed, but have not said how.

Two others were killed in April.

The maximum criminal penalties for the unlawful taking of a red wolf are one year imprisonment and $100,000 fine per individual.

Contact Sandra Allred at (919) 856-4786 or Jay Eddy at (252) 216-8724 if you have pertinent information about any red wolf death.