Open Spaces : Kansas

Looking Back: Victor Scheffer

Posted At : October 16, 2011 7:30 AM | Posted By : Jonsson, Katherine E
Related Categories: USFWS, endangered species, Washington, Oregon, Kansas, Refuge System, news_blog

Every so often it's good to look into the past to revisit the people who got us where we are today. Looking Back is a series on the people who helped shape the National Wildlife Refuge System. The series is based on "A Look Back," a regular column written by Karen Leggett, from the Refuge System Branch of Communications, which appears in each issue of the Refuge Update newsletter.

“Long-lost Deer Found on West Coast by Service Naturalist”

This headline on a 1941 press release from the U.S. Department of the Interior identified Victor B. Scheffer as the naturalist who discovered a band of about 600 Columbia white-tailed deer along the Washington-Oregon border.  Lewis and Clark had described these deer, whose tails and antlers differ from other whitetails and whose habitat was largely destroyed by farmers and hunters. 

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Kansas: Climate-Savvy Restoration Project Makes Wildlife Feel At Home

Posted At : June 22, 2011 7:00 AM | Posted By : Jennifer Strickland
Related Categories: plants, Kansas, engagement, mitigation, deforestation, news_blog, adaptation, habitat fragmentation, carbon

An open grove with blue sky and very green grass
Go Zero groves, like this one on Marais Des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuge in Kansas, trap carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They will also help control flooding and enhance water quality along the Marais des Cygnes River. Photo: Jane LeMunyon Photography.

In the state popularized by “The Wizard of Oz,” conservation partners aren’t just dreaming about a better world over the rainbow. They’re joining forces to fight climate change and provide a home for wildlife – now and into the future.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and The Conservation Fund (TCF) have teamed up to restore 775 acres of native forestland along the Marais des Cygnes River located on the border of Kansas and Missouri.  

The effort is part of The Conservation Fund’s Go Zero program, which helps address climate change by providing ways for individuals, organizations, and even entire communities to reduce their carbon footprint, and then offset emissions by planting trees.

Tim Menard, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who splits his time between Kansas’ Flint Hills and Marais des Cygnes National Wildlife Refuges, says the trees not only will trap carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they will also help control flooding and enhance water quality along the Marais des Cygnes River.

It’s also a win for wildlife.

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Last updated: June 21, 2012