Refuge Update 2012, National Wildlife Refuge System

Adventures in I&M Data Mining

Last fall and winter, Sara (Sam) McLaughlin and Sarah Shultz— National Wildlife Refuge System Inventory and Monitoring (I&M) program contractors in Fort Collins, CO—visited nine refuges, at least one per U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service region, to create permanent electronic records of those refuges’ critical documents. They were document miners for a pilot Refuge System application called ServCat (Service Catalog). ServCat, which is scheduled to go live soon, creates records, complete with metadata from documents such as reports, surveys, databases, geospatial data and images. Once ServCat is up and running, the information will be retrievable using text or geospatial search tools.

By Sara McLaughlin and Sarah Shultz

The authors visited nine national wildlife refuges to create permanent electronic records of those refuges’ critical documents. When they were at Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska mining documents for the pilot Refuge System application called ServCat (Service Catalog), they stayed in this historic cabin.
Credit: Sara McLaughlin

This 150-year-old journal from St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge in Florida was documented by the authors in the centralized database.
Credit: Sarah Shultz

Just three weeks into our job, we were packing for our first refuge trip. We were proud to be part of this new and important project, and a little nervous to be away from home and family. We never imagined we would meet such wonderful people or see such incredible places. The refuges we visited illustrated the history, magnificence and diversity of the Refuge System.

Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge was among our first stops. We were surprised to find such a beautiful refuge so close to one of America’s largest urban areas. The skyscrapers, crowds and noise of the city were a striking contrast to the peaceful, restored wetlands of the refuge. It was amazing to see how much wildlife found harbor in this small refuge, despite the seven million people surrounding it.

Alaska in mid-winter fell at the other end of the spectrum: remote; unpredictable weather; few people. We were scheduled to visit Tetlin Refuge, but like refuge personnel, we had to be tough and adaptable. After narrowly escaping a highway pileup in a blizzard, we changed plans. Kenai Refuge graciously made time for us, and our quaint log cabin blanketed in snow and tucked beneath trees eased the angst. Each morning we pulled on our snow gear and walked the trail to the refuge office in the still Alaska dark. The tranquility of Kenai Refuge was like nothing we had experienced.

St. Vincent Refuge in Florida was bursting with personality and scenery. Charlotte Chumney, the refuge’s office assistant, was a walking Ms. Charlotte immediately pulled out two 150-year-old journals she’d been working to preserve, excited that the refuge’s history would be documented in a centralized database. We scanned everything the refuge had, even treasure maps.

One foggy morning we piled into a boat with biologist Bradley Smith to track the refuge’s two resident red wolves. It was energizing to see the tropical scenery and diverse wildlife that we had worked so hard to document in the office.

We’ll never forget Malheur Refuge in southeastern Oregon. After spending a day scanning annual narratives, we thought nothing could make us appreciate the history of the Refuge System more than those brittle 1930s documents. But we were wrong.

At the day’s end, after we turned out the lights and left the refuge office, profound darkness surrounded us. As we rummaged for our cell phone lights, we recognized just how far we were from other humans. There was no glow from a nearby town. The land around us, conserved since 1908, still belongs to nature. A deep respect for refuges and their history came with this realization. We were honored to contribute to the Refuge System’s preservation efforts by scanning 3,778 documents.

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Refuge Update September/October 2012

Last updated: August 30, 2012