Six endangered light-footed Ridgway’s rails were released into San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge this week! For decades, a team has been working to bring this secretive marsh bird species back from the brink.

But, how?

Light-footed Ridgway's rail by Rinus Baak, USFWS.

Getting the Data

One way the team is working toward a genetically strong population of light-footed Ridgway’s rails, is by monitoring them through satellite telemetry. Five of the released birds were custom-fitted with a transmitter that will send data using satellite technology. This information allows scientists and land managers to follow the movements of these endangered birds.

It may sound straightforward, but a few challenges make it tricky to track the birds. First, they are extremely hard to see within the cordgrass vegetation -- think, “thin as a rail.” Second, when the tracking device eventually comes off the bird when it has deceased, it’s next to impossible to retrieve with the tides going in and out twice per day.

Despite the difficulties, it’s critical for the team to retrieve data regarding the movement of these birds.

This week, one of the light-footed Ridgway's rails is fitted with a tracking device by Lisa Cox, USFWS.

What Their Activity Tells Us

These days, it’s common for light-footed Ridgway’s rails to spend their entire lives in one coastal marshland (like South San Diego Bay). But that hasn’t always been the case.

Before the species became endangered, the birds traveled to other marshes and intermingled with other rails. This strengthened their genetic diversity.

Today there are hundreds of acres of new habitat (due to wetland restoration projects). The team is looking to understand how the birds use the improved wetlands and if it impacts their activity.

The hope is to see the birds moving to neighboring wetlands. This would indicate a beginning of recovery for the species and a sign that we’re keeping our coastal ecosystems healthy.

The tracking device on one of the rails by Lisa Cox, USFWS.

Steps Toward Recovery

When monitoring began in 1980, the population was down to 200 breeding pairs. That number is now up to 656 pairs. The news is positive and inspires continued work toward recovery for the species. Next spring, there could be new sounds of duetting rails pairing up in the restored marshes of the San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

Watch the release live and read the San Diego Tribune’s account of the release.

Sunrise at Agassiz National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota. Regulated seasonal hunting is permitted at more than 330 national wildlife refuges and wetland management districts, in keeping with conservation objectives. Photo by USFWS

For millions of American families, the hunting conservation ethic is a way of life to be passed on proudly through generations. 

The DeSpains of Arkansas and the Johnsons of Minnesota are two such families. They enjoy hunting at and near Big Lake National Wildlife Refuge and Fergus Falls Wetland Management District, respectively. 

RELATED: Benefits to Hunters and Anglers Pay Dividends for All Americans. But We Must Fight For Them, says Dan Ashe

In this week’s National Wildlife Refuge System feature story, “Generations of Hunters,” they explain why hunting is important to them.

Jenny Johnson, left, with daughters Ally and Rebecca and the girls’ grandfather. “I want to teach them love and respect for the world around us, not just seeing it through the eyes of social media but to see it firsthand,” Jenny Johnson says. “Being out there firsthand and experiencing the hunt gives them the kind of love and respect that is hard to learn otherwise.” Photo courtesy of the Johnson family

Hunters like the DeSpains, Johnsons and others help conserve natural resources. Ninety-eight percent of the price of Duck Stamps purchased by hunters and other conservationists goes to acquiring wetland habitat on national wildlife refuges.

Hunters also bolster the overall economy. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey estimated that 13.7 million people spent $33.7 billion hunting in United States in 2011, the most recent year from which such data is available.

Will DeSpain at age 14 in 1995. Hunting teaches gun safety, he says. “It makes you responsible. It’s not easy … You may hunt two or three weekends and not even see a deer … It takes patience and respect for the outdoors.” Photo courtesy of the DeSpain family

“Generations of Hunters” is part of the Refuge System’s series of weekly online stories that use photos to highlight the conservation work and visitor opportunities at national wildlife refuges, wetland management districts and marine national monuments. A new story is posted on the Refuge System front page each Wednesday. Past stories are archived here.

For a lot of hunters, there is one special time among all of your hunting trips that stands out in your memory as having been perfect, a day of pure bliss when all the stars line up just right and everything connects at just the right time and in just the right place.

Read about Dan Magneson's

Rachel Carson on Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania.

Please do not hold this against me, but until I started working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I did not know who conservation hero Rachel Carson was. I am sure that somewhere along the line I heard of her groundbreaking book Silent Spring, which was published on this day 54 years ago today, but I didn’t remember its story or that of the author.

Shortly after I arrived at FWS after years in newspapers, I asked a former office-mate who the woman in a frame on her shelf was. Rachel Carson, she declared, and so I started digging into her to find out what I should have known all along. Biologist-writer Rachel Carson -- What an amazing woman. That she was a woman makes her achievements all the more remarkable given the time, but she was truly an amazing person. 

She’d have been truly remarkable without Silent Spring -- scientist, best-selling author -- but that book cemented her legacy as someone who helped launch the contemporary environmental movement and prompted  Americans to be conscious of the environment.

Rachel Carson meets with Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall in 1962.

Carson, a onetime writer-biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, once said that "man's endeavors to control nature by his powers to alter and to destroy would inevitably evolve into a war against himself, a war he would lose unless he came to terms with nature." 

In Silent Spring she opened the eyes of society to the dangers of indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT. She stood tall despite withering attacks on her professional and personal integrity. And in the end, the federal government banned DDT. 

Since the banning of DDT, the bald eagle, brown pelican and peregrine falcon, once devastated by the effects of the pesticide, all soar the skies freely in increasing numbers, after decades of recovery efforts. 

Wildlife artist Bob Hines and Rachel Carson spent many hours along the Atlantic coast visiting refuges and gathering material for many of the agency’s pamphlets and technical publications.

Thank you, Rachel Carson; I’m sorry I didn’t know of you sooner. 

I hope you don’t you make that same mistake I did. Check out our websites on her (https://www.fws.gov/rachelcarson/, https://training.fws.gov/History/ConservationHeroes/Carson.html, https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Rachel_Carson/about/rachelcarson.html), read Silent Spring, or just enjoy nature and let your heart be filled by a “sense of wonder,” one of Carson’s wonderful phrases.

Matt Trott, External Affairs

FedEx employees plant native flowers at the entrance of a new multi-use trail extension at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum in Philadelphia. The extension will connect the refuge with local communities. Audubon Pennsylvania helped organize the event. Photo by USFWS

Across America, employees are going green in a new way.

They’re clearing trails and planting native flowers at national wildlife refuges, with enthusiastic backing from their supervisors. Sometimes, their companies even pay them to volunteer.

“Company Spirit” — this week’s theme in the National Wildlife Refuge System’s new series of online stories — showcases some of these refuge initiatives. 

Luann Coen, senior deduction specialist at Brother International, gives a ride to Miroslawa Gehman, senior deductions manager, at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey in April 2016. Photo by Kai H. Fan

Here’s a preview:

Companies that send teams to volunteer each year at nearby refuges include such household names as Canon, FedEx, Ford, Monsanto, The Home Depot and The North Face.

A funny thing happens in the process: Team members fall in love with refuges and wildlife conservation.

“You walk away with just a really good feeling,” says Jennifer Hickson, manager of The North Face’s Lincoln City, Oregon, store. Her group volunteers several times a year at three nearby refuges, including Siletz Bay National Wildlife Refuge, where they cleared invasive scotch broom this spring.  

Brother International manager of product development Kevin Haughtwout and administrative assistant Cristy Rosario plant native spicebush, the host plant for the spicebush swallowtail, at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, in April 2016. Photo by Kai H Fan

“It started out being just our team. Now we bring our families. They want to be part of it, too. Because they hear you say, ‘Yeah, it was a hard day. Yeah, I’m sore. But you wouldn’t believe the feeling of accomplishment, the feeling you’re making a difference.’ ” 

Monsanto employees transplant more than 2,500 plants and plant nearly 600 others outdoors at Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa in April 2016. Photo by USFWS

That good feeling translates into benefits for participating companies, too – like higher staff morale and more camaraderie.

“We do good work for the refuge, and the company gets something back...,” says Doriana Allyn, senior environmental health and safety manager at Brother International, which sends a volunteer crew every year to Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey.

Refuges, for their part, welcome the show of company spirit.

“Absolutely, we like it,” says visitor services manager Jonathan Rosenberg at Great Swamp Refuge. “It brings visitors to the refuge, gets work done on the ground, sells our mission and gets our conservation message out there in the corporate world. It’s all good stuff.”

See a PHOTO album of private company teams volunteering on national wildlife refuges.

Read the full story: “Company Spirit.”

We hope you’ll also check out Refuges’ homepage, and share your thoughts, photos and videos with us on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Like what you see? Share it with your friends and family. Thanks, and see you on a refuge!

Susan Morse, National Wildlife Refuge System communications

Newell's shearwater chick in burrow. Photo by Andre Raine/Kauai Endangered Seabird Recovery Project

Seven threatened Newell’s Shearwater (‘A‘o) chicks had quite an adventure this week that ended with the birds in a new home complete with predator-proof fencing at Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge in Hawaii. Hawaiian petrels were successfully translocated to Kilauea Point last year.

• Read More about the Newell’s Shearwater chicks
• Photos

Living on the beach may sound like a luxury to most people, but for the tiny Puritan tiger beetle it is the only way to survive. Get an up-close view of how we are helping endangered beetles re-establish populations in their sandy homes!

Read More

Our Habitat Conservation Plan tool and unlikely allies created a strategy for balancing development and conservation across the landscape in Orange County, one of southern California’s most populated areas.

• Learn More
• Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan: Working Together for People, Wildlife

The United States is a proponent or co-proponent of various proposals to help increase protections for species at the 17th Conference of the Parties (CoP17) of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Read more about these species.

• African Grey Parrots
• Devil Rays
• African and Middle Eastern Softshell Turtles
• Fishhook cacti
• More on CITES

Both National Public Lands Day and National Hunting and Fishing Day take place Saturday.

Volunteers work at Desert National Wildlife Refuge on NLPD 2014.

National Public Lands Day, or NPLD for short, encourages everyone to help your lands shine.

Here is a tiny sample of events you can take part in: At St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, volunteers will be working on milkweed propagation gardens and cleaning pollinator gardens in preparation for Monarch Month (October) and the 27th Annual Monarch Butterfly Festival.  Trinity River National Wildlife Refuge in Texas, along with the Friends of Trinity River Refuge, will host a trash cleanup day. Volunteers at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey will work to control invasive species. Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge in Minnesota will host conversation activities during its annual Wildlife Festival.

ENTER: “I Love My Land” National Video Contest

If you need more incentive, NPLD is a fee-free day on federally managed public lands.

Find a National Public Lands Day event near you here.

	A father and son hunt on Big Muddy National Fish & Wildlife Refuge in Missouri.  Photo by volunteer Carol Weston

National Hunting and Fishing Day, first established in 1972, celebrates the many conservation efforts of hunters. Hunters and anglers are sometimes called the “first conservationists,” and they have supported conservation of the nation’s wildlife resources since the late 19th century. They willingly dug into their own pockets to provide needed money for conservation by backing programs like the Federal Duck Stamp and the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program. And so much more.

“The highly successful North American model of wildlife conservation is founded on our nation’s great hunting and fishing heritage,” our Director Dan Ashe has said. “This tradition was the primary driver behind the creation of the Refuge System that has since set aside millions of acres of land for the conservation of all wildlife."

Hunting is offered at more than 300 national wildlife refuges and protected wetlands. Quality fishing opportunities are available on more than 270 national wildlife refuges.

These are YOUR lands; get outdoors and feel that connection with the natural world.

More on volunteering, hunting and fishing

• Getting Dirty to Ensure the Future of Salmon in the Pacific Northwest
• Not Your Average Turkey Hunt
• Go Fish! Anglers Share Their Favorites