Terry Peacock, a 15-year U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service veteran, has been appointed the new project leader at the Service's St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge in Apalachicola, Florida. She returns to St. Vincent after serving for seven years as Deputy Assistant Manager at Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in Puxico, Missouri and after another four years as Assistant Manager at Washita/Optima Refuge in Butler, Oklahoma. Peacock was Assistant Manager at St. Vincent from 1986 to 1988.
"It's great to welcome an Auburn, Alabama native back to the Southeast,' said Sam D. Hamilton, Service Southeast Regional Director. AMs. Peacock has worked with a variety of habitat types -- coastal, pine and hardwood timber, mixed and short grass prairie, and moist soils. She is well qualified to head St. Vincent Refuge, a 12,358-acre, undeveloped barrier island,." he said.
As Deputy Assistant Manager at Mingo, Peacock spent several seasons reforesting former grazing lands of the 21,676-acre bottomland hardwood swamp bottomland hardwood swamp
Bottomland hardwoods are commonly found in the southern U.S., usually near seasonally flooded streams and rivers.
Learn more about bottomland hardwood swamp refuge. She also served as team leader for the Service's Ozark Ecosystem Team for one year.
"My greatest accomplishment at Mingo was working with the Natural Resources Career Camp, a recruiting opportunity for minority students in Missouri, A Peacock said, noting that she had served on the Natural Resources Career Camp Committee for six years. AIt was important to me because a diverse work force is a great legacy to leave," she said.
Peacock holds a Bachelor's degree in wildlife management from Auburn University. She joined the Service in 1983 as a biological technician at Eufaula National Wildlife Refuge in Eufaula, Alabama and served there until 1986 when she became Assistant Manager at St. Vincent. Her husband, Rodney, is an outboard motor mechanic, and the couple has two children - - Jenny, age 8, and Holly, age 6. Terry reports that she enjoys horseback riding, bird hunting, and training upland bird dogs. She also enjoys church activities and serving as a girl scout leader, she said.
St. Vincent National Wildlife Refuge, located nine miles southwest of Apalachicola, hosts several threatened and endangered species including the red wolf, bald eagle, piping plover, wood stork, eastern indigo snake, loggerhead sea turtle, and the gopher tortoise. Other wildlife species include white-tailed deer, Florida softshell turtle, marsh rabbit red fox, blue-winged teal and the turkey vulture. Visitors to the refuge enjoy fresh and saltwater fishing, hiking, hunting, and wildlife observation.
