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The vernal equinox arrives on March 20, 2023 at 5:40 pm, marking the beginning of Spring
and all the seasonal changes to come.
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President's Message
There’s lots of good news packed into this issue of the Trumpeter. The Friends, with help from the Erickson Center for the Arts and Curtis Public Library, revived the Winter Film Fest this month at the beautiful Pine Performance Center in Curtis. I hope you were able to enjoy one or more of the family-friendly nature films.
We have so much to look forward to this spring. Construction on the new visitor center/ headquarters is scheduled to begin as soon as weather permits. A groundbreaking ceremony is planned for May 10, and you’re invited. We should be able to share specifics about the event in the April newsletter.
As you probably know, the Marshland Drive and Fishing Loop were closed last season for bridge renovations. The drives will open again on May 15, with a couple of changes to the route. Check the Refuge website in early May for details. A brief history of the refuge auto-drives will be included in the next issue.
March 14 is the National Refuge System’s 120th birthday. The first national wildlife refuge was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 at Pelican Island, Florida. Seney National Wildlife Refuge is one of 560 wildlife refuges across America today. We are honored to support the refuge system’s work to conserve America’s rich fish and wildlife heritage.
As always, I am grateful for your continued support.
Bill MacLachlan
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BioBlitz...April 22nd...Get your eyes, ears and cameras ready!
Dress for the weather and meet us at the Temporary Visitors Center, 1986 River Rd, Germfask, at 9:00 am for orientation before we head out to the refuge to observe and record as many living things as we can.
Seney NWR and the MSU Science Festival are inviting everyone to celebrate science and contribute to scientific research by collecting as many observations as possible. With the iNaturalist app (we'll learn how to use it during orientation) we can take photos of any living organism and the iNaturalist community will help identify and confirm which species it is. Any observation we make will count!
Here's the planned schedule for the day:
9:00 Meet for orientation at the Visitors Center
10:00 Break into groups and go out on the Refuge
12:00 Lunch at the show pool shelters (people can join then or
leave as they need to)
12:30 Back out to scout for more observations
3:00 Meet back at the Temporary Visitors Center to share and
celebrate!
You can find the iNaturalist app in your phone's app store, download and set up an account. You'll need internet connection to download the app so you may want to do this at home before heading out to the Refuge.
For more information on a BioBlitz, click here:
https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/msu-scifest-2023-bioblitz-at-seney-national-wildlife-refuge
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We hope you plan to join us at the Refuge for BioBlitz 2023 on Earth Day. It will be so exciting to see who's awake, who's returned and every other living thing that we can spy. | |
Celebrating Women's History Month
& International Women's Day
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International Women's Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality. The first IWD gathering occurred in 1911. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. IWD is not country, group or organization specific. In America, every March has been designated Women’s History Month by presidential proclamation every year since 1982. The month is set aside to honor women’s contributions in American history. | |
Honoring the Women of Seney National Wildlife Refuge
There have been many women who have played a significant role in the stewardship of Seney National Wildlife Refuge. One in particular, Elizabeth Browne Losey, helped pave the way for generations of girls and women in biological research and natural resources.
Her story deserves more attention and we hope to share more with you in a future issue but for now, here is an excerpt from the USFWS archives.
"Many people have not heard of Elizabeth B. Losey, “Betty” to her friends, but she played an important role in the history of conservation in the United States. When Mrs. Losey graduated from the University of Michigan with a master of science degree in wildlife management and conservation in 1947, it was deemed unsuitable for women to work and stay overnight in the field. She changed that when the US Fish and Wildlife Service hired her as a waterfowl research biologist at Seney National Wildlife Refuge outside Seney, MI. Although she only worked at Seney for three years, Mrs. Losey became the first female research biologist in the country.
Seney Refuge applied scientist Greg Corace recalls her “willingness to think on her own. When she was working here, she would go to the field with men to do surveys and she was ridiculed. Her passion for what she did drove her to overcome social norms. Betty was a leader in the way she thought and acted and held herself.”
Born in East Orange, New Jersey in 1912, Mrs. Losey graduated high school in Lynn, Massachusetts before earning her bachelor's degree in 1934 and her master's degree in 1946 from the University of Michigan. From there, she started her job at Seney studying duck brood behavior, living in a sparsely furnished cabin on the refuge. She also worked as a part-time research assistant for the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources from 1946 to 1952.
|  | Mrs. Losey became an accomplished writer in her lifetime and wrote two books. The first, Let Them Be Remembered: The Story of the Fur Trade Forts, published in 1999, tells the story of the Hudson Bay Company and the fur trade in Canada in the late 1600s. | |
Photo of Elizabeth Losey, USFWS | |
“My favorite workplace was right in the middle of a marsh, listening to the birds and finding waterfowl nests and ducklings.”
- Elizabeth B. Losey
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The second, Seney National Wildlife Refuge: its story, published in 2003, recounts the history of the Seney National Wildlife Refuge. Over her lifetime, she wrote several technical reports and miscellaneous publications relating to birds and mammals indigenous to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, including "The Importance of Beaver in Waterfowl Management at the Seney National
Wildlife Refuge" in 1953 and "Duck Brood Behavior at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge" in 1964.
At the age of 92, she wrote her final peer-reviewed paper on the history of sharp-tailed grouse at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge, published posthumously in 2007 in the journal The Passenger Pigeon. Before her death, Mrs. Losey compiled many of her works and personal papers and donated them to the Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives in Marquette, MI.
Although she only worked at the Seney National Wildlife Refuge from 1947 to 1950, Mrs. Losey continued to live in the area at least part-time until her death in 2005 at the age of 93. When her husband, Everett, died in 1996, Mrs. Losey returned to the Seney National Wildlife Refuge as a volunteer, calling herself a biological historian.
In 2003 the National Wildlife Refuge Association named her Volunteer of the Year.
|  | Many thanks to Barb Frazier for finding and sharing this photo of Elizabeth Losey on her wedding day. Source: Germfask Sesquicentennial 2016 memory book. | |
Celebrating the Women at Seney NWR Today | |
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Sara Siekierski
Refuge Manager,
Acting NWRS Tribal Co-Stewardship Committee Coordinator. Started at the Refuge 2014.
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Sara Giles
Visitor Services Manager.
Started at the Refuge January 2010.
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Jennifer Wycoff
Park Ranger, Visitor Services Specialist and Volunteer Coordinator. Started at the Refuge in November 1999.
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Laural Tansy
Administrative Technician
Started at the Refuge in May 1991.
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Our thanks to all the women, then and now, for their dedication to the mission of Seney National Wildlife Refuge and their efforts in protecting vital habitat and wildlife.
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Lindsay Grayson
Forester. Joining the Service mid-March as a forester shared between Refuges and Science Applications programs.
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Refuge Update
New Welcome Video
The new welcome video, "Discovering Seney", is in the final stages of production. The people attending the March 15th Film Fest movie were treated to a preview and gave it rave reviews. The final version will be complete soon!
Moving Offices
The staff offices have all moved to the River Road location, also home of the temporary Visitors Center.
It's one thing to sort, pack and load everything and drive it to its destination. It's another thing to put it all back together again! Donovan, Al and Josh (all you can see of Josh are his feet...) are putting the pieces back together again.
Spring Preparations
Staff is busy getting everything ready for the season to begin. There will be more updates soon with activities celebrating Earth Day, preparing for groundbreaking, opening the drive and temporary visitors center. It will be an exciting Spring!
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Welcome back, Sara!
Here's an update from Sara Siekierski, Refuge Manager, sharing her recent experience and a new leadership role she is undertaking. The work she is leading will help us all be better stewards of the land and wildlife at Seney NWR and throughout the country. While Sara was on this assignment, Sara Giles took on many of the duties of the Refuge Manager in addition to her existing responsibilities at SNWR. Donovan Henry, from Crab Orchard NWR, accepted a temporary assignment at Seney to also help with some of the Manager's work and to share share specific expertise with Seney. Great learning experiences all around.
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"I just completed a 120 day temporary assignment for the National Wildlife Refuge System Headquarters Office as Chair for the newly formed National Wildlife Refuge System Tribal Co-Stewardship Committee. The committee was established in early November 2022 to enhance and expand efforts to engage in meaningful collaboration with Native Groups (Federally Recognized Tribes, Alaska Native Organizations and Corporations, and Native Hawaiian) to build enduring relationships for co-stewardship, and to lead a national effort for refuges to implement Joint Secretarial Order 3403 and USFWS Director's Order 227. In other words, the Committee's work is to support a lasting paradigm shift to ensure working with Tribes is second nature for refuge staff and woven into the fabric of how we routinely do business.
As the chair, I was responsible for creating the strategic focus of the Committee and coordinating meetings and tasks. This included weekly calls and organizing the team's first in-person meeting in Las Vegas, NV where we aligned the 22 committee members with a shared learning experience hearing from local tribal entities, built trust and team rapport and started to make sense of the challenges the team will address. I also coordinated with the National Native American Program, developed briefing papers and gave presentations to Refuge System Leadership.
All of this enabled me to increase my own cultural competency in working with Native Groups and to become more familiar with the tools and resources available to us. I appreciated the opportunity to learn new facilitator techniques for leading large teams and approaches to working on adaptive challenges. The experience also gave me insights into our National and Regional organizational structures and leadership which help me better understand and influence the connections between the field and headquarters. This experience is enriching not only to my own professional development, but also in considering how we might expand partnership opportunities with our local tribal communities at Seney and our satellite refuge lands.
I'm grateful for Sara Giles stepping up for a 120 day temporary promotion as the Deputy Refuge Manager to fill in when I couldn't and for Donovan coming to fill in for me. I'm proud of the whole staff for adapting and working together to support each other and ensuring we got work done. Temporary assignments provide development opportunities for employees as well as fill short term needs of the organization. These experiences are beneficial to the host stations and home stations by offering new perspectives, ideas and solutions to both. Its also fun to work with new people!"
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Our Thanks to Donovan Henry from Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge.
While Sara Siekierski was on a detail assignment for the National Refuge headquarters, Donovan Henry from Crab Orchard NWR in southern Illinois was lending a hand at Seney. Crab Orchard recently built a new Visitors Center and his experience with that project, along with his other expertise, was a benefit for Seney adding both more hands-on-deck as well as expertise relevant to Seney's current projects. We asked Donovan to tell us about his experience at Seney.
"I was extremely thankful for the detail opportunity at Seney NWR. While Sara was on her detail, it provided a great opportunity to "walk in shoes" of another Refuge Manager and experience a completely different ecosystem and meet new colleagues. At first glance, it was clear that we all face similar challenges at our respective stations, but it became readily apparent that we also have amazing opportunities. Getting a chance to work with the great staff at Seney and getting to really experience all the moving parts of another Refuge was an eye-opening experience. The history, present, and future opportunities at Seney are truly awe inspiring. I was able to participate in the planning of some of the Refuge’s much needed infrastructure rehabilitation projects. I was also able to help the Seney team with the final steps transitioning to the temporary headquarters ahead of the construction of the new headquarters and visitors center. The team went well above and beyond the call of duty in moving everything out of the old headquarters in preparation for demolition of the building. Teamwork, strong will, and strong backs conquered an enormous task in a short time!"
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Donovan Henry is a southern Illinois native and currently the Deputy Project Leader at Crab Orchard NWR complex in Marion, IL. Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge is one of the most unique refuges in the country with four legislated purposes of wildlife, agriculture, recreation, and industry. Crab Orchard NWR is 44,000 acres and is complexed with the 17,000 acre Cypress Creek NWR also located in Southern Illinois. Prior to the refuge position, Donovan was the coordinator for the Ohio River Basin Fish Habitat Partnership and the Fish Passage Program with USFWS in the Midwest region. In cooperation with numerous partners across a 13-state area, 1,000’s of miles of stream were reconnected and restored. Donovan worked for the US Army Corps of Engineers on civil works projects prior to USFWS, and in environmental consulting for more than a decade. In each capacity, he strived to demonstrate how people and conservation can thrive together. Donovan has a wife and daughter and two dogs in his rural southern Illinois home. He enjoys travel, cooking, and all manner of outdoor recreation.
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Happy 120th Birthday to the National Wildlife Refuge System
President Theodore Roosevelt established the first national wildlife refuge on March 14, 1903 at Pelican Island, Florida. Today’s Refuge System includes more than 560 national wildlife refuges, 38 wetland management districts and 5 marine national monuments. It conserves more than 95 million acres of land and 760 million acres of submerged lands and waters as wildlife habitat in all 50 states and 5 U.S. territories. There’s at least one national wildlife refuge in every state.
Seney NWR was established on December 10, 1935 by Executive Order so we will be celebrating its 88th birthday later this year.
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Theodore Roosevelt, 1903, DOI photo | |
Banding brown pelicans, USFWS photo
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Upcoming Events You Won't Want to Miss | | |
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BioBlitz: April 22, 2023, 9 am - 3 pm
Groundbreaking Ceremony for new Visitors Center: May 10, 2023
Volunteer Training: May 10, 2023
Friends of Seney Annual Membership Meeting: May 18, 2023
Loonapalooza: August 11, 2023
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Winter Film Fest WAS Fun!
Thanks to all of you who turned out and supported the return of the Winter Film Fest.
Thanks to Rachel and the Erickson Center for the Arts and to Charlie for their hospitality and technological wizardry.
Looking forward to the next one!
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Membership renewal letters will be coming soon. Consider asking a friend to join! | | | | | |
