The head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was in Rhode Island this week to mark the annual National Wildlife Refuge Week. Director Martha Williams met up with South County Bureau Reporter Alex Nunes for a morning of birding at the Trustom Pond refuge in South Kingstown to talk about the importance of Rhode Island’s coastal ponds and efforts to protect them.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Alex Nunes [narration]: Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge is more than 780 acres of protected land, nearly half of that donated in the mid-1970s. There are about 300 bird species here, 40-plus different mammals, and 20 species of reptiles and amphibians. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams is hoping to see one in particular.
Martha Williams: If anyone sees a turtle, gold star. Point it out.
Nunes [narration]: Walking through the marked path at the old farm field, we see people and kids passing by in strollers, people stopping for views at scenic platforms, and birders with scopes set up on tripods.
Nunes: Do you have recommendations for people who go out birding, like, how to bird successfully?
Williams: I would say start with even just being quiet and listening to what’s going on around you. You can hear them, sometimes, often well before you see them. Or if you see movement in the light or the trees. But I think, in part, starting to learn about birds is just being quiet and paying attention to where you are and what’s going on in nature around you.
Nunes: So what brings you to Rhode Island, specifically this week?
Williams: I chose Rhode Island because I really wanted to highlight our work on salt marsh restoration. I know that there are migrating birds coming through, and I just wanted to support the role that refuges play in Rhode Island and this part of the country. And it’s beautiful.
Nunes: Right, nice place to visit.
Williams: Nice place to visit. Nice place to be, which I think is true of so many of our national wildlife refuges – that there are these places that are parts of the communities around them, and that people go to them for refuge, for awe, for a little bit of a break. Refuges are so important, I think, in so many ways: they’re important to the communities, to people, to helping with storms and flooding and water quality, and then all the species that the Fish and Wildlife Service is so lucky to help steward with all of our partners.
Nunes: How many refuges are there nationwide?
Williams: 572. We just added our 572nd in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. I’m hoping there will be one or two more in the next months. But 572 across the country, and they really vary. Some are, you know, like voluntary conservation easements. Some is land donated to us. Some is land that we got from other federal agencies or nonprofits, and some we’ve acquired. So it’s a mix.
Nunes [narration]: Last year, Rhode Island was awarded over a million dollars from the federal government to do restoration work in five priority salt marshes in the state. Two of them are in the Rhode Island refuge complex: the Narrow River marsh at the John H. Chafee Refuge in Narragansett, and Sachuest Point Refuge in Middletown. Some of the work will involve improving hydrology in marshes compromised by farming techniques in the colonial era, and removing invasive species at barriers. Director Williams says people can improve coastal environments by helping nature take its course. After Superstorm Sandy breached the barrier at Trustom Pond, the undeveloped beach was able to repair itself within six months.
Williams: It’s having an investment in what we say, talk about as nature-based solutions, and thinking about resiliency – that while we’re restoring this ecosystem and it helps species, it also is critical to helping communities and preventing flooding, helping with water quality, all these other impacts to do, or, you know, best, beneficial impacts that maybe people don’t always think of, and we haven’t had the investment in nature to be able to do this at scale, which you’re starting in this state.
Nunes: This is a protected area, and there are benefits from it being protected. Can you tell me about the harms that happen from development or overdevelopment along the coast?
Williams: What you see is a disruption of the natural hydrology, the natural system, so that you do have flooding, you do have salt water intrusion. It impacts water quality, and you don’t have these special places where we get to walk and hear the birds that have refuges that are migrating south.
Nunes: Can you explain how taking these steps here at the refuge would have an impact in the surrounding area?
Williams: When you string refuges together and you string this work together, it helps all communities. You know, it builds. Success builds on success. When you connect it across the country, like we try to do with refuge systems, refuges, then you help everyone across the country. For the Fish and Wildlife Service – why I want to be here and highlight the great work of this team is I want more people to realize how important this work is and how it helps them in their daily lives. I want us to get better at connecting our work to people so that they care, just like we all care. People support that which they love.
