Restoring the sand hill at Lake Woodruff

PHOTO COURTESY BOYD BILHOVDE
Clearing — Machines clear the area around the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge visitors center.

BEACON PHOTO/JENNIFER HORTON
Donut, the seldom-seen snake — Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge Manager Boyd Blihovde holds Donut, a pine snake. The pine snake is one of the animals that call sandhill communities home. Blihovde said the pine snake is on the Species of Special Concern list. Donut, and his species, are seldom seen, because they feed on pocket gophers, and use the underground tunnels the pocket gophers create.

BEACON PHOTO/JENNIFER HORTON
It's a mess right now — Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge Manager Boyd Blihovde puts a palm frond on a smoldering burn pile. In the background is another burn pile and empty space that had been occupied by laurel oaks. Invasive, nonnative vegetation at the refuge has been purposely sprayed with chemicals and burned. The area is being cleared and purged of invasive vegetation so it can be restored to its original sandhill ecosystem.

BEACON PHOTO/JENNIFER HORTON
Checking out the new digs — A pair of sandhill cranes checks out the newly cleared area at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge. Manager Boyd Blihovde said the cranes would not have stopped by before the area was cleared.

Big mess is small price to pay for restored ecosystem

By Jennifer Horton
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Aug 31, 2009 - 2:51:21pm

At first glance, Lake Woodruff is a mess.

Brush has been ripped out, and large piles of trees are stacked helter-skelter on the 6 acres surrounding the visitor center. Patches of vegetation have turned brown from chemical sprays, and the air is heavy with smoke from burn piles.

The visitors center, once hidden from the road by a wall of trees, is now visible.

But, that's just a first glance.

If you take a closer look, you see, not random destruction of nature, but the meticulous re-creation of an almost-lost habitat.

A newly hatched butterfly fans its wings on a native plant, and two sandhill cranes peck their way through the cleared acreage.

W. Boyd Blihovde is the refuge manager at Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in DeLeon Springs. He said right now the area isn't pretty, and he knows that, but it will be.

"A lot of people, they think we're building. We're trying to restore the sandhill, which is the original habitat," Blihovde said. "We're actually trying to do a good thing."

He said the area was a fernery in years past. The native sandhill vegetation was replaced with laurel oaks, which create a lot of shade. Ferns love shade, so laurel oaks were beneficial to the fernery. However, the natural trees, grasses, flowers and fauna that live in sandhill communities don't care much for shade at all.

Sandhills are upland habitats with low water tables and hardy, drought-resistant plants. Those plants include the longleaf pine, which, he said, is now very rare in Florida.

"Less than 2 percent of the longleaf pines are left in the United States," Blihovde said. "There's such a small amount of them left."

The laurel oaks, which were pretty, had to go. Their shade was killing the fledgling longleaf pines that were trying to come back.

"We're trying to prevent them from disappearing here," Blihovde said. "And they would have. They had no sunlight."

Blihovde said the understory of the sand hill will have a lot of grasses and flowers, because of the amount of sunlight that passes through the canopies of longleaf pines and turkey oaks.

When the native flora grows back, the area around the visitor center is going to be a much prettier place to explore.

"Once it grows, you won't see the building," Blihovde said.

Gopher tortoises, fox squirrels, indigo and pine snakes, quail, turkeys, butterflies and bumblebees, and — of course — sandhill cranes, all thrive in sand-hill communities.

Ideally, the area around the visitor center will be an educational hub, will have a walking trail to link to the Spring-to-Spring Trail being constructed by Volusia County from Lake Monroe to DeLeon Springs State Park.

"I don't think our trail will be ready for a year," Blihovde said.

Contributing to the delay are time and money; there isn't enough of either.

"It's a matter of funding," Blihovde said. "We're short on volunteers and funding, and our staff has been cut in half over the past few years."

Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge has a grand total of three full-time employees.

In addition to restoring the sandhill community around the visitors center, a butterfly garden was created, and the butterflies and a good number of bees have already begun to call the area home. Bird feeders have been set up so visitors can watch migrant birds from the visitors center.

There are also plans to expand the parking lot.

"We understand it doesn't look pretty right now. We have a lot of things going on," Blihovde said. "We're excited."

Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge is always in need of volunteers. To learn more about the refuge, or to volunteer, stop by the visitor center at 2045 Mud Lake Road in DeLeon Springs, or call (386) 985-4673. You can also visit the refuge on the Web at www.fws.gov/lakewoodruff.

— jen@beacononlinenews.com

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