Adapting to Change at the Deal Island WMA Impoundment

摘要

Natural resource managers are human and once managers settle into a comfortable management regime, they sometimes stay there too long. Such was the case at the Deal Island Wildlife Management Area, a 13,000 acre property located in Somerset County, Maryland. This state-owned land is located on a peninsula created by the confluence of the Wicomico and Manokin Rivers that juts into Chesapeake Bay. The property is comprised mainly of tidal wetlands with a small amount of forest and uplands. In the early 1960s, 2,800 acres were impounded with an earthen dike. Water control structures were placed across two former tidal creeks. The impoundment is managed for stable water levels to encour- age growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the dozens of ponds, ranging in size from ＜ 1/2 acre to several hundred acres. Emergent marsh, mainly salt hay, saltmarsh cordgrass, black needle rush, and saltmarsh bulrush cover about 2/3 of the impoundment.