From eagles to insects, Erie Bluffs State Park
Harbors Natural Treasures in a Special Place
By Ben Moyers
The muddy field looked like a scene from M*A*S*H. Clusters of tents surrounded a sprawling compound where aids scurried with charts and vials. But the busy base camp was no film set or field hospital; it was the nerve center for “Bioblitz,” a two-day gathering of more than 140 scientists, naturalists, and volunteers. Their mission on July 17-18 was to comb the forests, streams and beaches of Erie Bluffs State Park for every species of wild bird, mammal, fish, reptile, insect and plant they could find.
Erie Bluffs is Pennsylvania’s newest state park, and the catalog of resident wildlife will help the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) craft a management plan for the park. “This bioblitz, the first ever for DCNR, is a chance for us to call in a broad array of experts to gain a clear understanding of what’s living in this outstanding place and how to protect it,” said Sally Just, director of DCNR’s Office of Conservation Science.
The 540-acre tract, 12 miles west of the city of Erie, embraces the largest undeveloped stretch of Lake Erie shoreline remaining in the state. Western Pennsylvania Conservancy bought the property last December from Reliant Energy and is in the process of turning it over to DCNR, which manages 116 other parks across the Commonwealth.
“Western Pennsylvania Conservancy identified this property as one of Erie County’s most important biological diversity areas,” said Mike Boyle, acting president of the Conservancy. “With its exceptional biological significance, Erie Bluffs will help advance local, regional and state conservation priorities through providing public access to more open space, protect exceptional value wetlands of Lake Erie and preserve habitats for rare, endangered and threatened species, while helping attract tourism to the region.”
Western Pennsylvania Conservancy sponsored the Bioblitz event together with DCNR and the Pennsylvania Biological Survey.
Flanked on the east by Elk Creek, one of Lake Erie’s finest steelhead trout streams, the property features a mile of wild lake shoreline backed by 90-foot bluffs topped with wetlands and old growth forest. Naturalists seined streams, searched under rocks, scanned the treetops with binoculars, set up “mist nets” for bats and checked shoe-size box traps for mice, shrews and voles. Kathy Davis and Kevin Kelly, both aquatic entomologists with the Department of Environmental Protection, sampled the half-dozen small brooks that tumble off the bluffs into the Lake Erie surf.
“These streams are definitely coldwater and pristine,” Davis said. “There are several taxa of water-quality-sensitive caddis flies, stoneflies and craneflies here, plus some rare ones. You can absolutely tell by the insects living here that these streams are pristine.”
Kelly explained that knowledge of living things can be extremely helpful to environmental managers. “The trend now is to get away from doing water quality chemistry in the field and relying more on biological monitoring,” he said. “If you know the bugs and the conditions they’ll tolerate and won’t tolerate, you can tell a lot about a stream without the need for heavy and expensive equipment.”
“Not only that,” Davis added, “chemical sampling tells you only what’s going on at that one point in time. Biology gives you a picture of water quality over the long term. A lot of these insects are large and mature, which tells us that conditions haven’t changed here. Right now this is a stable ecosystem.”
To maintain the scientific accuracy of the project, widely recognized experts from all fields of biology were asked to verify the identification of specimens. Biologists from the Carnegie Museum, Gannon University, Cleveland Museum, Shippensburg Museum, Game Commission, Fish and Boat Commission, Western Pennsylvania Conservancy and DEP all took part.
Bioblitz birders identified 80 species of birds in the park, including two bald eagles, a cerulean warbler and hooded warbler. Richard Nugent of Pittsburgh, who led the birding teams, also reported sighting an Acadian flycatcher. “Finding this bird here is significant because it depends on high quality hemlock forests for habitat. This flycatcher tells us the hemlocks in these deep hollows above the lake are playing an important role.”
One of the most significant discoveries was a colony of more than 3,000 bank swallows, whose nests honeycombed a vertical bluff facing Lake Erie. Pairs of bank swallows dig burrows in banks or bluffs and nest inside. Ornithologists believe the colony is the largest in Pennsylvania.
Mammalogist and bat expert Jim Hart reported that his team identified 19 species of mammals, including familiar deer and red and gray fox. “The trapping period was not really long enough to get a good sampling of small mammals,” Hart said. “I believe there is more living here than we actually saw.” But Hart explained that even things that are absent reveal something about the place. “We didn’t find any Norway rats or house mice, both of which are alien species attracted to places that people have modified or altered,” he said. “The fact that these species are not here suggests this place is relatively intact, ecologically speaking.”
Hart said his teams captured and released six bats of four different species, including red bat, little brown bat, big brown bat and Eastern pipistrel.
Searchers found 302 species of vascular plants and 94 species of fungi. “That fungi count excludes 44 other species we found on earlier surveys in May,” said Jerry Hassinger, a retired Game Commission wildlife biologist.
Terrestrial entomologist John Rawlins of Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh said the Bioblitz turned up 477 taxa of land-dwelling insects, including 172 species of butterflies and moths. “What we saw here were rich well-developed systems and no indication that this site is ecologically impoverished,” Rawlins said. “July is a down month for the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). I would expect we could get close to 400 species in May or August.”
Charles Bier, a zoologist with Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, said 32 taxa of spiders were identified on the tract. “I’d guess that’s only about half the diversity of spiders actually on the property,” Bier said.
Also cataloged were 33 species of land snails and 13 species of aquatic snails and mussels including the invasive zebra mussel; 14 different reptiles and amphibians; and seven species of fish.
Bier said the species totals could grow higher as difficult specimens of plants and insects are examined more closely under laboratory conditions.
“How fitting that Pennsylvania’s newest state park should be the focal point of this dedicated gathering of keen scientific minds,” said DCNR Secretary Michael DiBerardinis. “When the final tallies are in, we will be able to make sound decisions on the park’s future development based on scientific fact.”
A National Treasure - The Great Lakes Basin Volunteer to Help Protect Lake Erie
The Great Lakes Basin holds almost one-fifth of the Earth’s fresh surface water. But, the lakes are vulnerable to depletion and degradation, as 99 percent of the water in the basin is finite and nonrenewable. The Council of Great Lakes Governors is deciding on the future of water management in the basin. The Governors are faced with the decision to treat water as a tradable commodity available to export across the globe, or as a vital natural resource that is vital to the health and economy of the Erie region.
The draft proposals, referred to as the Great Lakes Charter Annex 2001 Implementing Agreements, address Great Lakes Basin protection issues ranging from water consumption and diversions to return flow, resource improvement and water conservation.
The Council of Great Lakes Governors is accepting comments from the public on the draft agreements until October 18. Visit http://capwiz.com/paconserve/home/ to find out more information about the implementing agreements and to submit comments online.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is holding a meeting about the proposals on Sept. 20 in Erie. Please plan to attend. To find out more about the workshop, visit the website referenced above, contact Katherine Smitherman at 412-586-2380, or ksmitherman@paconserve.org.
If You Go
Erie Bluffs State Park is located north of Rte. 5 at Lake City, PA. From Pittsburgh, take I-79 north to I-90 west, then Rte. 18 north to Rte. 5 west to the Elk Creek Access owned by Girard Township. Visitors should note that no facilities of any kind have been developed on the park property at this time.
For more information on Erie Bluffs, contact Presque Isle State Park at 814-833-7424, or visit Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s Erie Bluffs web site.
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