https://www.biographic.com/river-guardians/
"On a crisp, clear October morning, I meet Kemp Burdette at a private airfield
4 miles from downtown Wilmington, North Carolina. Loaded down with binoculars
and camera equipment, he apologizes for running late. We climb into a four-seat
Cessna, and lift off so smoothly, I realize we’re airborne only when I see the
plane’s shadow on the ground below.
“I’ve done this a few times before,” the pilot says wryly as I gaze down at the
aqua blue waters of the Cape Fear River, which meanders through downtown
Wilmington before cutting S-curves through dense green forest.
From the confluence of the Deep and Haw rivers to Bald Head Island where it
empties into the Atlantic Ocean, the Cape Fear is a work of art—some 200 miles
of foaming rapids and tranquil eddies, flowing past rock gardens and 100-foot
bluffs.
The lower river basin is among the most biodiverse places on the Eastern
Seaboard, with a heady mix of common, endemic, rare, threatened, and endangered
species. Among them are the Cape Fear shiner (
Notropis mekistocholas),
Atlantic and short-nose sturgeons (
Acipenser oxyrhynchus oxyrhynchus and
Acipenser brevirostrum), the nomadic West Indian manatee (
Trichechus
manatus), and five of the world’s seven species of sea turtle.
The river is also the source of drinking water for nearly 500,000 people from
Greensboro to Fort Bragg to Wilmington, as well as a main artery of North
Carolina’s history, identity, and heritage. As the Cape Fear Riverkeeper for
the past 15 years, Burdette directs the Cape Fear Riverwatch, a nonprofit
advocacy group that works to protect the river from its source to the sea.
Surveying the riverscape from a bird’s vantage, Burdette is in his element. He
flies regularly to monitor the many industries that line the river’s banks,
from coal-fired power plants to chemical factories. Today, Burdette wants to
show me how wood pellet processing facilities and industrial animal farms
affect the watershed, as well as the people and wildlife that live there."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/goodnews-meals-brazil-rewild-denmark-mangroves-pakistan/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
