Volunteering at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge - Basking Ridge, New Jersey

We arrived in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, on a wet, dreary day, to begin our 6-week volunteer commitment at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.  Despite my parents residing in NJ for 90% of their lives and the Refuge being around since 1960, they had never heard of the place before accepting this assignment.  The Great Swamp has a wonderful grass roots background story. You see, local residents rallied to protect these lands from becoming a regional airport to be operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.  The residents’ efforts resulted in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now managing 7,000+ acres in Morris County to preserve habitat for wildlife.



The Refuge is huge and its lands are dispersed because the Fish and Wildlife Service has successfully added acreage to the Refuge in recent years by acquiring private homes and properties. 

Visitor Center

Manicured trails near the Visitor Center

Butterfly gardens

Butterfly gardens

The name of the Refuge is quite apropos—a swamp it is!  Like much of the State of New Jersey, it consists of low-lying wetlands.  May and June were particularly rainy months here (we were ready to build an ark!), with thunderstorms occurring frequently (we were even subjected to two tornado warnings).  All that rain caused the Passaic River, which borders the Refuge, to crest on more than one occasion.  This culminated in an abundance of cattails, water lilies, and assorted other lovely wildflowers as habitat.  On the flip side, it provided a haven for ticks, mosquitoes, greenhead and deer flies, and, much to Mom’s and my detriment, a profusion of poison ivy!

Passaic River flowing through the Refuge

I suffered repeatedly from poison ivy, infected mosquito bites, and welts incurred as an allergic reaction from greenhead fly bites!

The Staff at the Refuge are wonderful—friendly, accommodating, and dedicated to their mission.  We couldn’t ask for a nicer bunch of folks to work for and with.  Unfortunately, the Refuge is severely understaffed.  And that’s where the two types of volunteers come in to play.

Friends of Great Swamp is a volunteer non-profit organization that supports the mission of the Refuge, both financially and through staffing the Visitor Center 7 days a week.  Many have been volunteering for the Refuge for decades, and their efforts are recognized each year at an Awards Dinner.  Even though we had been volunteering only a few weeks, they invited us to the dinner and acknowledged our efforts.  They are a terrific bunch of people!

We were one of the three couples that comprised the Refuge’s RV Volunteer Team.  We learned of the position on the website volunteer.gov.  RV Volunteers are required to do 32 hours per week per RV site.  Couples can split that work between them any way they wish, or even have just one person do the full commitment.  The sites offer 30 and 50 amp electric along with sewer and water hookups.  There is complimentary washer/dryer and a full size fridge in an outbuilding for use by the volunteers, along with bottled water for those who don’t want to drink New Jersey water from their tap (The Refuge tests their water regularly and we have a full-house filtration system, so we don’t worry.  Anyway, after living in the State and drinking its water for so many years, our bodies are immune to any impurities).   Each site is provided an outside table, and we had a shared fire pit (but between the rain and the wicked heat/humidity, we had no desire to sit next to a fire!)  Even though we shared a driveway with another RV, the site was spacious enough to accommodate our set-up and all our “toys” (motorcycles, bicycles, Rat Patrol side X side), and it was easily accessible from the Refuge roadway.

In addition to the managed areas within the Refuge, it  contains Wilderness Areas with unmaintained trails and areas designated for seasonal hunting.  The Wildlife Observation Center (WOC) along New Vernon/Long Hill Road has boardwalks and blinds built/maintained by the Friends of Great Swamp from which you can view some of the Swamp’s regular inhabitants as well as seasonal migrants.  The first day we visited the WOC, a pre-school group was touring the facility.  Thank goodness a water snake waited for these youngsters to leave before slithering to the boardwalk to soak up some much-missed sunshine.  Can you just imagine the cacophony?  

     

Most of our tasks required wearing mud boots, long-sleeves, gloves, ear and eye protection.  We spent most of our time weed whacking grass, cutting down brush, lopping tree branches, and maintaining trails, much of the time in the rain.  (For example, we spent 4.5 hours removing all the overgrowth covering up the main Refuge sign along Long Hill/New Vernon Road.  It had not been done in 2+ years and required wading in knee deep water within a brook.  The muddied waters here act as quicksand, making it difficult to pick up your feet, especially when your mud boots are too big (and that's how Mom took a dive in the drink.)  One of our tasks was to trim trees/bushes around signs along public roads surrounding the Refuge.  It was a bit like playing Treasure Hunt—some of the trees were so overgrown that the signs had not seen the light of day for years!   We also were responsible for reading gauges at the various water control structures within the Refuge.  We would remove vegetation that impeded water flow at the structures (a potato rake became our best friend), and sometimes we would add/remove boards to alter the water flow using hooks that were more than twice as tall as we were.

Mom climbing over the railing to get on top of the water control structure.

No, Mom is not doing a balance beam routine!   She's just grabbing that long hook required to assist Dad in removing boards from the water control structure.

Mom weedwhacking White Oak Trail near the Visitor Center with grasses/brush higher than her knees!

Dad "suiting up" for his mission...

...wading within Pool 1 of the Swamp to clean a water gauge.  He almost fell in like Mom did in the brook, but managed to gain his footing.

Dad using a potato rake to remove debris/vegetation from a water control structure.

Me "supervising" Mom as she weedwhacks around another water control structure.  It's so hard to get good help these days!

As you can tell from the above description and photos, the Refuge relies heavily on RV Volunteers, based on their willingness and abilities, to do much of the nitty-gritty, mud-stomping, physical maintenance.  And boy, did we deliver for them!  The Staff said that my parents did more work in 6 weeks than most people would do all summer.  They invited us to stay longer (but we have another 6-week volunteer commitment in Vermont) or come back another year (we don’t anticipate coming back East anytime soon).   I must say, my Mom pulled her weight—she was the only woman who worked 16 hours each week right alongside Dad.      

While we will admit the work was quite physical, it came with lots of perks.  You see, most of our tasks took place in areas “closed to the public”.  The proliferation of wildlife we were privy to seeing was well worth the effort.  Eagle fledglings and great blue herons were out searching for their mid-day meals.  A couple of young bucks were out frolicking while demure does checked them out.   We encountered more garter, water, and rat snakes than I would have liked (particularly since I make their Top 10 favorite meal list).  Turtles LOVE the Great Swamp (one of our responsibilities was to hang up “Turtle Crossing” signs along the major roads that surround the Refuge), and I enjoyed learning the differences between painted, box, and snapper turtles.  I watched Mama turtles lay their eggs, only for some of the eggs to be dug up by skunks and raccoons for breakfast. And, unfortunately, the gestation period for the surviving eggs to hatch are 90-120 days, so baby turtle bundles of joy won’t emerge until long after I leave the area. We viewed wild turkeys, frogs (one became Mom’s companion in the laundry room), and bunnies.  And one of my favorite viewings was of two baby raccoons.  You see, one disobeyed their Mama and left the nest instead of staying put until her return.  He climbed further down the tree, but then couldn’t get back up.  His sibling stayed at the nest, watching with trepidation.  I could just imagine him telling his mischievous brother, "You are in so much trouble--Mom’s gonna give you a spanking." As always, my photography crew (A.K.A. my parents) leave much to be desired, so I have little evidence of all these magnificent wildlife sightings, except the images in my mind.