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RALEIGH, N.C. (April 5, 2005) — Richmond County resident Lincoln Sadler recently received the 2005 Wildlife Conservation Award from the North Carolina chapter of The Wildlife Society. A wildlife technician supervisor for the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, Sadler was recognized for achievement in wildlife conservation and research. The Marston resident received the award at The Wildlife Society’s annual meeting in Greensboro earlier this year.
Sadler has worked for the Wildlife Commission for more than 10 years, focusing primarily on the Sandhills Game Land, which includes 59,000 acres in parts of Moore, Richmond, Scotland and Hoke counties. The Moore County native supervises a four-man crew, which is responsible for game land management activities such as annual and perennial plantings, establishing native warm-season grasses, creating and maintaining wildlife openings, conducting controlled burns, applying herbicides judiciously, conserving wetlands, conducting wildlife surveys, and maintaining field trial grounds, among other duties. Sadler’s technical crew also manages 6,000 acres of private land in the Wildlife Commission’s CURE program — the Cooperative Upland habitat Restoration and Enhancement program, which creates quality habitat in select areas across the state to bolster quail, small game and songbird populations. “On the Rowland CURE area, Lincoln took the initiative to convert a ditched Carolina bay with low-quality hardwood habitat into a high-quality grassland and shrubland habitat,” said Isaac Harrold, a wildlife biologist and Sadler’s supervisor. “That was a lot of sweaty, difficult work. But it got done. Lincoln’s management work on the CURE area and Sandhills Game Land is always accomplished in a timely and professional manner.” At the Sandhills Game Land, Sadler’s innovative ideas helped the Wildlife Commission obtain approval to use compost from the Rockingham waste water treatment plant to fertilize game land wildlife openings. Sadler also developed an experimental technique to restore ground cover to longleaf pine forests more effectively. “Lincoln’s idea to modify backpack blowers to broadcast grass seeds was ingenious,” Harrold said. “And his work to establish fertilizer test plots allowed us to evaluate the effectiveness of our efforts to enrich the soil in our game land wildlife openings.” The
North Carolina chapter of The Wildlife Society guides and promotes the conservation
and management of wildlife resources
throughout North Carolina. It operates independently of the N.C. Wildlife
Resources Commission, and presents its Wildlife Conservation Award annually
to an individual or group within North Carolina for achievement in wildlife
conservation, education, research or related endeavors. |
