Scanning high and low along the riverbank of Potomac Gorge, Wes Knapp, botanist with the NatureServe Network’s Maryland Natural Heritage Program, knew that the rock goldenrod (Solidago rupestris), part of the sunflower family, should be nearby.
For decades, the towering smokestack rising above Old Grace Hospital in Manitoba served as a safe haven for chimney swifts. Due to human safety concerns, the chimney was demolished, upsetting the habitat that of nesting chimney swifts used during the spring and summer months.
At one time, the Colorado River Delta comprised over two million acres of thriving wetlands and waterways extending from the southwestern tip of the U.S. to Mexico’s Gulf of California. But in the last half century, the imbalance between the human needs all over the basin and the natural output of the delta has reduced the river to a weak trickle.
