Article about Beth Maynor Young -- join us July 16 to meet her!

The Birmingham News just published a great article about Beth Maynor Young and her work documenting the scenic rivers of Alabama. Be sure to join us on Thursday, July 16 at the Monte Sano State Park Lodge to meet Beth, enjoy her work, and learn more about Alabama rivers and why we need to protect them!

Beth Maynor Young's now famed photos have come to symbolize Cahaba River's vulnerability, diversity

For Young, that lily trip was a transition from a job photographing gardens, food and architecture toward a calling as a conservation photographer. Since that assignment, she's gone on to shoot rivers and wilderness throughout the state and Southeast: Little River Canyon, the Locust Fork River, The Walls of Jericho, the swamps and wetlands of the Mobile Tensaw Delta.

"I tend to photograph unprotected places as opposed to just nature photography in national wildlife refuges or national parks," she said. "There are a lot of wonderful unprotected places in Alabama."

A recently published book, "Headwaters: A Journey on Alabama Rivers," features work from throughout her career, and the most gratifying part of the book is that many of the unprotected places she photographed are now protected.

"I think of her as the Ansel Adams of Alabama," Byington said of Young. "She truly has shown how to be an advocate for conservation through conservation photography."

Join us for a book signing with nature photographer Beth Maynor Young

We're excited to announce a book signing with one of Alabama's most accomplished nature photographers Beth Maynor Young for her new book "Headwaters: A Journey on Alabama's Rivers." Join us on Thursday, July 16 at 7:00 at the Monte Sano Lodge for an evening celebrating the beauty of Alabama's rivers. Beth will give a short lecture about Alabama's rivers and streams, then we can all mingle to enjoy a small photo exhibit, snacks, and drinks... and of course, wonderful company! Prints, notecards, a limited edition portfolio, and of course books will be for sale and for Beth to sign.

For more information about Beth and her amazing photographs, visit her web page at www.bethyoung.net.

Record turnout for Flint River Cleanup!

Saturday, June 6, was the first Flint River cleanup of 2009. We had a record turnout! Final numbers aren't in yet, but a good guess is at least 90 people! FRCA teams had about 25 boats on the water, while Scott Ammons of North Alabama Canoe and Kayak provided 40 canoes for the event. Operation Green Team provided trash bags and other supplies. We had so many volunteers we were able to have groups clean five different sections of the river. Wow! Here are some pictures from a successful trip to keep our river clean! If you have additional pictures you'd like us to post, send them to flintriverconservation@gmail.com!

We basically took over a portion of the Publix parking lot as we got ready to go. Here are some of Scott's canoes:


Getting ready to put-in at the Hayes Nature Preserve:


Getting started. A few paddlers work on extracting trash from low-hanging vegetation. Notice how muddy the water is! That shows how much work still needs to be done to prevent excessive sedimentation in our waterways.


The Flint really is a lovely river.


The aftermath... here's the trash one group pulled out of the river:


And a nice group shot of some of our fabulous volunteers!

After a long day paddling and bagging trash, we were starving! Our friends at Artisan's Cove kindly provided a wonderful cookout for us in the afternoon. We all thoroughly enjoyed the food, the company, and looking around the Cove's gardens and chicken coops! Thanks!


Enjoying good food and company at Artisan's Cove:


Thank you to all of the volunteers who turned out to spend a productive day on the Flint River! An additional thanks to North Alabama Canoe and Kayak for providing so many canoes, Artisan's Cove for the wonderful food, the Huntsville Canoe Club for spreading the word and recruiting volunteers, and Operation Green Team for ongoing support of Flint River cleanups! Join us for our next river cleanup in September!

A Great Day at the Hays Preserve's Earth Day event!

We had a great time at this year’s Earth Day event on April 18th! The weather was perfect which made for great public turn out. The participating organizations’ tables were set up in an area right next to the Flint River and Cove Creek. Birds sang from the canopies throughout the day, caterpillars repelled from the trees and were seen everywhere, and a gentle breeze kept the flying bugs away.

Our ambassadors- Lance Brecht, Colleen Gipson and Jennifer Schade stayed busy all day talking with folks, playing “Feed the Fish” beanbag toss with the kids, and meeting numerous other local groups attending the festival. The kids had a great time playing the game and many returned again and again for more fun. We even got a new family membership signed up and we look forward to seeing them at future events and meetings.




There were also special guest speakers- Bill Cruger showed the kids all kinds of snakes & lizards and the Lookout Mountain Wild Animal Zoo that had black bears, a rescued monkey and other interesting creatures.



Overall, it was a great day! We look forward to participating at Hay’s Earth Day event next year as well. A job well done(!) to Soos Weber (Huntsville ecologist) and Operation Green Team for all of your hard work on organizing this event!!

FRCA Meeting on April 21st- Guest Speaker: Adam Snyder of Conservation Alabama

Join us for our April meeting and potluck on Tuesday, April 21 at 6:30pm, in the Public Works Building at 320 Fountain Circle S.W. Huntsville, AL 35801.

On Tuesday April 21 FRCA’s guest speaker will be Adam Snyder, former Executive Director of the Alabama Rivers Alliance, and now the Executive Director of Alabama’s only environmental lobbying organization, Conservation Alabama.

Originally, founded in 1999 as the Alabama League of Environmental Action Voters, they are able to proudly state on their website, www.conservationalabama.org: “No bad environmental legislation has passed in the Alabama State Legislature” since they began working in Montgomery.

Conservation Alabama describes themselves as an organization that “believes someone should do something about the critical environmental issues we face, and that someone is our elected and appointed government officials.”

As Alabama’s only environmental lobby, Conservation Alabama maintains a full-time presence in Montgomery to make sound environmental policy. They are non-partisan and seek out legislators of all political parties that share similar views on the conservation and protection of Alabama’s natural resources.

FRCA Meeting, June 17

Our next public meeting is Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 at 6:30 featuring Jennifer Schade, our WWF intern. Jennifer will be discussing the results her work over the past year. Please join us at 6:30 for a potluck dinner. The meeting starts at 7:00. Hope to see you there!

We meet at:

320 Fountain Circle S.W.
Huntsville, Alabama 35801

Slackwater Darter Field Day

In May a group of FRCA volunteers hit the upper reaches of the Flint River watershed to look for suitable habitat for Slackwater darters. To further assess the habitat, we took a seine net to try to net some species associated with Slackwater Darters. We found some interesting species.

Here are some pictures from the outing:

Looking for fish:
One of the catches:

Rainbow Darter (isn't it gorgeous?):


Another specimen:

Join our Yahoo group!

FRCA has a Yahoo group to help members keep up to date about FRCA events and to help us all get to know one another. Anyone can join and post messages. It's easy and free! To sign up, visit this page:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlintRiverConservation/

Then, just click "Join This Group!" If you have any problems, just contact us.