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Our Natural Heritage - Research, Inventory & Monitoring

Every year Wildlife and Heritage Service biologists, contractors, and cooperators survey the natural areas and unusual corners of the state for the presence of rare or declining plants and animals and other nongame wildlife species. Surveys are conducted on private lands only with the permission of the landowner. Over the past few years, specific research, inventory, and monitoring projects have included:

• Bald Eagle Nest Monitoring

• Peregrine Falcon Nest Monitoring

• Rare Butterfly & Dragonfly Surveys

• Colonial Waterbird Population Monitoring

• County-based Rare Plant Surveys

• Piping Plover Nest Monitoring

• Small Mammal Surveys

• Bog Turtle Population Monitoring

• Delmarva Fox Squirrel Monitoring

• Reptile and Amphibian Surveys

• Groundwater Spring Fauna Surveys

• Rare Freshwater Fish Surveys

Service ecologists are still in the early stages of describing the natural communities of Maryland and determining the rarity status of individual community types. Recent natural community inventory projects include:

• Barrier island communities

• Shale barren habitats

• Potomac drainage floodplain forests

• River scour communities

• Appalachian Plateau wetlands

• Circumneutral seepage wetlands

• Northern Piedmont bogs

• Nanticoke River watershed communities

• Ancient xeric sand dunes

• Delmarva bay wetlands

• Mixed-mesophytic forests

• Tidal herbaceous wetlands