Rouge Rundown - June 14, 2023 - Appreciation Event | Paddle the Rouge | New Volunteer Ops | Creature Feature and More!
June 14, 2023 ROUGE RUNDOWN
You are Invited: Member & Volunteer Appreciation Event & Award Ceremony
Friends you are invited to join in celebration of YOU and the amazing Friends like you who make a better Rouge River possible. Please join this free event on Thursday, June 22 from 6:00 – 7:30 pm at the Warrendale Park Pavilion, 23300 W Warren Avenue, Dearborn Heights, MI 48127. Remarks begin at 6:30pm. See you on the River!
You are invited to join the Lower Rouge Habitat Restoration project with a special volunteer experience: protect newly planted sapling trees with lightweight weed mats. This is the perfect event for you and a loved one, or a team of coworkers/clubmates/extended family. Spend a wonderful day along the banks of your beautiful Rouge River and make an impact for its better future and yours.
Volunteers can roll up their sleeves on Wednesdays and Fridays during the month of June.
This Saturday you can be a part of a unique rain garden project at LaNita’s Pocket Park Rain Garden Planting Event! LaNita’s Pocket Park was brought to life to memorialize LaNita, the cornerstone of her community and family. This memorial park on Hartford Street in Detroit will provide a beautiful space for visiting pollinators and people, and now will help reduce flooding too.
There is a morning and an afternoon opportunity on June 17 for volunteers to plant the rain garden!
Experience a guided paddling trip on the Lower Rouge River from Dearborn Hills Golf Course to Ford Field Park! If you’ve never kayaked or canoed before, learn to paddle for free on the Ford Field Park Pond. Metroparks will be partnering with Friends of the Rouge and partners to provide free kayak rental to the first 25 paddle trip registrants. This is a spectacular way to see the river from a whole new vantage point and try a new skill. Hope to see you there!
Friends Welcomes Two Aquatic Invasive Species Monitoring Interns
Friends of the Rouge welcomes Gwendolyn Drake and Jaclyn Mowry to the team as the new Aquatic Invasive Species Monitoring Interns. Gwendolyn (pictured left above) recently graduated from Wayne State University and Jaclyn recently graduated from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Gwendolyn and Jaclyn will be working on projects that monitor for the invasive Red Swamp Crayfish, as well as the invasive aquatic plant European Frogbit throughout the watershed. We are so excited to have them as part of the team this summer!
Creature Feature – A Beautiful Conundrum – by Colleen Sturm
Swans are majestic creatures. They grace our local waterways with such beauty that passersby often pause in admiration. Regrettably though, most swans sighted around Michigan are mute swans and thus a source of significant controversy. Mute swans, while beautiful, are a non-native species that is well-adapted to life in the suburbs. Since the
species is non-migratory, they were once considered the ideal, living lawn ornament for East Coast estate homes.
Of course, as so often happens, some of those early “pet” swans took to the wild. Over time, the wild populations flourished and spread. Unfortunately, now – some hundred years later – mute swans have gained the undesirable status of being labeled as a “nuisance invasive species” in many US states.
