Rolfe Beagle Club Completes Another Piece of Wetlands Improvement

The Rolfe Beagle Club, an active bird dog and sportsmen’s group in Johnsonburg, completed another important piece of their wetland improvements for 2025. “It became necessary for us to slowly drawdown our front wetland to repair some beaver damage,” said Ray Erich, Vice-President of the Rolfe Beagle Club. “At the same time, we had the opportunity to repair an eroding section of our access road that was contributing sediment to the wetland. So, we repaired the road in the last couple of weeks while we continue to slowly draw down the wetland for outlet repair.”

Buddy Decker, an active member of the club, did the repair work to the access road.

JoAnn Schiafone, Habitat Coordinator for the Rolfe Beagle Club, explained, “We seeded our restored access road to clovers, switch grass, and wildflowers, and then mulched all the disturbed areas to protect the seed and reduce erosion until the seeds sprout and start holding the soil. The switch grass roots, in particular, will develop strong holding capacity for the soil on the bank.”

JoAnn continues on, “We are hoping that once we complete the slow drawdown to the wetland that we can get in there to repair beaver damage, and develop a goose nesting platform and turtle loafing platforms into our wetlands over the next year.”

The Rolfe Beagle Club anticipates completing all wetland work in the front area by spring of 2026.

#

Photo 1 – Ray Erich (front) and JoAnn Schiafone (back) finish seeding and mulching the restored access road to the front wetland.