sustainability – Baltimore Magazine

Carvers Creek’s Sustainable Furniture Showcases the Natural Beauty of Wood

Christianna McCausland — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 17:40:04 +0000

—Photography by Tracey Brown/Papercamera

While many people were spending their COVID-19 lockdown making sourdough, Ryan Rush was making tables.

He’d always had an interest in woodworking and, with pandemic downtime, he finally opted to invest in some decent equipment—a planer, a joiner, band and table saws, a drill press—and set up shop in a barn in White Hall. Then he settled in to watch YouTube video tutorials.

“I’m 100 percent self-taught,” says Rush, who owns the Cockeysville-based packaging and foam companies Universal Packaging and Universal Foam Products. “I like being creative and working with my hands.”

Today, the 47-year-old Lutherville resident is sitting at a table of his own design in the Hunt Valley showroom of Carvers Creek, the business born out of that barn. The space is mostly pristine white, like a gallery, which is fitting, as each table propped against the wall is a work of art.

“Because of the grain of the wood, every table is unique,” he explains.

The wood is mostly black walnut, cherry, or maple, sustainably sourced from trees felled by local arborists. Once cut into slabs and dried, a pattern of burls, knots, and whorls emerges along with the beauty of the wood grain.

Tables can have a live edge (one that preserves the tree’s original curves) or a straight edge, and Rush uses a technique of poured resin to fill in around the natural contours of the wood, bringing out each piece’s natural beauty.

“The resin really allows the grain to pop, and I love the colors,” he says, adding that the resin is the consistency of Elmer’s glue and can be swirled and manipulated. “It makes for a more three-dimensional look.”

Carvers Creek owner Ryan Rush at work. —Tracey Brown/Papercamera

Rush is someone who likes to keep busy. Give him three balls to juggle and he’ll likely add a fourth. He laughs and blames his ADHD for the decision to turn his pandemic hobby into a business.

When he couldn’t keep his equipment in the barn (it was rusting with lack of climate control) he carved out a 4,200-square-foot workroom and showroom within the 70,000-square-foot industrial warehouse that houses his businesses. He was able to add a Laguna CNC, a high-tech, computerized router that allows him to mill large pieces and work with different materials.

From the gallery, which is open by appointment, Rush can take customers into the shop and explain how each piece is crafted, poured with resin, flattened, sanded, and oiled. While Rush can make wooden legs, he prefers metal supports because “it sets off the uniqueness of each table.”

At the request of his wife, Katie Rush, he also makes end-grain cutting boards from leftover wood. Each features intricate geometric patterns or designs and, after being treated with food-grade mineral oil, becomes a practical piece of art.

Everything in the gallery is for sale, but Rush enjoys working on custom pieces. And, never one to stand still for long, he is already looking at new ways to hone his craft. One thing’s for sure; the man loves a challenge.

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Sustainable City: Six Orgs Working to Make Baltimore Cleaner and Greener

Aaron Hope — Thu, 06 Jul 2023 14:00:22 +0000

By Christianna McCausland

Photography by J.M. Giordano

TRAVEL & OUTDOORS

Sustainable City

Climate change is having an impact, but organizations are working to make Baltimore more resilient, cleaner, and greener for all.

Edited by Christianna McCausland

Photography by J.M. Giordano

July 2023

AST WINTER WAS THE FIRST WITHOUT SNOW in recorded memory, beating out 1949 when just .7 inches fell. February saw days in the 70s. These balmy interludes are not anomalies; research by the University of Maryland shows that average temperatures in the state have risen by about 2.5°F since 1900. Everything from the number of broiling days to storm intensity and flooding have increased. Our seasons are becoming less distinct and milder.

This adds up to a major challenge for a city like Baltimore. Covered in miles of asphalt and concrete, the city becomes a heat island on warm days. With sea levels projected to rise by as much as 1.6 feet by 2050, waterfront areas will deal with more flooding and property damage. Saltwater incursion into freshwater systems and agriculture will be problematic. Severe storms will lead to more runoff, erosion, and degradation of both soil and water.

And given Baltimore’s history of redlining, poor neighborhoods of color will continue to be disproportionately hit by global warming. Lacking trees and parks, they blaze on hot days; and heavy metals left behind from years of industry contaminate the soil. Baltimore is a city where life expectancy, access to nutritious food, and other health issues are often dictated by your ZIP code, a disparity writ large by climate change.

But amidst the doom and gloom there’s reason for hope. Just last year, global organization The Nature Conservancy launched a project focused on Baltimore’s Patapsco River Watershed, and Baltimore was one of only three cities nationwide awarded a $25-million federal grant to enable scientists, academics, and researchers to develop climate resilience strategies here.

City officials have also been moving toward a more sustainable future for years. The latest incarnation of the city’s Sustainability Plan, published in 2019 by the Baltimore Office of Sustainability (BOS) and anchored by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, sets forth bold benchmarks to make the city more resilient, help residents adapt to changing conditions—and to do so in a way that embraces racial equity and social justice.

“The Earth itself is incredible,” says Ava Richardson, director of BOS. “The Earth has been here for billions of years, and she will continue to be here. Our goal is to ensure that we are here and that we are able to live with high quality of life as her conditions change.”

Sustainability is a term that often gets bandied about without a clear definition. Richardson says it really comes down to preserving the natural resources we rely on. “We want to ensure that future generations have access to clean air, clean water, that they have a tree canopy that improves quality of life so that they are not living in a city that’s too hot in the summer months, especially if those summer months become longer and longer.”

We can already put a few things in the win column. Baltimore has adopted carbon emission reduction plans in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and nearly hit its goal to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2020 (coming in at 23.2 percent). The city is committed to carbon neutrality by 2045. It’s estimated that the city’s ban on plastic bags has kept 12 million of the flimsy things out of the environment and trash wheels in the Harbor have collected over 2,300 tons of debris to date. The city is working to implement the Baltimore Green Network Plan to link existing green space with new parks and reimagined, verdant vacant lots to create sustainable corridors for people and wildlife.

Yet there’s more to be done and it starts at the individual level. Richardson says we must look closely at our consumer habits and waste less. “For many of us, we throw things away not necessarily considering where ‘away’ is or how much waste we produce in a particular day,” she says. Consider the lowly cigarette butt. One-third of the billions of cigarettes sold in the U.S. annually are flicked on the ground. Non-biodegradable, they wash into waterways, becoming the most common marine litter in the world.

Simple changes, like eliminating single-use plastic, driving a little less—single occupancy driving is a large contributor to air pollution—recycling correctly, and managing thermostat temperatures, do make a difference.

“I want everyone across our city to feel empowered and to know that your actions matter,” Richardson states. “We will need millions of actions from hundreds of thousands of residents across the city and the small micro actions that you take on a daily basis do contribute to our climate goals.”

There are many organizations working to make Baltimore more environmentally sound. Here, we highlight a few that are moving the needle on improved stewardship of the land, air, and water.

Opening spread: volunteers tend to hidden harvest farm’s garden on calvert street, downtown.

Pocket Park Protectors

Baltimore Green Space is securing today's land for tomorrow's well-being.

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hink “land conservation” and huge tracts of open space will likely come to mind. But in Baltimore, you could walk right by a piece of preserved land and have no idea. The land conservation trust Baltimore Green Space (BGS) currently stewards 62 acres, much of it pocket parks or small urban forest patches. These little spots of green that pop up amid expanses of endless concrete play an important role in the city’s future sustainability.

“There’s a myth that there’s no real nature in the city,” says executive director Katie Lautar, who explains that, on the contrary, since the fall of Baltimore’s Rust Belt industries, abandoned lots of land have had decades to go completely wild. “We have herons living in the tiniest space you can imagine, and larger urban forests filled with endangered species, saplings, and streams.”

BGS was born out of one woman’s fight to protect her own pocket park from development. Since then, BGS has worked to protect existing green spaces that are being cared for by their community from the threat of development. Although BGS recently conserved the 54-acre Masonville Cove Urban Wildlife Refuge, most of its projects look more like Hidden Harvest Farm, pictured above, a half-acre community garden in Greenmount nurturing fruits, vegetables, even bees. Or Springfield Woods, 3.5 acres of 100-year-old forest just a short hop away from the rumbling traffic of The Alameda. Or the remarkably tiny Brentwood Commons, a patch of park less than a block off North Avenue and barely the size of a handful of rowhouses.

These tiny but mighty green spaces are essential to Baltimore’s future. They offer shade, yes, but also cool air and surface temperatures by moving water from the ground into the atmosphere while also absorbing carbon emissions.

Additionally, green spaces are important shelter areas for migratory birds—Maryland is centrally located on the Atlantic Flyway, used by millions of birds annually—and absorb stormwater so it doesn’t flood streets and rush into the Bay carrying trash and pollutants with it. From a quality-of-life perspective, there are numerous studies that show a bit of grass and a few trees improve both physical and mental health in humans.

While BGS works with the city to transfer land into conservation, “The majority of the vacant land in Baltimore is privately owned,” says Lautar, including more than 20 percent of the city’s current tree canopy. That leaves much of Baltimore’s green patchwork vulnerable to development.

Still, Lautar believes we’re moving into a better moment for conservation. As part of its advocacy work, BGS pushed for passage of the Greenspace Equity Program. Recently signed by Gov. Wes Moore, it supports green space in underserved communities, making it easier to acquire small plots of land. Lautar says preserving these spaces is essential to community health and well-being; many are neighborhood hubs, places for concerts, picnics, birthday parties, and more. Others are beloved for their serene natural beauty.

“We have over 800 green spaces and over 1,000 forest patches, so at least 2,000 green space assets we can invest in to make them more accessible, to create capital improvements on, and to employ community members in the care of,” she says.

“From an environmental perspective,” she continues, “we are really well-positioned to change the paradigm of how we think about cities making themselves climate resilient.”

What you can Do

Earth Movers

Engage with and share a green space

Replace asphalt with permeable pavers or plants

Consider planting a green roof

Purchase from local growers

Plant native species (even in containers)

Seeds of Change

Urban farms grow more than produce inside city limits.

RICHARD FRANCIS, known to all as “Farmer Chippy,” pictured below, oversees 10 acres of land, cultivating everything from kale and mustard greens to herbs and peppers. He also has a flock of Rhode Island Red hens. But his garden isn’t laid out on pristine acreage; it’s carved out of city blocks on a stretch of Park Heights Avenue between Pimlico Racetrack and Druid Hills Park, an urban farm called Plantation Park Heights.

Farmer Chippy’s love of the land goes back to his upbringing in Trinidad and Tobago, but he’s been cultivating his little corner—or, more accurately, corners—of the city since 2014. He started squatting on an abandoned lot growing herbs and has expanded by purchasing and leasing one lot at a time. He now has two large hoop houses in addition to acres of raised beds maintained by 25 volunteer farmers. He calls it “AgriHood Baltimore.”

“We don’t just grow food and sell it, we grow people, we grow community, we nurture families so they stay together,” he says. He’s particularly interested in youth outreach, noting that the average age of a farmer in America is about 60. “Anyone can put up a farm; what we need is more farmers. This is a farmer-training institute, right here in the ’hood.”

As of 2019, there were 20 urban farms like Plantation Park Heights in Baltimore. Farms play an important role in the city’s sustainability. The green spaces and plants support biodiversity, help manage stormwater runoff, and mitigate the impact of heat islands. They support a circular system, too, where food waste can be composted and returned to soil in garden beds.

But the impacts are greater when it comes to food security, nutritional education, and community engagement. Plantation Park Heights sells its produce and eggs at Druid Hill Park and Johns Hopkins Hospital’s farmers markets, conducts cooking demonstrations at every farmers market they go to, offers training and workshops at the farm, and, each Thursday, gives away 200 boxes of fresh produce. “Urban agriculture brings people together to grow food in our community, for our community,” Farmer Chippy states.

Overstory Tellers

The Baltimore tree trust is growing and maintaining our urban forest.

tep outside. If there’s a tree there, appreciate it not only for its beauty but also for the role it plays as part of Baltimore’s vast urban forest, thousands of arboreal acres that create a life-giving leaf canopy—the lungs of the city.

While Baltimore is home to the third-largest urban wilderness in the U.S. (Gwynn Falls Leakin Park), its forest is still not as big as it needs to be nor equitably distributed. Baltimore Tree Trust (BTT) is just one organization helping to grow the city’s tree canopy from its current 28 percent coverage to its goal of 40 percent, while ensuring trees get to neighborhoods in greatest need.

Trees have innumerable benefits. Studies show that tree-lined neighborhoods tend toward higher community engagement and lower crime. Trees slow stormwater runoff and create habitat for wildlife. They’re also critical in the fight against warming temperatures. Without shade from trees, neighborhoods scorch, experiencing temperatures at least 10 degrees warmer than their leafy counterparts. In this extreme heat, air quality—and human health—deteriorate. Natural resource consumption soars as residents who can access air conditioning shelter indoors.

“The science is there,” say BTT executive director Bryant Smith. “There are so many health problems tied to lack of tree canopy connected to heat-related issues that if we don’t target the neighborhoods that don’t have a high tree canopy rate, we’re creating an unsafe environment for those residents.”

Tree canopy maps show that while affluent neighborhoods have as much as 50 percent canopy coverage, that plummets to as low as six percent in underserved areas. Yet some people do not want a tree outside their house. (Those who do can request trees, here.) They fear property damage or mess from fallen leaves.

“Urban forestry does not just include trees,” says Smith. “We’re building a forest in a place where there are structures, buildings, people. So how do we, in a smart way, plant ‘right tree, right place?’ There needs to be education, community buy-in, and partnerships to not only get trees in the ground, but to maintain them.”

Everyone can help the city’s canopy. Simple acts of kindness like clearing tree wells of weeds and litter and watering your sidewalk trees in summer’s heat make a difference. Well cared for, an urban tree can live 60 to 80 years.

Smith says it’s a good time to be in urban forestry, with more investment than ever before. The Tree Solutions Now Act, for example, plans for five million trees to be planted in Maryland, including 500,000 trees earmarked for underserved urban areas. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act includes $1.5 billion to increase urban tree canopy nationwide.

BTT started out planting a few trees in East Baltimore; now they plant 6,000 a year. They’ve created an impervious surfaces removal arm that can do the work of cutting concrete sidewalks to make tree wells, clearing asphalt from vacant lots, and grinding stumps. Importantly, BTT’s career development arm, the Neighborhood Forestry Initiative, trains urban arborists so there will be professional stewards to care for the future forest.

What you can Do

A Breath of Fresh Air

Eat a plant-based diet (reduce food system-related emissions)

Plant a tree

Compost kitchen scraps

Get a free home energy audit

Curb your drive time

GOLD MINING

Baltimore Compost Collective wants to turn waste facility pollution into black gold.

FROM LEFT: A RESIDENT GOAT; MARVIN HAYES.

BALTIMORE HAS COME a long way in reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, but according to the John Hopkins University Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Lab, there’s one sticking point—the Wheelabrator incinerator.

A HANDFUL OF COMPOST AT FILBERT STREET COMMUNITY GARDEN.

Located in South Baltimore, Wheelabrator’s emissions have not changed since JHU began monitoring it in 2007, and it is the largest source of GHG in Baltimore. Landfills are no better, generating potent methane, which traps heat and is largely responsible for global warming. All this air pollution is a public health problem; the BOS 2019 Sustainability Plan states that the city’s hospitalization rate for asthma is 2.5 times higher than the state average.

But so long as the city generates trash, it needs to go somewhere, right?

Marvin Hayes has a different solution: Starve the incinerator, feed the soil. As executive director of Baltimore Compost Collective, Hayes is practically evangelical about educating anyone who will listen about how common waste can be transformed into uncommon soil.

“People haven’t been educated here in the city about composting,” says Hayes. “That’s my job, to go out and tell them they can make a decision to divert their organic material from going into the landfills and incinerators.” He adds that “wind does not segregate or discriminate,” so air pollution from waste facilities in underserved communities is everyone’s problem.

The Collective distributes five-gallon buckets to clients, picks them up once a week, and takes them to the composting center located at Filbert Street Community Garden. A quarter of what we throw in landfills can be composted. Composting naturally breaks down household scraps—yesterday’s pasta, half-eaten apples, this morning’s coffee grounds—into what gardeners call “black gold,” the dark, rich humus essential to plant growth. Compost from the Collective remediated the soil at Filbert Street, enabling what was previously a dumping site to go from toxic to a neighborhood oasis with raised vegetable beds, a greenhouse, bees, fowl, and goats.

The Collective has 300 curbside clients and Hayes is collecting as much as 1,500 pounds of waste a week, more than he can manage. He takes the excess to a composting facility in Upper Marlboro, but he’s raising money and working with the city to expand his operation. “I want to build a large-scale, inclusive composting facility for Baltimore so we can have municipal, curbside composting for every resident in the city.”

Pollution Solutions

Gunpowder Valley Conservancy Safeguards the Headwaters that Feed the Bay.

LOCH RAVEN RESERVOIR IN THE GUNPOWDER WATERSHED SUPPLIES MUCH OF THE CITY’S DRINKING WATER.

ooking at the Inner Harbor or boating out of Bowleys Quarters, it’s hard to believe the water there has been affected by what someone has done hundreds of miles away. Yet that’s the case with many of the watersheds that feed into the Bay. The Gunpowder Valley Conservancy (GVC), a land trust and watershed conservation organization, works to protect the Gunpowder watershed that begins at its headwaters in York, Pennsylvania, travels through networks of rivers and streams through Baltimore and Carroll counties, then empties into Middle River and, ultimately, the Chesapeake Bay.

Along the way, that water picks up everything we dole out: pesticides from agriculture, yes, but also fertilizer from lawns, litter, road salt, motor oil, and other contaminants. While Baltimore has real problems—leaking sewage pipes, dumping—GVC’s executive director, Kim Pause Tucker, says it’s easier to finger point at these bad actors than to look at how we as individuals impact water quality.

“A lot of people, if they don’t see a stream near them, don’t think they’re part of the watershed, but eventually all water goes into a storm drain or seeps into the water table,” says Tucker. While there is a Gunpowder Riverkeeper who is a steward of the actual water, GVC is focused on protecting water by protecting land (they have more than 2,000 acres of land in conservation easement, an agreement that permanently limits uses of the land in order to protect it).

That’s because much of what affects water quality takes place on the shore. GVC has planted a lot of trees, over 34,000. Deforestation causes erosion, filling streams with sediments that degrade the water quality and can pollute the environment for submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). According to NOAA, healthy SAVs upstream reduce water acidity downstream, not to mention providing food, nutrients, and habitat. They’re also super consumers of carbon dioxide. Despite their importance, in the early 20th century nearly 90 percent of the Bay area’s SAVs disappeared. The population has been clambering back ever since.

Streams and riverbanks filled with healthy plants (riparian buffers) and tree-lined city streets keep streams and stormwater runoff cool as well. “If the temperature of streams is too warm, even just by a few degrees, that can impact aquatic species or cause algae blooms,” says Tucker. Tucker adds that we need to be smarter about land development, too, adaptively reusing structures already on the coast rather than developing virgin riparian areas.

More than a land trust, Tucker says GVC is a connector—connecting people to the environment and to resources. GVC staff leads volunteers on tree plantings and stream cleanups, distributes rain barrels, and runs an adopt-astream program.

Its Clear Creeks program is a citizen-based initiative that works with communities to install bayscapes (native plant gardens), rain barrels and rain gardens, and to implement micro-bioretention buffers (similar to rain gardens but treating larger volumes of runoff, like from parking lots). Working with a homeowners association of 740 townhouses in Middle River, GVC installed 137 trees, 10 bayscapes, four rain gardens, eight rain barrels, and utilized several microbioretention buffers. The project is now an award-winning case study for successful municipal stormwater management.

“Humans are not separate from the environment,” says Tucker. “We have to think about what compromises we want to make. Do we use road salt more sparingly? Where can we consume less? Also, we need to make noise about this in our communities. If you identify a problem, elevate it to a conservation organization or local officials. I find that people do want a good environment and want to protect it.”

What you can Do

Crystal Clear

Responsibly dispose of hazardous household waste (e.g. paint, oil)

Clear debris from storm drains

Install rain barrels and gardens

Stop/reduce pesticide/fertilizer use

Maintain septic systems

WATERSHED DEFENDERS

Defensores de la Cuenca is building NextGen Latino and Spanish-speaking environmental leaders.

THE LATINO POPULATION in Baltimore doubled between 2010 and 2020 to over 40,000 people. A Pew Research study recently noted that climate change is a pressing concern for the majority of U.S. Latinos and that many see the effects of it in their communities. Yet there appears to be a gap between awareness and activism. If Defensores de la Cuenca, or Defenders of the Watershed in English, has its way, that’s going to change.

Latinos often come from cultures where reuse is part of everyday life, as is a close connection with nature, making it a community ripe to pick up the mantle of environmental leadership. But according to Abel Olivo, pictured above, Defensores co-founder and executive director, “The communities that are most impacted are not at the table, and there’s a reason for that. It’s historical exclusion, but also the structures and systems have been set up to make this work inaccessible.”

Olivo explains that even well-intentioned programs rarely take into account what matters in Spanish-speaking communities. Defensores programs are always free, fun, family-friendly, in Spanish, and take place at times that aren’t during work and church hours. “We’re asking these participants for their most precious commodity—their time,” says Olivo. “Time is food on the table, it’s rent, it’s a car payment; all that has real impact to community members on the margin.”

Over a year ago, Defensores began its Baltimore-based community-centered outreach, like water-quality investigations, picnics, and hiking excursions, but the end game is to bring the Latino community into Defensores’ paid programs to engage them in the economic engine of environmentalism. In July, in partnership with Patterson Park Audubon Center, Defensores will launch its La Academia de Defensores paid adult training program. Through in-person and virtual workshops, up to 15 participants earn a living wage while learning about watershed-related issues. At the conclusion, they implement a capstone project relevant to their community.

“In terms of climate change and resiliency, we need to better equip this community to be a part of the workforce, to be part of the conversation,” says Olivo. “If we continue to sideline or ignore the Latino and Spanish-speaking community, if we continue to ignore their need to access green space, to improve air and water quality, it will result in a sicker populace.”

Source

Getting Back to Normal

Megan McGaha — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 18:29:02 +0000

he phrase “the new normal” has been thrown around since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as America struggles to define—and design—what that is exactly, colleges are paving the way for what it might look like.

After the chaos and uncertainty of 2020, colleges and universities throughout the Baltimore region began to find their groove as they moved into the 2021-2022 school year. Coronavirus safety committees had been erected, new mandates put in place, safety protocols implemented—everything from vaccine requirements to temperature checks to quarantine procedures and wastewater testing that can pinpoint a COVID infection before anyone is symptomatic.

Michael Berardi, with UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III, at OCA Mocha. —Courtesy of UMBC/Marlayna Demond

By some counts, colleges may very well be the safest places to live and work.

“Just following simple rules of wearing face masks and social distancing, using wastewater management and testing when we need to, we have, in many ways, been able to return to normal life,” says Goucher College President Kent Devereaux. “Full athletics, student clubs, dining in the dining hall, use of the library—everything that you’d normally have, we’ve been able to return to.”

Despite the challenges and anxieties faced by students, staff, and faculty alike, some unexpected silver linings have emerged.

“It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

The widespread adoption of technology across college campuses has proven to provide more flexibility, efficiency, and innovation—and even accessibility, in some cases. Counseling sessions, for example, began to be conducted remotely during the pandemic and many students found that they preferred it to in-person sessions. Students who cannot, for whatever reason, make it to an in-person class can now study from anywhere.

Challenging times, combined with advances in technology and the general acceptance of it, have also brought more cooperation and collaboration among schools. It’s becoming more common, for example, for schools that offer complementary programs to partner with one another to offer students an educational pathway to continue studies in their chosen areas. That may mean a discounted tuition rate, a transfer of class credits, or an internship through a partner school.

Maybe most importantly though, schools, at their best, foster an environment where students are supported, expand who they are, and connect with like-minded people. At a time when gathering together is not always safe, being in a community has become even more precious, and students have found new ways to connect.

Goucher students playing soccer. —Courtesy of Goucher College

OCA Mocha, a coffeehouse in Arbutus founded by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students, is one example of how effective a gathering place can be at a time when people are craving human connection. What started as a class assignment—to design a community center of some sort—has become a gathering place not just for UMBC students and alumni, but the Arbutus community at large.

“We’ve heard a lot of stories from people who are extremely grateful to have this space,” says Michael Berardi, UMBC class of 2019 and co-founder and general manager of OCA Mocha, which stands for Opportunities for Community Alliances. The coffee shop includes a stage, a community room, and an art gallery, employs UMBC students and alumni, and provides internship opportunities for current UMBC students.

“We have local groups and organizations that meet regularly in our community space and are grateful to not have to meet in someone’s living room or church basement,” says Berardi. “We see a lot of connections being made. It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

—Shutterstock

MAKE YOUR APPLICATION SHINE

IT CAN BE TOUGH to stand out in a crowded application pool, but Ellen Chow, dean of undergraduate admissions at The Johns Hopkins University (JHU), says that being hyper-focused on that may not be effective. “Instead, think about how to represent your most authentic self through your interests, academics, and how you spent your time productively throughout high school so you can present an application that is unique and representative of you, your values, and your goals,” says Chow.

“Spend some time reflecting on your own development and what you want to get out of the college experience,” she continues. “Apply to colleges that will allow you to pursue your interests in a way that’s meaningful to you.”

Here are a few more tips from JHU on how to ace the application:

MAKE YOUR APPLICATION SHOW WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU
It’s important to show your academic character, your contributions, and how you engage with your community.

SHOW WHAT AREAS OF STUDY YOU’RE MOST PASSIONATE ABOUT
A college wants to see how you demonstrate your academic passions. Teacher and counselor recommendations are helpful with this step.

SHOW HOW YOU’VE MADE AN IMPACT
Do you tutor your neighbor? Are you on the all-star softball team every year?
Schools are interested in learning how you’ve initiated change and shown leadership outside the classroom.

SHOW YOUR ROLE IN THE COMMUNITY
Express where you think you’ll shine on campus and how you will contribute.

WRITE AN ESSAY THAT SHOWS WHO YOU ARE
An essay adds depth to an application and allows you to elaborate on who you are.
This is your chance to be creative and let the school hear your voice.

We checked in with colleges and universities throughout the region to find out what’s new and what campus life and classes look like, two years into the pandemic.

COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY
A historically Black institution founded in 1900, Coppin State University is situated in the heart of Baltimore City in the Mondawmin neighborhood. Part of the University System of Maryland in Baltimore, the school offers 32 undergraduate and 11 graduate degrees, along with nine certificate programs and one doctorate degree. It’s been rated No. 4 Best HBCU in the Nation (College Consensus), the Top 5 Best Value Online Program (Online School Center), and No. 17 Best Value in the Nation (College Consensus).

In the summer of 2021, CSU announced its Student Debt Relief Initiative, which clears roughly $1 million in student balances and provided a $1,200 credit to every student enrolled in the fall 2021 semester. CSU also created the Freddie Gray Student Success Scholarship, which is available to graduates of Carver Vocational-Technical High School, where Gray was a student.

Coppin also takes esports (competitive video gaming) seriously. In the fall of 2021, Coppin became the first HBCU to open a building on campus exclusively devoted to esports. The Premier Esports Lab opened in September with a guest appearance from Grammy-nominated artist Cordae.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,383 undergraduates, 341 graduates
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $6,809 in-state, $13,334 out-of-state
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 40%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Business, Biology, Education, and Criminal Justice, Rehabilitation Counseling

DICKINSON COLLEGE
Founded in 1783, Dickinson College is a liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with a suburban campus that spans 144 acres. The school offers 41 undergraduate degrees within 17 fields of study.

It’s been rated as one of the best schools in the country for its sustainability efforts, which include an 80-acre, USDA-certified organic farm. Princeton Review rated it No. 2 in the Top 50 Green Colleges, and it was rated No. 2 in Overall Top Performers among baccalaureate institutions in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s “Sustainable Campus Index” in 2019 and 2020.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,345
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $58,708
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 52%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: International Business, Economics, Political Science & Government, International Relations & National Security, General Psychology

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
Gettysburg College, a private, liberal arts school, sits on 225 acres adjacent to the historical Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Many of the buildings on campus are historically significant, so it’s no wonder that it draws students interested in studying history.

The school offers 65 academic programs, more than 120 campus clubs and organizations, and 800 events on campus each year, plus more than 100 study-abroad opportunities open to students.

Its Majestic Theater serves as a venue for the greater Gettysburg community, hosting national acts as well as performances by the school’s Sunderman Conservatory of Music students.

It’s ranked No. 12 for “students who study the most” by the Princeton Review, which also ranked Gettysburg College’s dining hall No. 9 in the country for best campus food.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,600
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 10:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $59,960
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 56%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Political Science, Economics, Health Sciences, Organization and Management Studies, History, Psychology

Design of new buildings at Goucher. —Courtesy of Goucher College

GOUCHER COLLEGE
A private, liberal arts college in Towson, Goucher College prides itself on its close-knit community.

Goucher was extremely proactive when it came to COVID-19 precautions, being the first in the state to implement wastewater testing, which is able to isolate COVID infections by dorm.

Also of note: The college recently opened two new residence halls as part of the school’s First-Year Village. One hundred percent of Goucher students study abroad, and the school is committed to sustainability.

Most recently, Goucher has begun exciting partnerships with other schools, such as Johns Hopkins University, Loyola University, and more to come, to provide a pathway for students to continue their education beyond Goucher. For instance, their 4+1 MBA Program allows students to earn an advanced business degree through Loyola via a “Fast Track” admission process, and at a 15% discount on tuition.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,100
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $48,000
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 79%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Political Science, Business Administration

Goucher students participate in an equine event. —Courtesy of Goucher College

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) offers nine academic divisions and hundreds of courses of study, with campuses spread throughout Baltimore, including the Peabody Institute, a music and dance conservatory in Mount Vernon. Its main Homewood campus is located on North Charles Street.

The prestigious, world-renowned university has a strong reputation for its public health and medical studies and has been compared to Ivy League schools.

One of its points of pride is its financial aid program, which covers 100% of calculated need for every admitted student, without loans. This means JHU works with families to calculate what they can afford to contribute toward the total cost of attendance—including meals, books, travel, and other expenses—and JHU covers the rest with grants that don’t need to be repaid.

This school year, JHU added two new minors: Latin American Studies and Writing Seminars.

It also announced new efforts this year to move toward a broader, more flexible undergraduate educational experience that will include a required first-year seminar and the streamlining of major requirements to allow for greater intellectual exploration.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,333 undergraduates, 22,559 graduates
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 6:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $56,313 for Peabody Institute, $58,720 for the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 9%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer Science, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, Economics, Public Health Studies, International Studies

—Courtesy of UMBC/Marlayna Demond

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
This private, Jesuit institution offers undergraduate and graduate programs on a beautiful urban campus in northern Baltimore City. Education at Loyola is based in the Jesuit tradition of scholarship cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Loyola is known for its academic rigor while helping students lead purposeful lives. Seventy percent of students study abroad. It currently ranks fourth in best universities in the North region according to U.S. News & World Report.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 3,787 undergraduates, 1,353 graduates
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 12:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $53,430
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 80%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business, Management, Marketing, Journalism, Social Sciences, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Psychology, English Language and Literature, Engineering and Education.

—Courtesy of McDaniel College

McDANIEL COLLEGE
McDaniel College sits in a bucolic setting near Westminster in Carroll County. The private, four-year liberal arts college offers more than 70 undergraduate programs of study and more than 20 graduate programs. McDaniel’s most recent addition to its curriculum is a National Security Fellows Program that provides students with knowledge, skills, and experience in national security as well as the ability to specialize in an area of interest, such as interstate conflict, intrastate political violence, cybersecurity, ethics, and human rights.

Also new this year, McDaniel appointed an inaugural associate provost for equity and belonging who provides vision and leadership to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and works in collaboration with the provost to co-lead the college’s diversity, equity, and inclusion administrative committee, and guides the Bias Education Response Support Team.

The school also launched a new STEM Center to serve as a physical hub to support students studying the sciences. It hosts workshops and other events while also supplying online and hybrid support.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,757 undergraduates, 1,324 graduates
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $46,336
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Kinesiology, Business Administration, Psychology, Biology, Political Science, International Studies

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The largest of Maryland’s HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Morgan is a public institution founded in 1867. It is situated in northeast Baltimore. As a Carnegie-classified high research (R2) institution, Morgan provides instruction to a multiethnic, multiracial, multinational student body and offers more than 140 academic programs at undergraduate and graduate levels. As Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University, Morgan fulfills its mission to address the needs and challenges of the modern urban environment through intense community level study and pioneering solutions.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,270 undergraduates, 1,364 graduates
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 15:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $8,008 for in-state and $18,480 for out-of-state
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 73%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Civil Engineering, Communications Engineering, Business Administration and Management, Social Work, Biology/Biological Sciences, Architecture, Finance, Psychology, Sociology

NOTRE DAME OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY
A private, Catholic liberal arts university in northern Baltimore, Notre Dame of Maryland University offers programs from undergraduate through PhD, as well as Maryland’s only women’s college. It recently launched the first master’s of art degree in Art Therapy program in the state.
The beautiful, wooded campus is just steps from the bustling downtown Baltimore culture. With values rooted in Catholicism, the school focuses on service to others and social responsibility.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 783
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 7:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $39,675
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 88%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Education, Biology, Art Therapy, Pharmacy

TOWSON UNIVERSITY
One of the largest public universities in the state, Towson University offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and continues to draw students from other states, though it remains part of the University System of Maryland.

Its campus continues to expand, with a huge new dining hall, a 23,000-foot recreation and fitness facility with an indoor swimming pool, and its 5,200-seat arena for sporting events and concerts. In 2021, it opened its new Science Complex, the largest academic building on campus at 320,000 square feet.

In September, Towson opened its StarTUp at the Armory, a space for startups and new businesses to engage with the broader community and larger businesses. It serves as a home to Towson’s entrepreneurship programs, as well as student competitions and events.

While Towson remains the largest supplier of medical professionals and educators in the state, the university has also built a strong reputation for its College of Fine Arts and Communication, as well as its Asian Arts & Culture Center, both of which bring students into the wider community and the Baltimore community to Towson for enriching performing arts, music, and visual art programs.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 17,907 undergraduates, 2,949 graduates
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 16:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $7,100 in-state, $22,152 out-of-state
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business Administration, Education, Nursing, Exercise Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Biology, Computer Science, Information Technology

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE
University of Maryland, Baltimore is Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university. Located in downtown Baltimore, it offers 86 degree and certificate programs through its six nationally ranked professional schools—dentistry, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work—and an interdisciplinary graduate school.

The school’s 14-acre BioPark is Baltimore’s biggest biotechnology cluster, employing 1,000 people, and remains on the cutting edge of new drugs, treatments, and medical devices.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 7,244
ANNUAL TUITION: Varies by school
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Medicine, Law, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Social Work

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY
University of Maryland, Baltimore County educates a campus of more than 10,000 students in programs spanning the arts, engineering, information technology, humanities, sciences, preprofessional studies, and social sciences. Located on the edge of Baltimore County, it allows easy access into the city and all the conveniences of suburban life and housing. It also offers plenty of opportunities for study abroad.

In the fall of 2021, UMBC opened the Center for Well-Being, a new two-story complex that houses Retriever Integrated Health, Student Conduct and Community Standards, and i3b’s Gathering Space for Spiritual Well-Being. UMBC’s already significant NASA partnerships have continued to grow. In October, NASA announced a major award of $72 million over three years for the new Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research II center. UMBC is leading the national consortium and will receive over $38 million. The GESTAR II consortium will support over 120 researchers, creating extensive opportunities for breakthroughs in Earth and atmospheric science research, and providing major opportunities for students to conduct research and be mentored by NASA scientists and engineers.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 13,638
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 17:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $12,280 in-state, $28,470 out-of-state
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts

Cited tuition costs exclude room and board and books.

Source

Call of the Wild

Lydia Woolever — Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:00:26 +0000

November 2021

Tavel & Outdoors

November 2021

IS STILL DARK AS BO EARNEST parks his Toyota Land Cruiser in the woods and opens the trunk to grab a shotgun that he slings over his shoulder. Through the pines, the thin blue line of dawn begins to break along the horizon, and while he takes his time, readying his gear and calming his golden retriever, Ruddy, the plan is to be in place before the first light of this winter day.

Two hundred yards away sits an old blind—a wooden shed of sorts hidden beneath bundles of dried branches meant to blend in with the rest of the brackish marsh. Earnest leans his gun inside and wades into the icy waters, setting up a spread of plastic decoys. Doing so, he scares off a few live birds that flutter to another pond on this 1,000-acre tract of land, most of which he has put into conservation easements with organizations like the Nature Conservancy and Maryland Environmental Trust.

Canada geese arrive for winter.

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Now, he waits, sitting silently in the blind, bundled up in an olive wool sweater and down-filled camouflage coat, listening for signs of life out there in the marsh. To the unknowing ear, there are many, though hard to distinguish, with perhaps thousands of waterfowl out there floating in the Choptank River outside of Easton on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The chatter of ducks and geese mixes with the chirp of songbirds and eagles that flit over the flaxen wetlands on this calm January morning—a bluebird day, as they say, unfortunately for Earnest.

“It’s a bit of a mystery, but the best waterfowling days are when the weather is terrible,” he whispers, picking up one of his duck calls from time to time to lure in a few distant birds, passing on a flock that flies too high overhead for a clean shot. “It’s sort of a waiting game. Good for meditation, anyway.”

At about 8 a.m., a pair of teal—two small, colorful, especially tasty dabbling ducks—appear out of nowhere, heading toward the blind. He shoulders his gun and fires two quick shots at the targets. But they twist and turn like fighter jets around the pond before flying away. Yellow shells fall to the floor as Ruddy becomes antsy, eager to rush the water and retrieve his owner’s catch like last weekend, when they reached their legal “bag limit” before breakfast.

“That’s why they call it hunting, not shooting,” says Earnest, 77, who knows from experience, having chased birds along the Chesapeake Bay since the 1950s. He calls it quits within the hour, heading home empty-handed to a cup of coffee and warmer toes.

Opening photo: Bo Earnest hunts on the Eastern Shore. Ruddy on the lookout, eager to retrieve the day’s catch.

n the modern world, there are few ancient traditions that stir debate quite like that of hunting. For some, the sheer mention brings to mind images of grinning moneybags hovered over exotic wildlife, perhaps none more famous than Africa’s Cecil the Lion, illegally killed by an American dentist in 2015. For others, it is the hobby of backwoods beer-drinking gun-lovers, as polarizing a rural-urban divide as that of national politics.

Today, it is estimated that more than 80 percent of the U.S. population now lives in urban areas. But it wasn’t that long ago that hunting was a core part of the American identity, as commonplace as growing a garden or throwing a fishing line, rooted in many ways to a deep connection with the land, as well as the quest toward its conservation, let alone a mere means of survival. Still, the tradition endures.

Hunters gun the Patuxent River, photographed by A. Aubrey Bodine, c. 1942.

In rapidly developing regions like the Mid-Atlantic, there are still 114,765 licensed hunters in Maryland. The state’s 3,000 miles of Chesapeake Bay shoreline and sprawling Appalachian Mountain foothills have historically made it a sort of hunting oasis—first, simply as an abundant region for its inhabitants, with Native Americans, early colonists, and multiple generations thereafter hunting for sustenance alone. Then, eventually, with the advent of sport hunting, it became a world-renowned destination, drawing several U.S. presidents to its western rod-and-gun clubs while luring celebrities like Annie Oakley east, to where the Atlantic Flyway migratory path bottlenecks at the bay headwaters for a storied supply of winter waterfowl. Duck and goose hunting along the estuary would give rise to America’s first state dog, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, and forever imprint the pastime on the watershed’s sense of place.

Vintage B&O menu featuring wild game.Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

But by the late 1800s, urbanization and westward expansion had begun to gravely deplete the pristine resources of America’s wild places. To feed fast-growing cities, wild game was feverishly hunted and sold commercially. Canvasback duck and terrapin routinely headlined restaurant menus, both of which were nearly hunted to extinction during these days. In Harford County, market hunters notoriously used “punt guns” the size of small cannons to slaughter up to 100 waterfowl with a single shot, shipping their catch via railroad to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Fueled by a rising fashion industry, the feather and fur trade also pushed many more species to the brink.

“It was a bit like the Wild West,” says Mark Madison, historian for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, citing the common standoffs between hunting outlaws and federal agents. “The Chesapeake Bay had a lot of poachers. So much so that the Baltimore courthouse had something called the ‘Duck Docket’ of regular ne’er-do-well market hunters.”

These hunters were seen as a different class than sportsmen, who followed a self-imposed set of ethics, such as obeying all laws and attaining the shooting skills necessary for the fastest, cleanest kill. It was these hunters who, after noticing sharp declines in animal populations, lobbied for the nation’s first pieces of federal wildlife legislation, from the 1900 Lacey Act, prohibiting the sale of wild game, to the landmark 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, providing regulation and protection for ducks and Canada geese, as well as countless other un-hunted species.

John J. Audubon, c. 1820s. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

“Hunters were some of the first people to realize that wildlife was becoming threatened,” says Madison. “It became harder to hunt bison or elk or turkeys or deer or passenger pigeons. And they saw it with their own eyes.”

It might come as a surprise to learn that hunters were indeed some of the earliest American environmentalists, from ornithologist John James Acudubon, who depended on hunting for his iconic studies of birdlife, to Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president who famously hunted buffalo and grizzly bears, wore buckskin suits with fur caps, and co-founded of one of America’s first conservation groups, the Boone and Crocket Club.

Inspired by preservationists like Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, who sought to protect nature from human activity, these new hunter-naturalists would help give birth to the budding movement of American conservation, advocating for the same outcome as those predecessors but through responsible use of natural resources.

Theodore Roosevelt in deerskin hunting suit, c. 1885. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

In fact, this utilitarian view inspired Roosevelt to establish the National Wildlife Refuge System, the U.S. Forest Service, and five national parks during his presidency, protecting some 230 million acres that might now be lost to development and solidifying public access to the great outdoors for all Americans, not just the elite, as had long been the case in Europe.

“The excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wildlife, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination,” wrote Roosevelt in 1906.

Which raises an essential question: Can hunting continue to be an ethical way of life—to protect nature, to fend off urban sprawl, to put food on the table—in the 21st century?

“Hunting is kind of an American legacy. If you like nature, you have to at least tip your hat to these hunters, who have given us the most successful conservation movement in this country.”

oday, as in the past, America’s 15 million hunters serve as the primary breadwinners for conservation in the United States. According to the Department of Interior, through hunting, nearly $1 billion is generated for such projects each year. State hunting license fees cover the majority of wildlife management efforts— the practice of studying wildlife in relation to human activity, conceived by famed ecologist Aldo Leopold—including in Maryland. And for every firearm or box of ammunition sold in America—for hunting or otherwise—a federal excise tax is also directed back to the state level, exclusively to fund local wildlife projects, thanks to the hunter-lobbied 1937 Wildlife Restoration Act. Maryland received some $7.2 million in 2020.

There are also additional fees, like the Federal Duck Stamp, required by all waterfowl hunters, which directly aids the purchase and protection of wetland habitat across the U.S.—aka dynamic ecosystems considered as vital as rainforests and coral reefs—with six million acres conserved since the program began in 1934. Through fundraising efforts, pro-hunting nonprofit organizations have also made similar progress, like Ducks Unlimited, which has conserved some 55,000 acres in Maryland alone, and the National Wild Turkey Federation, which has restored 40,000 acres of northeast forest.

“Hunting is kind of an American legacy,” says Madison. “If you like nature, you have to at least tip your hat to these hunters, who, through their organization and personal predilections, have given us a lot of public land and the most successful conservation movement really anywhere in this country.”

But hunting skeptics are not convinced: Doesn’t more habitat just mean more hunting? Not necessarily. Hunting remains a highly regulated activity, with state Departments of Natural Resources using annual population estimates, harvest data, and the advice of a gubernatorial advisory commission to determine both season lengths and bag limits that maintain sustainable populations. When those former numbers shift, so do regulations, such as the elimination of Delmarva fox squirrel hunting, or the recent reductions to a 30-day, one-bird-a- day Canada goose season, after the species experienced a poor hatch on their spring nesting grounds in Canada.

Readying a spread of decoys; a wood-duck box in wait.

“Everything we allow people to take through hunting is done in a way that’s sustainable, scientifically grounded, well-regulated, and, in some cases, provides a management objective,” says Paul Peditto, director of the DNR’s Wildlife and Heritage Service. “It is never going to result in these animals being wiped out.”

Still, many opponents struggle with the argument of protecting wildlife by hunting and, often enough, killing it, with some 78,275 white-tail deer, 54,600 Canada geese, and 27,500 mallard ducks culled in 2020. After all, animals, like us, are sentient creatures, and therefore experience pain.

“Hunting might have been necessary for human survival in prehistoric times, but today most hunters stalk and kill animals merely for the thrill of it, not out of necessity,” states the website of animal-rights activist group PETA. “This unnecessary, violent form of ‘entertainment’ rips animal families apart and leaves countless animals orphaned or badly injured when hunters miss their targets.”

It’s not entirely an overstatement. One 2008 study by the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies found that managed archery hunts in Charles County corresponded with an 18 percent wounding rate for deer that were shot but unrecovered, leaving their demise a mystery. In 2014, Maryland enacted a “wanton waste” law, making it illegal to intentionally injure or kill a deer without an attempt to recover it. Dogs are often called in as reinforcements, be they hired tracking hounds to help trail a buck that got away, or a waterfowl hunter’s retriever, like Ruddy, who is trained to retrieve birds. Geese do monogamously mate for life, though if one dies, the other may eventually re-pair.

Death is indeed a brutal fact of hunting, which the best hunters wrestle with every time they pull the trigger.

“When I killed my first deer, I cried like a baby—I was overwhelmed with emotion,” says the DNR’s Peditto, who grew up hunting small game like squirrel and pheasant in New Jersey. “I’ve been with many other hunters [during their first kill], including my son, who was 10 when he got his first deer. We high-fived and hugged, then his chin started to quiver. If you don’t feel a certain amount of internal turmoil, I don’t think that you should do it.”

A taxidermied deer.

Many hunters speak to the mixed emotions that come with a successful hunt. “There is a sadness that only hunters know, a moment when lament overshadows any desire for celebration,” wrote North Carolina hunter David Joy in The New York Times in 2018. “Life is sustained by death, and though going to the field is an act of taking responsibility for that fact, the killing is not easy, nor should it be.”

And myriad factors—ethics, laws, safety—dictate a hunter’s decision whether or not to shoot. Is the animal within range? Is there a clear shot? What is the likelihood of retrieving it? Will it be eaten?

Earnest’s hunting gun collection.

“We have this initial kneejerk reaction that all hunting is bad, that animals can suffer, and suffering is always wrong, thereby killing one is always wrong, so you should just not and become a vegetarian,” says David Gordon, environmental ethics professor at Loyola University. “But let’s face it, hunters are probably more in tune with nature than people who simply buy meat from the grocery store. When you shoot something and see it die, you’re probably much more thankful for it.”

When it comes to consuming meat, no one is innocent, says Gordon, and humans are all constantly impacting nature, often obliviously. “Holding hunters in negative judgement, you also have to realize that when you get in your car or turn on a light that burns electricity provided by coal or gas or oil, that contributes to climate change and global warming and drought conditions and forest fires and that also kills wild animals. You can’t immediately assume that because you’re not a hunter, you’re on the moral high ground.”

Along these lines, it is no coincidence that when the prestigious academic journal Science released a shocking report that North American bird populations had plummeted by nearly 30 percent over the last half-century, waterfowl were one of only two bird groups on the upswing, due in part to the citizen science of the hunting community, which reports tens of thousands of bird sightings to the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Laurel each year—data points which then inform those state and federal regulations.

It is this sort of give-and-take relationship with nature that keeps many hunters coming back each season. In addition to the state’s required hunter-education course, where license applicants must pass a test on everything from gun safety and marksmanship to conservation principles, many hunters dedicate much of their own time to becoming amateur biologists of sorts. They study the animal’s habitat, diet, sounds, smells, movements, and behaviors, as well as a range of other natural elements that can influence a hunt: the time of day, the shift of tides, the direction of the wind.

“Hunting is so much more than hunting,” says Timothy Beadell, 32, president of the Baltimore County chapter of Ducks Unlimited, who learned how to hunt during college and now seeks out ducks on the Eastern Shore, geese in Monkton, and deer in Deep Creek each winter. “It’s setting your alarm for 4 a.m., getting up in the pitch-black, making a pot of coffee, hopping in the truck with your buddy, putting a headlamp on, walking through the woods, the freezing cold, watching the day rise. Seeing a flock of 10,000 snow geese lift up and take off? It’s a borderline magical thing.”

Regardless of whether you shoot anything.

“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to take note of so much more than just the target,” says Kirk Marks, a 27-year-old Kent Island geologist and photographer who learned to hunt from his fatherthe ritual passed down like baseball in some families. Throughout the year, he heads out into the surrounding waters and woods for everything from squirrel and rabbit to wild turkey. “It’s the songbirds, the mushrooms, the plants on the forest floor. ... It gives me a more holistic picture, and a great excuse to learn about the outdoors.”

A medley of taxidermied ducks.

Both millennial men were drawn further into hunting by the rise of the locavore food movement. In recent years, field-to-table personalities like Michigan outdoorsman Steven Rinella of Netflix’s MeatEater series, Duck Duck Goose cookbook author Hank Shaw, and former Virginia chef Wade Truong of Elevated Wild have inspired a new class of young hunters to explore the culinary delicacies of wild game. This could be part of the reason why, in the wake of disrupted global supply chains due to the corovanirus pandemic, Maryland witnessed a three-fold increase in apprentice licenses for first-time hunters in 2020.

“They’ve really made it cool again to showcase what you can do with these rare ingredients,” says Marks, who cooks recipes like corned Canada goose, wood-fired dove, and spice-rubbed wild-turkey tacos. “Growing up, my father was a hunter, fishermen, and gardener, and from an early age, he instilled this ethos in me of living off the land. It just made the most sense. It was the cleanest way to understand what was on my plate. It was the most uncomplicated approach to food. And it instills a lot of wisdom.”

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In a 2013 survey, hunters said consumption was the primary motivation for hunting. But it’s not as simple as stuffing your freezer full of vacuum-sealed venison. Immediately after the kill, deer hunters typically field-dress the mammal right there in the woods, removing its internal organs to preserve the quality of the meat, with many then hauling the game home to butcher up themselves, breaking the aniimal down into different pieces for different preparations. In 2021, this is an intimately complex process, rarely experienced when purchasing chicken from the grocery-store meat counter or ordering steak at a restaurant—without ever having to witness the death of that once-living being.

“Everyone has an impact on the earth—we’re all consumers,” says Beadell, who points to the conditions of industrial factory farms. “Those animals never see the light of day, they’re crammed into small spaces—it’s upsetting. I would rather know my food in and out, and how to humanely harvest it for myself, and have it last me through the winter.”

“It just made the most sense. It was the cleanest way to understand what was on my plate, it was the most uncomplicated approach to food. And it instills a lot of wisdom.”

Of course, there are other motivations for hunting, such as camaraderie, and yes, excitement, too.

Exhibit A: There are few experiences more exhilarating than watching Charles Rodney shouting in a Louisiana accent as his pack of dogs flushes a rabbit out of the briars on a bright February morning—a sort of elaborate, adrenaline-fueled dance, with the cottontails more often than not outsmarting the hunters.

“So many people come to hear the dogs—we call it beagle music,” says Rodney, 70, who grew up hunting small game—once the everyman’s catch—in his native Baton Rouge before becoming a sought-after guide in the Mid-Atlantic. “They also want to learn how to do it. I consider myself half-hunter, half-professor.”

Charles Rodney leads his six beagles on a February rabbit hunt.

Another factor that hunting advocates point to is that aforementioned wildlife management practice of maintaining healthy populations, particularly for animals far larger than rabbits that have begun to infringe on human territory. Especially divisive, the five-day black bear hunting season, for instance, is set to allow continued growth for those big critters, just at a slower rate to better balance densely populated places like Baltimore County, says the DNR’s Peditto. Meanwhile, the year-round coyote season aims, in part, to abate potential predation on pets, livestock, and other wild species, with one recently spotted in Herring Run Park (they prefer to avoid people). But perhaps most of all, this model is essential in the case of white-tail deer.

It’s hard to believe today, but as recently as the 1930s, white-tail deer were a rarity in Maryland. Early colonists relied on them heavily for food and clothing, as well as exports back to England, also clearing their forest habitat to provide sources of heat and shelter for humans in this growing region. They were all but gone until World War II, when the prolific progeny of a mere five deer— originally purchased from a Pennsylvania game farm for the Aberdeen Proving Ground—were relocated by the state across various counties in Maryland.

By the 1980s, deer populations had grown so quickly that they began to outpace their carrying capacity, fueled by residential development and modern agriculture that provided new habitat and food sources, along with the elimination of natural predators such as wolves and mountain lions. Suddenly car collisions became commonplace—2,381 dead deer were picked up by the State Highway Administration in 2020. At the same time, local residents lamented the loss of their landscaping, as the animals love a good garden, and regional ecologists warned of their detrimental effects on forests. Overpopulation also leads to increased disease and starvation rates among the herds, undoubtedly a slower death than a well-aimed arrow or bullet.

“Even with our management efforts, we struggle to maintain an appropriate number of deer,” says Clark Howells, watershed manager of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works, who oversees sanctioned archery seasons at the Loch Raven, Liberty, and Prettyboy reservoirs. “They’re eating all vegetation within reach, and without those saplings, when our trees die, we’re not going to have that regenerative capacity to replace them for the future.”

Deer also prefer to eat native plants, giving an edge to invasive species.

A lanyard of bird calls.

It is estimated that there are now some 230,000 white-tail statewide, about 900 of which are hunted around the city's reservoirs each season. Meanwhile, in Baltimore County, deer management at the Oregon Ridge and Cromwell Valley parks, as well as Marshy Point Nature Center, is contracted out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, whose sharpshooters conduct annual nighttime hunts to eliminate upwards of 100 deer, the meat of which is then donated to the Maryland Food Bank. In a last-ditch effort, the state once even attempted administering them birth control via tranquilizer dart, though the effort proved largely unsuccessful.

“In The Land Ethic, Aldo Leopold says that an interaction with the environment is right if it maintains the integrity, sustainability, and proper function of an ecosystem,” explains Loyola’s Gordon. “Within that context, some forms of hunting are okay. If you’re going out into the forest because you’re bloodthirsty and want to kill something, that’s the bad kind. But I don’t think any true hunter revels in making an animal suffer. Even though they’re taking a life, most want to do so in a way that’s as quick and painless as possible.”

Of course, as with any demographic, there are always a few bad apples, with 876 DNR violations recorded in 2020. While some do pertain to more notable offenses such as shooting out of season, over the limit, or with the aid of bait, the largest portion are related to hunting on private land without written permission, while many others concern minor infractions such as failure to wear the required fluorescent orange for safety reasons.

“Some people are going to cheat no matter what, and when I got into this 60 years ago, there was a lot of cheating,” says Bo Earnest. “My dad was always very scrupulous. As soon as the sun came down, you had to unload your gun, even if there was a duck flying right at you. At this point in my life, I think of myself more of a naturalist than a hunter."

By all evidence, that’s true. His property is speckled with over 100 wooden bird houses, as well as several ponds that serve as dedicated sanctuaries—aka no hunting allowed. Southeast of the pine trees, a long-dead sunflower field still stands in the middle of winter, a remnant of autumn hunts by his Legal Limit Dove Club, named for a commitment to always shooting under the state restrictions.

“The majority of the time, I’m just sitting out here with binoculars,” says Earnest. “One morning, I was in the blind waiting for ducks when a kestrel came and landed on my shotgun barrel. He looked at me, I looked at him. And then he flew off. You see some extraordinary things, if you spend a lifetime in the marsh.”

Goose decoy parts; Loading a shotgun for rabbit hunting; Earnest moves through the marsh; empty shells in a former dove field.

arnest is something of a disappearing breed, and as longtime sportsmen like him begin to age out of the tradition, hunting continues on its six-decade decline. Hunters now make up just about five percent of the U.S. population—or two percent in Maryland— half of what it was 50 years ago.

Roughly 40 percent of Maryland hunters are Baby Boomers, and the joining ranks of millennials, who increasingly connect to nature through non-lethal means such as hiking and biking, might not be enough to sustain the pastime. There are barriers to entry, like the expensive equipment and land access required for deer and waterfowl seasons, worrying wildlife advocates about what this dwindling community might mean for the future of conservation.

Ninety-three percent of Maryland hunters are also male, and nationally, they are overwhelming white. Half consider themselves politically conservative, and nearly the same percentage values the Second Amendment as much as conservation. A record 23 million guns were sold during the pandemic last year, superseding the previous high following President Barack Obama’s reelection, and those taxes brought a 65-percent increase in federal funding for wildlife, which might not matter if state budgets—driven by local hunting revenues—are not able to meet the match required to receive it.

Both government agencies and nonprofits are working to recruit a newly diverse generation of hunters through the likes of mentored and women-forward programs, while also retaining and reactivating present and past participants.

“Hunting spawns generational connection. The best conversation my son and I ever had was side by side in a tree at 5 a.m., talking about life as we watched maryland wake up around us.”

Rodney in the pines; Canada geese overhead.

A redwing blackbird sits in the morning sun.

“Honestly, I’m a bit concerned,” says Deborah Landau, ecologist for the Maryland-D.C. chapter of The Nature Conservancy, which allows limited hunting on its wildlife preserves. “The eyes that they have on the ground are so valuable to us, especially the older hunters who have been here year after year. I get such joy out of reading their annual reports, where they leave notes about seeing an otter or coyote or certain songbirds, offering wonderful little windows into the land. They can teach us a lot about what’s going on here.”

Meanwhile, a 2021 statewide poll found that 90 percent of Marylanders of all proclivities expressed support for Program Open Space, a local effort aimed at conserving land in the state, including parks, forests, and farms. Across those 319,000 acres, visited by 17 million people last year, dozens of hunter-funded projects are underway—from planting trees to maintaining nature trails to restoring habitat for once-flourishing small-game species like quail, grouse, and woodcock—not to mention countless other animals that are not and will never be hunted.

“Everyone who lives in or travels through Maryland benefits from those dollars,” says Peditto, noting that less than one percent of the wildlife managed by his department is hunted. “To this day, hunters are some of our most passionate stewards. You can make a fair argument that a birder or butterfly enthusiast also wants to protect wild spaces. But it’s hard to develop that ethic and appreciation until you sit out there for hours and take in these moments that most humans never experience.”

The hours it takes to hunt, and hunt well, is part of the difference, he continues. “Very few people intentionally stand in a field at dawn or a forest while night arrives—and you don’t hear many stories of wildlife photographers going into the woods for so much time with their sons and daughters or the grandparent who taught them in the first place. Hunting spawns generational connection. ... The best conversation my son and I ever had was side by side in a tree at 5 a.m., talking about life as we watched Maryland wake up around us.”

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At One With Nature

Lauren Cohen — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 17:04:56 +0000

The homeowners reduced their lawn by 70 percent, replacing it with pollinator gardens, two rain gardens and a 10’x15’ pond featuring a Japanese-style walkway and bridge. —Photography by Jen Chase

Drive by the home of Carri Beer and her husband, Michael Hindle, and you see it right away—this house is not like the others.

Situated on a Catonsville street lined with brick bungalows on manicured green lawns, the Beer-Hindle home is a midcentury-modern gem tucked so neatly behind an elevated stretch of yard covered in wildflowers as to almost be invisible in high summer.

The Beer-Hindles don’t mind standing out. In fact, they want their home to be an example of what a typical family can do to fight climate change by making responsible, reasoned home choices.

Beer, a member of the American Institute of Architects, is an expert on such things: She’s principal architect at CommONEcology, which provides net-zero and passive-house services, as well as sustainability consulting, permaculture landscapes, and holistic neighborhood planning. Hindle began his career as an artist and a teacher at MICA, but was drawn to the critical issue of climate change. He became a certified passive-house consultant (CPHC) in 2010 and is now owner and principal of Passive to Positive, a design consulting firm.

“It’s a moral imperative to do what we can [about climate change] with the information we have,” says Hindle. “We bought this house to serve as a test and to walk the walk so we aren’t just greenwashing.”

Carri Beer and Michael Hindle (pictured with Cedar, one of their three children.)

Buying the house wasn’t exactly a no-brainer. While it had good bones, it was being sold as a short sale. When the couple received the home inspector’s report, it was essentially 20 pages of why not to buy the house. Far from being deterred, the couple embraced this troubled canvas.

“This is a beautiful midcentury home but it was in pretty bad shape,” says Beer, “which was an invitation for us to make this house what we wanted it to be.”

What they wanted in the renovation was for the home to be a beacon in a typical American neighborhood showcasing how a regular family—the couple has three children in their blended family—can make choices to reduce their environmental footprint. Everything they undertook was seen through a lens of preservation and restoration.

Given Hindle’s exuberant passion for high-performance building enclosures, it’s no surprise that the couple removed the old, failing windows (which they’ve saved for other projects, including a greenhouse) and replaced them with tilt-turn, triple-glazed windows. The Beer-Hindles purchased the house, in part, for its southern exposure, which provides passive heating in the winter. But to reduce solar gain in the summer, they extended an exterior overhang to provide seasonal shade.

All the systems were upgraded for greatest efficiency, including a three-zoned HVAC system and a heat pump water heater that is much more efficient than a conventional system. All three baths feature dual-flush toilets, and a gray-water diverter system discharges water from the laundry into an exterior filtration system that features its own garden.

Perhaps most remarkably, the couple chose to decrease the square footage of the house by removing a room and turning it into a covered porch. Only the bare post and beams of the old structure remain, now stained a rich brown, creating a pleasant alcove shaded by a natural wall of climbing hops. Opting for solar power and all-electric appliances, they also shut the gas line off at the street.

A priority for the couple was for the home to avoid all foam products. While foam insulation is a popular choice for making a home airtight, it can contain fire retardants, formaldehyde, and carcinogens. Instead, they used mineral wool and cellulose. They also applied carbon-negative cork as cladding and for flooring, creating both insulation and a unique aesthetic.

Much of the air sealing was done by a crew from the job-training program Civic-Works. The Beer-Hindles don’t just want to make their home sustainable; they want to contribute to building a workforce that can fuel an environmentally directed economy.

“It’s not just about the sustainability of the building, it’s a holistic way of approaching every decision you make,” says Hindle. “We tend to think about buildings and people as separate,” says Beer. “When they are connected, we can radically change a community.”

The couple believes in a “circular economy” where little goes to waste. Wood from areas of the house that were demolished were reused elsewhere, for example, and they scored old slate from a neighbor, which was useful in the kitchen backsplash and for flooring.

The Beer-Hindles reclaimed more outdoor space from what was the home’s interior, and reduced the home’s square footage, too.

Natural light makes for happy houseplants and shimmers on Beer’s dried herbs and tinctures.

Given that the effects of climate change have become more prevalent, the Beer-Hindles built for resiliency, too, particularly in light of their location near Ellicott City, with its vulnerability to floods. The basement, which was damp and dark, received a significant retrofit including special flooring that can be pulled out, removed, and air-dried in the event of a catastrophic flood.

The walls are fitted with drainage membrane, or vapor barrier, clad in cork. All the old window wells were dug out to allow light into the space and their drainage capacity is now handled by lovely rain gardens. The once musty basement is now a comfortable living space.

Much of the dirt and detritus from that project helped build the privacy berm that overflows with perennial flowers. Beer used the design plan for her yard as a project for her advanced permaculture certificate. It is a haven for wildlife now, with a saltwater pool surrounded by peach, pear, plum, fig, and persimmon trees.

One can hop across a Japanese-style footbridge that spans the 10-by-15-foot pond that is home to peeper frogs and visited by a blue heron. While the couple says the neighbors were likely mortified when the yard was ripped up, people now stop to have their picture taken next to the pollinating perennials that grow down to the sidewalk.

New triple-glazed windows were installed to match the geometry of the living room windows in the original house.

For all its airtight efficiency, this is still a family home, a beautiful space where Beer’s homemade kombucha and herbal tinctures sit in the windowsills casting pretty shades of light and Hindle’s artwork fills the walls. After remodeling the kitchen with natural linoleum, soapstone countertops, and new cabinet fronts, open shelving provided an exhibit space for the couple’s Russel Wright ceramics. Healthy houseplants abound.

Lacking both time and a large budget, the Beer-Hindles did much of the work themselves, over the six years they’ve been there. Baltimore County’s High Performance Home tax credit helped offset some of the expenses. Beer sought out non-toxic ECOS paint and Bioshield clay paint for a unique interior. They designed the window layout themselves (mirroring a window pattern original to the midcentury design) and installed the windows on their own.

It’s the passion project of a lifetime for the benefit of the next generation.

“If you want to be a low-or zero-carbon family, it’s a lifestyle,” says Hindle. “Any family can improve their insulation, get an energy audit from BGE—that’s the low-hanging fruit, but that won’t stave off climate change. To do that, we need to think more aggressively.”

“It’s important to know that this is possible,” he says. “We have the building science, materials, and techniques to retrofit a house, you just have to be dedicated to doing it.”

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Real Food Farm and Bikemore Hit the Streets Delivering Meals to Older Adults

Lauren Cohen — Tue, 26 May 2020 15:51:00 +0000

Normally, as spring spills into summer, Real Food Farm fires up its farmers market sales. But in the wake of the coronavirus, that endeavor has halted. Instead, the Civic Works program, which operates two farm sites in Northeast Baltimore, has pivoted to supporting older adults across the city.

When lockdown measures and social distancing practices were first enforced, food and farm manager Gwen Kokes—along with director of elder services, Lauren Averella—decided to put the food they had to good use.

“I knew our older adults were going to be anxious leaving their homes,” Kokes says, “so Lauren and I made deliveries to apartment complexes.”

Now eight weeks into the initiative, Real Food Farm continues to donate 3,000 pounds of food each week to seniors free of charge. Taking their commitment to sustainability and building greener neighborhoods a step further, the team at Civic Works reached out to their friends at bicycle advocacy organization Bikemore to make deliveries more environmentally friendly.

“These bikers just have a sense of adventure,” Kokes says. “Biking 10 miles for them seems like nothing, and they don’t mind coming back to put more in their packs.”

Real Food Farm has also turned to local businesses in an effort to reduce emissions and pollutants in the process of transporting the produce, and other essential items, to the recipients’ doors. Every item is purchased within a 100 mile-radius, including hand sanitizer from Mount Royal Soaps, bamboo toilet paper from new startup Lor Tush, and individual meals from Wild Thyme food truck—which make use of the produce from the farm.

“Everything we do, we do in relationships so that we can lean on each other in the future and in times like this,” says Kokes.

The Civic Works team has worked to expand their customer base by putting flyers up around the city and reaching out to elder services at housing co-ops. Older adults call in on Mondays and Tuesdays to place orders, and the team works to get through at least 60 calls every hour. On Wednesday, they get to work preparing and packing the orders so that deliveries can be made before the weekend begins. “The idea is that we are providing for a week,” explains Kokes, “but there is no limit on what they can order until our inventory runs out.”

To keep the couriers and clients safe, a six-foot distance is always maintained and no bagged orders are touched without gloves, which are changed between every order. Clients are also instructed to come to the door only after the delivery person has left.

While starting the initiative was a smooth process, Kokes is now focused on endurance. The initiative has enough funding to continue through the end of June, but organizers are constantly working to find a long-term solution since elderly adults will most likely be the last demographic to safely leave their households.

Every Monday, customers call to voice their appreciation for the meals and let the organizers know how grateful they are to be cared for. Kokes hopes that the initiative has helped to show people how they can depend on local food producers not only in times of emergency, but in their daily lives.

“We are showing how important it is to stick to our communities,” she says, “and rely on each other in our neighborhoods in ways that we haven’t really thought about before.”

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BOPA Makes Big Push for Paper Straws at This Year’s Artscape

Casey Noenickx — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 15:35:00 +0000

As the largest free outdoor arts festival in the country, Artscape will be once again painting the streets this July, with a color palette that’s overwhelmingly green.

In its 37th year, the free festival is making considerable sustainable efforts. Its agenda is threefold, according to Kathy Hornig, Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts’ (BOPA) festival director, as these environmentally friendly efforts will be seen in its food and drink operations, transportation options, and visual arts exhibits.

For the first time, attendees can sip drinks through paper straws, as all BOPA vendors will be stocked with them and the remaining food stalls will be highly encouraged to do the same.

The initiative complements the successful ban of Styrofoam products among vendors, which the festival started two years ago, Hornig said.

“We were ahead of the curve on that one,” she added. Since then, the independent nonprofit Trash Free Maryland has led a bill to ban polystyrene foam in Baltimore. The organization works to create legislative and policy-driven initiatives to combat trash pollution.

“Often times, there’s something you can do—not in addition to—but differently,” said Ashley Van Stone, executive director of Trash Free Maryland. “Like using a different material.”

Along with using eco-friendly material, BOPA is partnering with Monument City Brewing Company to streamline recycling efforts, piggybacking off their partnership from Light City. The brewery will provide about 50 clearly labeled recycling containers.

With an estimated volume of 350,000 attendees, preventing trash pollution was a priority. The receptacles will help outline how to separate materials and make it easier to sort trash out.

“I think the Artscape attendees want to support sustainability,” Hornig said. “They just need clear, visible units to make that happen. With the addition of these assets, we find the crowd is as into being sustainable as we are.”

In line with celebrating Baltimore’s own sustainability efforts, Artscape will also make use of the new permanent bike lanes up Mount Royal Avenue. Starting this year, BOPA will have free pedicab rides going up and down the hill.

“It’s completely human-powered, sustainable pedicabs—a free way to get up and down the hill,” Hornig said. “We’re hoping that festival goers will use those to maybe see something at Artscape they haven’t seen before.”

Up at the top of Mount Royal, the festival features local bands, food vendors, and indoor art venues. Its footprint is “symbolic” of the culture Baltimore has to offer, including local sustainability practices.

“Whatever the best practices are for our city in general, festivals should try to accommodate those,” Hornig said. “As a showcase and celebration of everything that makes our city great, sustainability efforts should certainly be a part of that.”

Looking at Artscape festivals to come in the years ahead, the team hopes to continuously add more environmentally conscious efforts.

“We would like to just keep doing a better job year after year,” Hornig said. “We’re interested in the possibilities of solar power for some of our temporary power moving forward. We just want to continue to do the good work.”

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St. Timothy’s School’s Redlands Farm Provides Year-Round Harvesting

Michelle Evans — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 13:14:00 +0000

Snow-covered roads, wintry winds, and frigid temperatures may not sound like ideal farming conditions. But the Redlands Farm at St. Timothy School in Stevenson is proof that a little snow doesn’t slow down operations. In a greenhouse, on the school’s more than 160 acres of land, is a fully functional and sustainable farm complete with a multitude of lush greens, clucking chickens, and buzzing honeybees.

The boarding school’s partnership with Bon Appétit Management Company—a farm-to-fork, on-site food service that specializes in organically locally source food—is one of the driving forces behind the year-round harvesting. Redlands Farm provides 60 percent of the fresh vegetables, honey, eggs, and fruit to the school kitchen where the chefs cook everything from scratch to provide three meals a day.

Started in 1999, Bon Appétit’s program requires chefs to source at least 20 percent of their ingredients from small, owner-operated farms within 150 miles of the kitchen.

“Thanks to Redlands, our Farm to Fork scores are consistently two or three times that,” said Bon Appétit chef at St. Timothy’s Scott Richter. “They are just nailing it in terms of their quality and freshness. We are so lucky here. It’s every chef’s dream to be able to work with this kind of produce.”

Redlands Farm was started just two years ago when the St. Timothy class of 1965 wanted to fund an environmentally conscience project as a gift to the school. The head of school, Randy Stevens, had the idea of an on-site sustainable farm that would be dedicated to growing produce for the campus.

“A number of things just lined up,” Stevens said. “We really wanted to find a way to link health and wellness together, and bring all those pieces together to really shift the way that students look at their overall nutrition.”

As a living classroom, the farm has garnered the interest from students, who receive an afterschool activity credit for working on the farm. One student in particular, junior Ronelle Williams from Douglasville, Georgia, has fallen in love with the farm and has begun making connections between nutrition and sustainability.

“I do my homework and sit with the chickens,” she said. “I’ve come to love nature. The farm is my favorite place on campus.”

Aside from the partnership with Bon Appétit, Redlands Farm is meant to teach the girls about economic and environmental sustainability. Instead of growing food for profit, the goal of the farm is to grow enough food to offset the costs of maintaining the farm. Handling day-to-day operations, like plowing and planting, is 2008 almuna Sammy Clopton and her husband Adam.

“We try to design a loose curriculum,” Sammy said. “I have certain things that I want them to get out of it besides just planting. They need to know the reason behind it. We try to give them a bigger picture of small-scale agriculture and sustainability.”

The multi-pronged approach to the farm also includes an educational resource for the students, including the science associated with the crops. Each decision the school makes about Redlands Farm is measured against the environmental impact standards in Maryland. By researching and using best practices, they are able to dramatically decrease erosion and redirect runoff that will reduce excessive nutrients in the streams, which eventually flow into the Chesapeake Bay.

The ultimate goal of Redlands is to become a fully sustainable and include livestock down the line. The hope to also partner with local inner-city middle schools to develop a mentorship program is also in the works.

“It’s amazing to see how it’s flourished and what we’ve developed here,” Stevens said. “We are trying to connect all the academic pieces—helping them look at the ecosystem, and their footprint. We are trying to be a green school.”

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A Good Catch

Jess Mayhugh — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 08:30:00 +0000

Seafood sustainability director Tj Tate. - David Colwell

Inside Mt. Vernon Marketplace, Tj Tate walks up to the counter at The Local Oyster and peruses the menu.

“Where are your shrimp from?” she asks in an accent still colored by her Kentucky roots. “Gulf of Mexico,” the woman behind the counter replies. “That’s what I thought,” Tate says, “and I bet I know the fisherman who caught them.”

If Tj Tate had her way, we’d all be asking where our seafood comes from—and we might even know the name of the fisherman who caught it, as well. Tate is the National Aquarium’s first director of seafood sustainability. She was hired more than two years ago to get the word out that, yes, seafood tastes great and is good for you, but more importantly, if we keep harvesting fish as we have been doing, there won’t be enough left for our grandkids to enjoy.

“When you think about the number of people who are going to be on this planet and what they’re going to eat in 20 years, some people are going to be lucky enough to still be eating shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico,” she says. “We’ve got to start working toward a system of sustainability.”

Highlighting sustainability—in this case seafood that is either caught or farmed in ways that consider the long-term vitality of species and the health of the ocean—is a decidedly different tact for the National Aquarium, an organization better known for educating visitors about marine life than advising them on which fish they should be eating. Until Tate started her job in March 2015, the institution had no programs to instruct its 1.4 million annual visitors on what to do about it. Dubbed Seafood Smart, the aquarium’s new program hopes to create a sustainable seafood movement on the Chesapeake Bay and beyond.

“There was a need for someone to reach the consumer, to fill the gap, to work with industry and watermen. The National Aquarium had the position to be that unbiased voice for a really big region,” Tate explains.

Aquaculture, the honchos at the aquarium believe, is the best way to preserve our wild fisheries. “Aquaculture is a way to ensure our oceans are healthy and our people have sustainable protein,” says Kris Hoellen, the aquarium’s chief conservation officer and Tate’s boss. “That’s a different place for the aquarium—it’s about making conservation relevant.”

If Tj Tate had her way, we’d all ask where our seafood comes from.

What that means for Tate is working to shift the entire regional seafood supply chain, from the watermen who catch or grow it to the seafood distributors who sell it to the chefs who cook it, and, ultimately, to the consumers who demand it. But, if there’s one thing Tate has already learned, bringing new ideas to a region steeped in tradition is easier said than done.

Back at The Local Oyster, Tate squeezes lemon juice on a half-dozen Skinny Dipper oysters, grown in St. Mary’s County. She adds a dollop of cocktail sauce to each one and slurps them out of the shell like it’s second nature. With her long strawberry blond hair and a quick smile, Tate has the easygoing manner of someone who’s spent the last 20 years on boats.

At 48 years old, she’s a salt-sprayed ball of energy, talking about her 6-year-old daughter one minute (“The only fish she’ll eat is halibut. Halibut!”) and firing off statistics the next: “There are more than thousands of types of seafood that we could be eating, but most people typically only eat five to 10 of some species—that’s just silly.” She seems as if she could get along with anybody, which, in this job, might be her most important asset.

“To be able to communicate what’s important about sustainable fisheries to watermen and the folks in the seafood industry is super important, but it’s a different conversation than one you have with a chef or someone wandering into the aquarium,” says Patrick Hudson, co-owner of The Local Oyster and the farmer who grew the bivalves Tate is eating. “She’s got to wear different hats and make some progress on sustainable seafood in the Chesapeake Bay, which is sometimes much more of a battle than people realize, particularly in Maryland where you have a really conservative group who have been in the industry for generations.”

Tate didn’t grow up around the water. She was raised in a small town in western Kentucky, miles from the sea. The first time she went fishing with her father, she caught a tire. As a teenager, she thought about becoming a marine biologist, but instead majored in communications and worked at a radio station in her hometown. (“Yes, I was known as Tj the deejay,” she quips.)

But something about the ocean, where she vacationed every year as a kid, kept calling. She decided to go back to school for another bachelor’s degree in biology and then a master’s. She settled in Florida and worked for an environmental consulting group before taking over as executive director of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, an organization that works to protect sustainable fisheries and the fishing industry in the Gulf. There, she made a name for herself as a savvy advocate, one who helped defeat a Florida congressman who wanted to reallocate fishing rights held by commercial fishermen to recreational anglers. She also helped start Gulf Wild, a national initiative that let consumers trace a tag on a fish to learn exactly where it was caught, who caught it, and by what method.

“Organizing fishermen is harder than herding cats,” says Buddy Guindon, a fisherman out of Galveston, Texas, and president of the alliance board, which hired Tate. “She was able to coordinate the fishermen, implement sustainable fishing practices, and create change in the Gulf.”

But like anyone who stirs up the pot, she made a few enemies along the way. Disgruntled fishermen accused her of “stealing quota,” which refers to the amount of a particular fish watermen are allowed to catch in the Gulf. Someone tried to spread a rumor that one of her board members had fathered her child. Through it all, Tate remained resolute.

“Fishermen are either the biggest part of the solution or the biggest part of the problem,” notes Tate. The problem in the Chesapeake Bay is a general distrust by watermen over rules and regulations restricting the catch. And sustainability remains a dirty word among some watermen.

Robert T. Brown, head of the Maryland Watermen’s Association, says that regulators base catch limits on “guesstimates” of fish and crabs, rather than hard science. It’s the watermen, who have plied the bay for generations, he says, who know best about the fishery—and how to sustain it. “The scientists are doing the best they can with what they’ve got, but the problem is, it’s still a guesstimate. We do have a sustainable fishery. If we didn’t, we’d be out of business.”

For her part, Tate says her position at the aquarium doesn’t involve being an advocate or taking sides so much as being a facilitator or an educator. “Now I don’t feel like I’m pushing an agenda,” she says. “I feel like I’m protecting a whole area. We want to help people make better decisions. To me that’s the coolest thing. Nobody wants to throw stones at an aquarium.”

When Tate arrived in Baltimore, it didn’t take her long to assess the state of affairs in the bay. “You’ve got amazing seafood and an amazing cultural heritage, but you’ve got a lot of consumers who aren’t eating the seafood,” she says. “They think crabs and that’s it. You’ve got a watermen community that’s fractured—they want to be doing the best for the bay because they want to have a future—but they are still trying to figure out what that means.”

When it comes to sustainability practices, Tate estimates the Chesapeake is about 20 years behind the Gulf, which in turn, is about 20 years behind methods employed on the West Coast. “I expected more people to be on the seafood-sustainability bandwagon a bit, but they’re just not thinking about it,” she says. “Even though there’s all this great seafood, there’s a disconnect. [In Baltimore], you don’t have a lot of fish houses lined up where people see the commercial boats like in Maine or the Pacific Northwest. You see shrimp boats in the Gulf all the time, so you think seafood. One reason why farm to table is doing so well is you see farmers at farmers’ markets, you see the farms. You don’t see fishermen.”

Tate is working
to shift the entire regional seafood supply chain.

In her first few months on the job, Tate met with key players to see how they could work together. And along the way, she’s helped watermen like Billy Rice, who fishes blue catfish on the Potomac River, get a better price for his haul. Blue catfish is an invasive species, so, as Rice says, “It’s actually something [the Department of Natural Resources] wants us to get out of the water.” Tate arranged for chefs and wholesalers to go out on Rice’s boat to witness his work, establishing the kind of relationship that farmers have with buyers of their produce. “She’s been a huge help,” says Rice. “The Chesapeake needs someone like Tj. She can take the message to watermen that you can’t do business like you did 30 years ago.”

Getting chefs, supermarkets, and consumers to demand the bay’s less popular seafood will help create new markets for watermen, while taking pressure off the celebrated species like rockfish. “We put a lot of stress on serving the sexy fish populations, but we fish them to death,” says John Shields, who loves putting what he calls the “trash” fish of the Chesapeake—yellow perch, hardhead catfish, white perch—on his menu at Gertrude’s periodically. He believes other chefs shouldn’t be afraid to follow his lead, particularly when it comes to serving blue catfish. “There’s a percentage of chefs who are already on board, but many chefs, they’re already stretched to the limit. They’re happy if they can get the salmon in, much less worry about where it comes from. But as they learn more about the issues involved, they’ll get on board.”

With recent news reports about slave labor used in Asian fisheries and health and safety concerns about aquaculture overseas, overcoming the stigma of farmed fish is another challenge facing Tate. Up to 90 percent of our seafood is imported, she says, yet the United States has some of the world’s largest wild fisheries and some of the best-managed fish farms. But Americans like their cheap imported fish. Sustainably caught or grown fish will cost more, explains Hudson, who says he has to charge more for his Skinny Dipper oysters than watermen harvesting the wild varieties. Tate will have to convince chefs and consumers the expense is worth it, and convince watermen that the added investments will pay off.

For chefs like Spike Gjerde of Woodberry Kitchen, paying more—and charging more—is a no-brainer. “We have some of the best fish and shellfish in the world and it should command a premium,” he says. “Anything that’s higher quality that requires more work to get, that value should go back to the watermen.”

For now, oysters are the primary crop for aquaculturists around the bay, but Tate says there’s no reason rockfish or other species couldn’t be farmed. Hudson, who at age 31 represents a new breed of forward-thinking farmers, is experimenting with seaweed and soft-shell clams, while he and his father are helping to raise tilapia in an aquaponics facility in Bel Air. “It’s an ‘and’ not an ‘or,’” says Hoellen. “It’s aquaculture and wild-caught because if the wild-caught can’t be consistently supplied in our restaurants and retail outlets, then it doesn’t stay on the menu. You need both to keep both industries moving.”

Now all Tate has to do is convince people to ask for sustainable seafood. “Nobody is going to do it unless you have someone lighting that spark,” says Shields. “If there ever was a cheerleader for this region, it’s Tj. She was a very good catch.”

Source

sustainability – Baltimore Magazine

Carvers Creek’s Sustainable Furniture Showcases the Natural Beauty of Wood

Sustainable City: Six Orgs Working to Make Baltimore Cleaner and Greener

TRAVEL & OUTDOORS

Sustainable City

Climate change is having an impact, but organizations are working to make Baltimore more resilient, cleaner, and greener for all.

July 2023

Opening spread: volunteers tend to hidden harvest farm’s garden on calvert street, downtown.

Pocket Park Protectors

Baltimore Green Space is securing today's land for tomorrow's well-being.

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What you can Do

Earth Movers

Seeds of Change

Urban farms grow more than produce inside city limits.

Overstory Tellers

The Baltimore tree trust is growing and maintaining our urban forest.

What you can Do

A Breath of Fresh Air

GOLD MINING

Baltimore Compost Collective wants to turn waste facility pollution into black gold.

FROM LEFT: A RESIDENT GOAT; MARVIN HAYES.

A HANDFUL OF COMPOST AT FILBERT STREET COMMUNITY GARDEN.

Pollution Solutions

Gunpowder Valley Conservancy Safeguards the Headwaters that Feed the Bay.

LOCH RAVEN RESERVOIR IN THE GUNPOWDER WATERSHED SUPPLIES MUCH OF THE CITY’S DRINKING WATER.

What you can Do

Crystal Clear

WATERSHED DEFENDERS

Defensores de la Cuenca is building NextGen Latino and Spanish-speaking environmental leaders.

Getting Back to Normal

MAKE YOUR APPLICATION SHINE

We checked in with colleges and universities throughout the region to find out what’s new and what campus life and classes look like, two years into the pandemic.

Call of the Wild

November 2021

Tavel & Outdoors

November 2021

Canada geese arrive for winter.

Opening photo: Bo Earnest hunts on the Eastern Shore. Ruddy on the lookout, eager to retrieve the day’s catch.

Hunters gun the Patuxent River, photographed by A. Aubrey Bodine, c. 1942.

Vintage B&O menu featuring wild game.Courtesy of the New York Public Library.

John J. Audubon, c. 1820s. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

Theodore Roosevelt in deerskin hunting suit, c. 1885. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress.

“Hunting is kind of an American legacy. If you like nature, you have to at least tip your hat to these hunters, who have given us the most successful conservation movement in this country.”

Readying a spread of decoys; a wood-duck box in wait.

A taxidermied deer.

Earnest’s hunting gun collection.

A medley of taxidermied ducks.

“It just made the most sense. It was the cleanest way to understand what was on my plate, it was the most uncomplicated approach to food. And it instills a lot of wisdom.”

Charles Rodney leads his six beagles on a February rabbit hunt.

A lanyard of bird calls.

Goose decoy parts; Loading a shotgun for rabbit hunting; Earnest moves through the marsh; empty shells in a former dove field.

“Hunting spawns generational connection. The best conversation my son and I ever had was side by side in a tree at 5 a.m., talking about life as we watched maryland wake up around us.”

Rodney in the pines; Canada geese overhead.

A redwing blackbird sits in the morning sun.

At One With Nature

Real Food Farm and Bikemore Hit the Streets Delivering Meals to Older Adults

BOPA Makes Big Push for Paper Straws at This Year’s Artscape

St. Timothy’s School’s Redlands Farm Provides Year-Round Harvesting

A Good Catch

If Tj Tate had her way, we’d all ask where our seafood comes from.

Tate is working to shift the entire regional seafood supply chain.

Tate is working
to shift the entire regional seafood supply chain.