Davidsonville Wildlife Sanctuary Will Get a Facelift This Summer

The South River Federation (SRF) has several projects they will be working on this year. These are projects designed to help homeowners or communities make improvements that will also benefit the environment.

Sandy Carr helps baby opossums who lost their mother.

Kirk Mantay is the SRF project manager. He was hired to find projects, write grants and coordinate the final on-site management of these eco-improvements.

Mantay’s got projects lined up at Homestead Gardens, and another in the Poplar Point neighborhood on the South River.

One of the projects will be constructed at the Davidsonville Wildlife Sanctuary on Beard’s Point Road.

The project will look similar to this at Wilelinor in Edgewater.

For four decades, the sanctuary has been a place where locals have been able to bring sick and injured animals for rehabilitation. They are often wild animals but also abandoned or injured domesticated animals, like pot-bellied pigs, goats and sheep.

Currently the pond is fouled by runoff from the slope above.

Sandy Carr is the owner. The sanctuary is also her home. On the ten acres out back, Carr has multiple pens, hen houses, rabbit and squirrel hutches and grazing land for the horses and donkeys that come her way. Carr said that she's lived there and has been taking in animals since 1965. She loves animals and is really looking forward to the improvements that are planned in coordination with the South River Federation.

Carr's property abuts the land that BGE uses for high voltage lines that run from Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant to the BGE substation at Waugh Chapel Road and Route 3. She said that when the electric company came in and cleared the land, a pond that fronts Beards Point Road on her property was fouled from the subsequent runoff.

"The pond used to be beautiful, but BGE ruined it," Carr said.

The tributary runs through Carr's property.

Now, with each rain event, water rushes from the higher ground near the power lines, picks up earth, animal waste and detritus, and flows into Beard's Creek.

At the point where the tributary from Carr's property comes into Beard's Creek—which flows into the South River—the bacteria readings have been high.

The project that Mantay will oversee will slow the water flow from the highest point of the property near the power lines. Then the flow will be stepped down with rock berms, plants and vegetation in place to further absorb the water and slow it down. Finally, Carr will give up part of her property to conservancy. It is the area nearest the road, which will be replanted.

New fencing will keep the animals further up on the property instead of closer to Beards Point Road.

Mantay is working with various government agencies for the final permits, approvals and funding. Work should begin around July/August. Volunteers will help to complete much of the work. If you'd like to volunteer for the project, contact the South River Federation, 410-224-3802 or info@southriverfederation.net.

In the meantime, Carr continues her work with the animals. She has regular volunteers who come to help her in the morning and evening, feeding the animals, giving them their medicine and helping Carr with whatever she needs.

On a recent visit, we shot these photos. Enjoy this gallery:

A baby turtle will need to grow a lot bigger before being released.

The opossom mom died and these babies are being bottle fed.

Donated food keeps the animals fed.

This baby rabbit has an eye infection.

Three pot bellied pigs wait for their breakfast.

The goat watched while an emu thought the camera was something to eat.

A female deer at the sanctuary.

This emu is very curious.