Chapter 6 Conservation in Four Holes Swamp

When Brunswig arrived, he entered a world scarred by a history of exploitation and extraction, yet one poised for a new commitment to conservation. For thousands of years, humans relied on Four Holes’s bounty. Indigenous people fished, hunted, and gathered medicinal plants in the Page 151 →bottomlands. They cleared patches of forest and planted small fields on high ground. On occasion, they set fire to the swamp. Yet, their footprint remained light compared to the European colonizers who drove them away and settled the land, bringing with them enslaved Africans, who toiled in Four Holes’s forests cutting cypress and cedar for timber and shingles, tending cattle, and planting crops. Some enslaved people, like James Mathews, found refuge in the swamp by escaping, for a day or more, the burdens of forced labor. Mathews eventually found freedom by fleeing to Charleston and then stowing away on a ship bound for the North. More often, escape was temporary, and exploitation of nature and humans was the order of the day.³

Slavery ended with the Civil War, but the exploitation of Four Holes Swamp continued, as the timber industry commanded a growing share of the New South’s economy. By the late nineteenth century, the South still contained vast stands of longleaf pines, bald cypress, and hardwoods; prime timber land could be purchased for less than a dollar an acre from states or landowners looking to sell forest acreage they did not have the capital or workers to render profitable. Under these favorable conditions, northern lumberman shifted their attention from the cutover lands of the Midwest to the untapped forests of the South, including Four Holes Swamp. The Minnesota Land and Timber Company, for example, purchased thousands of acres and timber rights there at the turn of the twentieth century. The company was founded by George and Albert Lammers and their partners William O’Brien and Edward Putnam. The Lammers brothers were sons of Frederick Lammers, who immigrated to Minnesota from Germany in the 1850s and started a profitable logging operation. George and Albert expanded the family business in the St. Croix River Valley and by the 1890s cut some 150,000,000 board feet, mostly white pine, from the Red Lake Indian Reservation. With timber supplies declining at home, the Lammers began buying land in the South and in the Bahamas. In Four Holes, their landholdings extended from Dean Swamp in the east to the Bend near present-day Beidler Forest in the west and northward to Cow Castle and Providence Swamps. Some of their lands, after acquisition by the Holly Hill Lumber Company (chapter 5, this volume), would pass in time to Beidler Forest.⁴

Joining them in the southern timber rush was Chicago lumberman Francis Beidler, who bought large stands of South Carolina’s cypress along the Congaree, Wateree, and Santee Rivers, and in Four Holes Swamp. According to family lore, Francis Beidler first became interested in forestry during a honeymoon trip to Yellowstone National Park. Captivated by the Page 152 →beauty of Old Faithful and the majestic scenery of America’s first national park, his son would later write that Beidler decided to devote his life to conservation and engage in forestry on the model advocated by Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. His record in South Carolina, however, shows little regard for old-growth forests other than their monetary value. With business partner Benjamin Ferguson, he established the Santee River Cypress Lumber Company (SRCLC) and built a large sawmill at a site along the Santee River below Eutaw Springs. They named the site Ferguson and constructed houses for the workers as well as a hotel, hospital, and commissary. Workers labored in the Southern heat to cut giant bald cypress and float logs downstream to the mill at Ferguson, and they often succumbed to malaria, workplace injury, and drowning. Yet, SRCLC continued to process logs. One former manager estimated a total cut of over a billion board feet before Ferguson mill closed in 1916. Afterward, SRCLC retained its land but sold its timber rights to other companies, who continued to log South Carolina forests for another half century. Still, a 3,415-acre parcel in the Beidler family’s Four Holes Swamp holdings remained more or less intact (including 1,783 acres of old-growth cypress-tupelo forest), and news of its impending doom resulted in a campaign to save what Charleston environmental writer Farley Smith described as “virgin forest, timeless and undisturbed, [it] contains what are the finest quality virgin cypress trees in existence anywhere.” It was this campaign that ultimately led to the creation of the Beidler Forest Audubon Sanctuary.⁵

The movement to save the old-growth cypress-tupelo stand in Four Holes reflects the significant role that national environmental organizations played in the conservation of South Carolina’s forests. One of these organizations, the National Audubon Society, owes its existence to a late nineteenth century campaign to end the widespread destruction of the nation’s birds. At the time, most Americans saw birds as little more than another resource to be used for food and fashion. Each spring, eggers emptied nests of their contents to fill their own bellies or ship them to Europe where they were turned into glue. Market hunters shot millions of waterfowl and shorebirds and sold them to restaurants up and down the coast or salted them for shipment to inland consumers. They were joined by anglers who ruthlessly destroyed gulls and pelicans they viewed as competition and ornithologists who killed millions of birds each year for their collections. The plume trade, however, resulted in an extraordinary waste and the taking of over five million birds annually. In Victorian America, feathered hats were high fashion, and milliners paid big money to men for the plumage needed to make them. As a result, plume hunters Page 153 →descended on rookeries along the nation’s coastlines and wetlands where they shot every bird in sight.⁶

In reaction to this combined assault, bird lovers in New York and Massachusetts formed state Audubon societies in 1886 and 1896, respectively, and proposed laws that would make nest-robbing and the shooting of non-game birds illegal and regulated the feather trade. Despite stiff resistance from the millinery industry, Congress passed the Lacey Act in 1900, prohibiting commerce in birds and other wildlife killed in violation of state laws. During these early years, the Audubon societies established bird sanctuaries in critical breeding grounds off the coast of New England and in Florida. They also hired wardens to guard them and to enforce state bird laws. Given the money involved in the feather trade and general resistance to laws infringing on the right to kill, bird protection was a dangerous game. In 1905, plume hunters murdered Audubon warden Guy Bradley in the keys off Flamingo, Florida. Three years later, Pressley Reeves, who served as the Audubon warden for an area that included Four Holes Swamp, was gunned down near his home in Branchville, South Carolina.⁷

Reeves was murdered only a year after the state Audubon organization received its charter. During the early years, Audubon South Carolina focused on educating the public about the value of birds by giving lectures, distributing literature, visiting schools to instruct children about the importance of birds, and advocating for wildlife conservation. In keeping with other states, South Carolina’s General Assembly passed legislation that distinguished between non-game and game birds, banning the hunting of the former and regulating the hunting of the latter. The state also placed restrictions on the sale of birds to restaurants and milliner dealers, outlawed the disturbance of nests, and imposed more stringent fines for hunting without a license. Moreover, South Carolina began to crack down on fishing with illicit traps, poison, or dynamite. Audubon wardens were charged with enforcing these new measures in a state where the populace had for years hunted and fished as they pleased. The Edisto River, into which Four Holes Swamp flows, was notorious for its “fish pirates,” and the Audubon Society was quick to blame them for the murder of Warden Reeves. Critics of the new restrictions, on the other hand, argued that the new restrictions were thinly veiled attempts to disarm the citizenry and that the regulations placed an undue burden on hunters and fishermen who only wanted good sport and the meat it provided. Still, the conservation movement, inspired by the Audubon Society’s efforts, grew in strength.⁸

Page 154 →By 1910, the National Association of Audubon Societies (renamed the National Audubon Society in 1940) had established organizations in thirty-seven states. It advocated for the Migratory Bird Treaty that Congress passed in 1918 and lent its support to waterfowl protection in the 1920s and ’30s. During the interwar years, Audubon also lobbied for the protection of birds of prey, which were still being gunned down across the nation. The creation of sanctuaries, however, remained a key component of bird protection. In 1954, for example, the Society established the Corkscrew Swamp Audubon Sanctuary after a campaign to prevent the logging of its old-growth cypress trees. Just east of Naples, Corkscrew was one of the last intact sections of Florida’s Big Cypress Swamp and served as an important site for wood stork nesting. Audubon had received considerable financial assistance from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., but public sentiment had also played an important part in preventing the swamp’s destruction. For this reason, Audubon decided to open the sanctuary to the public and to build a 5,600-foot boardwalk (now over two miles) to provide visitors access to the swamp. Corkscrew soon became the “crown jewel” of the Audubon sanctuaries and, in part, a model for Beidler Forest.⁹

As with Corkscrew, conservationists became alarmed when the Beidler family resumed timber operations in Four Holes Swamp in the late 1960s and quickly mounted an effort to prevent further destruction of what many saw as primeval wilderness. That Audubon joined the effort was in part due to the influence of Peter Manigault, a conservationist and owner of Charleston’s leading newspaper company, who held a seat on the board of directors for the National Audubon Society. The organization also recognized Four Holes Swamp’s beauty, significance as an ecological treasure, and value to wildlife. Audubon and The Nature Conservancy noted the heron rookeries, Mississippi and swallow-tailed kite nests, and the potential for Bachman’s warblers and additional wildlife such as black bear, bobcat, and alligator. When botanist and ornithologist John Dennis and ecologist Charles Wharton surveyed the swamp, they were awed by what they found. “It excels any other swamp I have ever seen,” Wharton stated, “Among southern swamps it is a jewel of a system.” In his report, Audubon’s site planner for nature centers saw in Four Holes, “an outstanding natural area [that] should be preserved for public use and enjoyment” due to its “ecological, educational, and aesthetic” value.¹⁰

These descriptions were important because saving Four Holes required money and potential donors needed to realize the value of their donations. The Beidlers wanted $1.5 million to compensate for the land and the market value of the standing timber. In turn, the Audubon Society sent letters to Page 155 →growing lists of members and wealthy patrons near and far, resulting in small gifts from hundreds of patrons as well as more sizeable gifts from charitable foundations. Significant financial assistance also came from The Nature Conservancy, an organization that had emerged in the 1930s when a division occurred within the Ecological Society of America, an organization founded in 1915 to support scientific research. An activist faction within the Society wanted to preserve threatened natural areas for ecological research. After contentious discussion, they formed the Ecologists Union in 1946, and four years later, changed the name to The Nature Conservancy, better representing a direct-action approach to environmental protection. In 1955, The Nature Conservancy saved a sixty-acre hemlock forest in New York’s Mianus Gorge, and during the 1960s bought land in California and coastal Georgia. The Nature Conservancy was just making inroads into South Carolina when it began working with the National Audubon Society in its efforts to preserve the old-growth cypress-tupelo forest in Four Holes Swamp. Together the two national organizations raised the money to complete the purchase in 1969. Four years later, the Beidler Forest Audubon Sanctuary opened. One of Audubon’s first moves was to hire a young wildlife biologist named Norman Brunswig. ¹¹

Brunswig’s formative experiences are essential to understanding his work at Beidler Forest. Born in 1946 in Rock Island, Illinois, on the tall grass prairie, Brunswig grew up playing in cattail marshes where he trapped and skinned muskrat, mink, and raccoons and then sold the pelts to earn a little extra spending money. Those days in the marsh gave Brunswig a deep appreciation for the ways of the animals around him, and as he dutifully caught and studied snakes and turtles, he dreamed of a career as a game warden. Then, two weeks at a Southern Illinois University summer camp exposed the young trapper to the world of wildlife biology, influencing his decision to enroll in Auburn University on the plains of southern Alabama. Here he gained a solid foundation in biology and wildlife sciences before graduating in 1968.¹²

Degree in hand, Norman soon married and moved to Brooksville, Florida, where, as a high school biology teacher, he was given “great latitude in both content and technique” while he “attempted to make students aware of their natural environment and the abuses of it.” During the summer, Brunswig also worked as an interpretive naturalist at the Big Cypress National Preserve in nearby Naples and not far from the Audubon’s Page 156 →Corkscrew Sanctuary. There he might have remained had he not been offered a research position at the University of Georgia’s Natural Resources Institute. Yet, the two years in Florida were formative for Norm because he gained valuable experience as an educator and naturalist, both of which required communicating the importance of environmental stewardship to the public. His time at Big Cypress also gave him insight into the ecology of southeastern cypress swamps. ¹³

When Brunswig arrived at the University of Georgia, the pioneering work of Eugene Odum and Herbert Stoddard was revolutionizing the fields of ecology and southeastern forestry. Odum, who joined the university’s faculty in 1940, devoted much of his career to developing a unified theory of ecosystems. His influential Fundamentals of Ecology (1953), a widely used textbook and the only one in ecology for more than a decade, called for a more holistic, integrated approach to studying how ecosystems function, assessing the impact of human disturbance on them, and solving contemporary environmental problems. At the same time, Herbert Stoddard was challenging traditional forestry methods. An ornithologist, who originally came to Georgia’s wiregrass region to study quail, Stoddard soon became an advocate for using fire and selective cutting to manage longleaf pine ecosystems sustainably. In 1958 he cofounded the Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida, where he continued as a pioneer in forest management. As his biographer Albert Way notes, Stoddard “developed a multiaged system of forestry based on a sustained-yield, selective-cut harvest that not only maintained the health of the longleaf-wiregrass environment but also enhanced it in many cases.”¹⁴

With these innovative approaches to forests and ecology shaping the curriculum, Norm devoted himself to working under the supervision of Professor Sydney Johnson and soon found himself, like Stoddard, studying quail. In the 1960s lumber companies, the Forest Service, and private landowners were converting southern fields and forests into monoculture loblolly plantations to produce pulpwood, and Brunswig was tasked with understanding the response of quail populations to this change and to the concomitant practice of clear-cutting. As he noted, “clear-cutting and conversion to pine monoculture is extremely damaging,” and “the management schemes currently being used by forest industries in the southeast are shamefully shortsighted.” Certainly, these practices were not good for quail, as Brunswig’s research demonstrated. This willingness to challenge traditional land management practices as well as his work ethic earned him the respect of Johnson and members of his thesis committee. As Johnson wrote, “Mr. Brunswig is deeply concerned about environmental Page 157 →problems and has the idealism that I think a conservationist should have, yet he is practical in his thinking and has the technical knowledge required to evaluate the complex and emotionally charged issues of the time.” It is not clear how much this letter contributed to the National Audubon Society hiring the young Norm Brunswig to steward its new sanctuary in Harleyville, South Carolina, but this combination of idealism and pragmatism guided Brunswig’s management of Beidler Forest for the next forty years and set a new course for the future of Four Holes Swamp. Indeed, Johnson’s letter was so prescient in its characterization that it might be used in a retrospective when considering Norm’s success at Beidler.¹⁵

Despite his childhood in the marsh, experience as a naturalist in Big Cypress, and graduate research at the University of Georgia, the move to Four Holes Swamp presented Brunswig with challenges. The new sanctuary was isolated, with limited access and resources. The nearest towns were Harleyville and Holly Hill. Both towns had small grocery and hardware stores for necessities and family doctors and dentists offered quality services, but more complicated medical procedures required a trip to Orangeburg or Charleston. Even finding a place to live proved difficult because what little available housing existed had been taken by workers, who were building Interstate-26. And then there was the challenge of managing a swamp. Brunswig’s priority was to familiarize himself with the 3,415 acres that constituted the original sanctuary. This meant spending countless hours exploring, by canoe and on foot, the main channel of Four Holes and the bottomland hardwood forest surrounding it (see fig. 6.1). He credits Audubon’s flexible oversight with allowing him to dedicate as much as one-third of his time to exploration in those early years, and his wife Beverly’s patience in allowing him to stay in the swamp late into the night. “I made her promise,” he recalled, “not to call the cops until the next morning if I did not come home.” Brunswig preferred a night with the forest denizens over the embarrassment of locals knowing that the new Audubon manager had gotten lost in his own woods.¹⁶

Boundary disputes and local hostility toward conservationists also plagued Brunswig’s early years. As sanctuary manager, Norm was charged with posting “no trespassing signs” and keeping poachers off Audubon property. This was no small task in an area where hunting, fishing, and trapping provided recreation and sustenance for locals who had a tradition of using the swamp as commons and an ability to shoot accurately. Additionally, two and a half centuries of land transactions and surveys that used trees to mark boundaries made determining property lines difficult. Deed-in-hand neighbors often challenged Audubon’s access to its Page 158 →own land. Moreover, locals did not know quite what to make of the “bird refuge.” The Audubon effort had gained support from some nearby residents; however, many rural Dorchester County folks, who earned their living through farming or working for cement plants and lumber companies, held deep reservations about the environmental politics sweeping the nation in the early 1970s. The success of Beidler Forest would require diplomacy and the kind of level-headedness that Brunswig’s academic advisor had praised in this letter of recommendation.¹⁷

Over the first decade, he achieved small victories like the early friendship he formed with Tom Mims and the campaigning he did through fishing clubs. Mims, who owned hundreds of acres next to Beidler Forest and whose family had been in Four Holes since the Revolutionary War era, sold Audubon fifty acres that allowed them access to their property from a main road and the high ground needed for a visitor center. Eventually, Audubon purchased additional acreage from Mims on the bluffs overlooking Mellard Lake, but Tom Mims’s friendship was even more important because he became a local advocate for the sanctuary and proved always willing to lend a hand or a tractor when a staff vehicle got stuck in the mud.¹⁸

Page 159 →Fishing also served to improve public relations. In the early years, Brunswig realized that the exclusive fishing clubs that controlled access to Mims and Mellard Lakes presented the perfect opportunity to build diplomacy. During his early years at Beidler, Brunswig joined and became president of both clubs and then applied membership rules equitably, avoiding the favoritism that dictated the clubs’ operations previously. Members also had to come to the Beidler Forest office to pay dues and attend a meeting annually. These meetings as well as informal conversations near the water provided Brunswig an opportunity to “proselytize” for Audubon and get to know the locals better. Even if he was still regarded as an outsider, Norm’s handling of fishing affairs gave him the reputation as fair, honest, and credible. This reputation eventually carried over to negotiations concerning boundaries and future conservation efforts.¹⁹

While he worked assiduously to improve public relations and patrol boundaries, Brunswig developed a deeper understanding of Four Holes Swamp’s biodiversity. An encounter with ornithologist Paul Hamel contributed to his growth in this regard. Hamel, a recent Clemson University graduate, was searching for the elusive Bachman’s warbler, which was believed to be nearing the fate of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Carolina parakeet. First observed by John James Audubon’s Charleston friend Reverend John Bachman on the Edisto River in 1832, the beautiful yellow and brown warbler had reemerged in ornithological eyes in the late nineteenth century after a fifty-year absence. Fearing its extinction, Charleston naturalist Arthur T. Wayne searched for and located a small population along Florida’s Suwanee River in 1894, and remarkably, to modern sensitivities, proceeded to shoot fifty of them for sale and to enhance his own collection. Some two decades later, Wayne located more of Bachman’s warblers in I’On Swamp near Charleston only to steal eggs from their nests and later shoot the adults for museums. Others were less successful, achieving only scattered sightings in Kentucky, Missouri, Alabama, and again in I’On just after World War II. By the time Hammel met Brunswig in Four Holes Swamp, ornithologists were gravely concerned about the bird’s existence, much less its future. Beidler Forest certainly contained the right habitat for the warblers, which preferred to nest in cane thickets prevalent in bottomland hardwood forests. Still, Hamel and Brunswig spent a week looking for the Bachman’s to no avail.²⁰

Despite their failure to find the rare warbler, Brunswig recalled time with Hamel as significant because it gave him a crash course on bird songs and a deeper understanding of warbler habitat when considering management strategies. Within a few months, Norm could identify by song Page 160 →and sound most of the birds in Four Holes Swamp. This was no mean feat, and in a forested habitat where seeing elusive interior birds proved difficult, it was an essential tool for recognizing species diversity and population size. After Hamel’s visit, Brunswig established two transects for censusing birds: one in the 1,700-acre old-growth cypress stand and another in the 1,700-acre stand that the Beidlers logged before selling their land to Audubon and The Nature Conservancy. These transects provided quantitative and comparative data, and as expected the numbers in the old growth exceeded those in the cutover. Within a few years, however, birds returned to the cutover in surprising quantity and variety, and Brunswig soon realized that reforested lands, though perhaps not as charming as old growth, had potential for conservation strategies moving forward. This realization and his deepening awareness of ecosystem complexity was transformative. As Norm later recalled of his arrival at Four Holes, “I thought the job would be about snakes, alligators, turtles, and big trees,” but he soon discovered that birds would be a primary focus of management, and that second- and third-growth lands could play an integral role in their conservation. Both discoveries would shape his future thinking about land acquisition.²¹

For Beidler Forest to succeed, however, Audubon needed to open the sanctuary to the public. Education had always been a cornerstone of Audubon’s mission, and with Florida’s Corkscrew Swamp as a model, the organization planned a visitor center with nature exhibits and a boardwalk to make the swamp more accessible. This required yet another fund-raising campaign with letters to potential donors describing the ecological significance of the “virgin” cypress-tupelo forest and noting the chance to see alligators and perhaps even a cougar. Civic organizations and individuals were urged to “buy a board” to help fund the boardwalk project (see fig. 6.2). Meanwhile, Brunswig wrote letters and took patrons on canoe trips and hikes. Fortunately, donors responded positively, including the Beidler family, who continued to make large, sustained contributions to the sanctuary, some earmarked for the new visitor center which, like the sanctuary, would be named for Francis Beidler when it finally opened in October 1977.²²

It would be hard to overstate the value of the interpretive center and boardwalk in advancing Audubon’s mission. When Beidler Forest’s 1.75-mile boardwalk opened, it transformed the visitor experience by offering access to a small but significant piece of the swamp’s beauty. Because of Page 161 →its elevation, the boardwalk took the public above the mud and water. For those unfamiliar with swamps, this made the experience palatable and ensured a pleasant stroll through an old-growth ecosystem that otherwise would have seemed daunting. The boardwalk also marked yet another step in the continued evolution of Brunswig’s thinking about Beidler Forest. Given his background as a former biology teacher and interpretive naturalist at Big Cypress, Norm recognized the boardwalk’s potential not only to build community relations and generate revenue but also to inspire people to care more deeply about the environment. “If you want to make true believers, you have to let them in,” and “create as rich of a nature experience for them as you can,” he believed.²³

To provide this kind of experience, Brunswig authored a guidebook for visitors at the interpretive center. His goal was not just to relate nature facts, but to “tell a story and help them feel what was there.” Guests were encouraged to “look carefully here and elsewhere for lizards and salamanders, for the swamp and surrounding woods abound with many species.” Curiosity piqued, walkers entered the cypress-tupelo swamp where, if they continued reading, visitors could see evidence of past fires, seasonal flooding, and the variety of smaller trees that gave the ecosystem its vertical layering. “High in the crowns of these ancient cypress trees,” the Page 162 →guidebook instructed, “exists a world few ever see. There a variety of plants grow on decaying mosses and ferns accumulated for hundreds of years.” “These gardens in the sky,” it added, “are home for many animals.”²⁴

Lest the swamp walk become bogged down in ecology, the public was cautioned to be wary of the eastern cottonmouth, commonly known as water moccasins. Often seen hidden in stump hole dens or basking on logs, these venomous snakes sometimes made their way onto the boardwalk, adding a sense of excitement, anticipation, and danger to the outing. The observation deck at Goodson Lake marked the halfway point and provided the public an opportunity to observe wading birds, turtles, and occasionally alligators. Though gators were more abundant in other parts of Beidler Forest, they were emblematic of swamps in popular culture and, like water moccasins, an element of authenticity for neophytes. River otters also captivated audiences with their playful nature. Otters had been trapped extensively throughout North America since the colonial era, and pollution and habitat loss further reduced their numbers. Beidler Forest’s watery landscape offered a refuge for the otters and a buffet of crawdads and fish. For many, a trip to this Audubon sanctuary was their best chance to see these elusive animals.²⁵

The second half of the walk continued past small ridges with spruce pines, found only on the coastal plain, and large overcup oaks. The guidebook also referenced the tannic water, ecotones, and cypress knees. Those cypress knees that studded the forest floor particularly fascinated visitors. Scientists still debate the exact function of the knees but believe that they either anchor the tree, store starch, or provide gas exchange between the air and roots. Debates aside, enthusiastic observers found them magical and otherworldly. “Everywhere are cypress knees, like forests of ninepins, rising to heights of three to five feet and taking on a variety of sizes and shapes,” swamp chronicler John Dennis wrote. “A knee near the boardwalk reminded me of a rabbit, with two ears rising from a round head. Another looked like a large wave cresting before it was about to break and roll up on the beach.” But enchantment extended beyond the cypress knees, and the comments in the visitors log at Beidler reveal the general excitement that came with observing nature from the boardwalk. On May 17, 1981, for example, visitors reported seeing prothonotary warblers and downy woodpeckers “feeding their fledged young on tree branches.” The same day another couple watched “an active pileated (woodpecker) nest high in a cypress” where “adults were feeding at least 2 young which stuck their heads out of the hole and showed their full crests and colors.”²⁶

Page 163 →Visitor enthusiasm for birds, wildlife, and preserving the environment was shared by the small staff at Beidler, and the naturalist notebooks kept during the 1980s bear witness to the swamp world of Four Holes. There, they recorded weather and water levels, the arrival of spring neotropical migrants and the blooming of wildflowers. Northern parulas and hooded warblers mixed with bloodroot and Atamasco lily in the profusion of spring. Summer entries noted leaf-footed bugs, caterpillar frass, and emerging yellow flies. In fall the ruby-crowned kinglets arrived. Bobcats often slipped across an access road and sometimes killed young deer. Though many observations were made while exploring the forest on foot, canoe trips through the swamp also stirred excitement. On September 20, 1981, naturalists counted over 200 white ibises along with a variety of other wading birds on Mellard Lake, but what came next was even more memorable. “As they watched from a canoe about 100 yards away, they noticed a pair of long-legged birds circling several hundred feet over the ibises,” they recalled. “The birds turned out to be wood storks. Each successive large circle brought the storks lower and closer to the ibises. After 5 or 6 such circles, the storks landed in the trees with the ibises. … After landing in the treetops, the storks remained out of sight and were never seen again. This is the first confirmed sighting of wood storks in Beidler Forest.” The excitement on January 20, 1982, was even more palpable. While watching otters from a canoe, two men saw a “small, dark brown, weasel-like animal … scampering along a log.” Once the creature dove in the water and swam off, the two men paddled closer to get a better look when it stood and looked at them. “It was then that we saw that its otherwise uniformly dark fur had white markings under its chin and throat and that its head and nose and tail were too sharp and fine to be an otter’s. This was the first confirmed sighting of a Mink in Beidler Forest.”²⁷

The boardwalk experience seemed even more magical because it gave visitors a window into the biodiversity of bottomland forests at a time when similar landscapes were rapidly disappearing in South Carolina. The Santee-Cooper Project had destroyed a vast stretch of river bottoms during the 1930s to produce hydroelectric power, but other smaller projects, like Clark’s Hill on the Savannah, had also played a part in the loss of riverine habitat. In his essay “Our Vanishing Bottomland Forests,” environmentalist and Sierra Club member Bob Gale lamented that “the loss of floodplain hardwood forests has been this country’s parallel to the destruction of South America’s emerald-green rainforests.” Only five of the original twenty-five million acres of bottomland remained, and South Carolina’s share was losing ground, and water, quickly. Gale argued that a key factor Page 164 →in this decline was spray irrigation, which robbed these ecosystems of the water that sustained them. As he wrote, “a Salkehatchie River swamp was drained at such a rate its natural flow reversed.” Though Four Holes Swamp never reversed flow, every tributary that fed into the main channel was bordered by farms, many of them relying on irrigation by the 1980s.²⁸

Concerns for the plight of bottomland forests and the species that inhabited them also influenced Norm Brunswig’s thinking about the future of Beidler Forest, and he recognized that preserving the integrity of the sanctuary’s cypress-tupelo core meant expanding and protecting its borders. He had already mounted strong opposition to the Soil Conservation Service’s Horse Range Watershed Drainage Project because of its potential impact on Four Holes. In that effort, he succeeded, but Brunswig knew that land acquisition was necessary for more permanent preservation goals. In 1979, for example, The Nature Conservancy purchased an additional “90 acres of swamp and high ground in Berkeley County” from the Georgia-Pacific Corporation to augment the Beidler Forest holdings. This was an important first step, but in the 1980s Brunswig lobbied Audubon for additional funding to purchase eight more tracts totaling just over 2,000 acres. One parcel, the 98-acre Moorer property, bordered the sanctuary’s entrance and presented the threat of “disruptive or unsightly development” as had taken place on the edge of Corkscrew much to Audubon’s regret. Portions of the Moorer farmland might also be traded to local farmers for their forest land closer to the swamp’s core or used to establish a colony of endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers. Brunswig also urged the purchase of the “Mims Swamp Property.” Tom Mims had already sold some land to Audubon in the early years and proved a good neighbor and friend to Brunswig, but it was feared that he might sell his floodplain and upland forest adjacent to Beidler Forest to developers.²⁹

Five parcels in Brunswig’s land acquisition report to Audubon belonged to Georgia-Pacific and represented a different threat. Holly Hill Lumber Company had expanded its timber harvest and production significantly during the 1960s and 1970s before selling its sawmill, fiberboard plant, and landholdings to Georgia-Pacific in 1981. As one of the nation’s largest pulpwood and paper producers, the company focused on converting forests of all varieties to pine plantations and, in Four Holes, logging what little was left of the merchantable timber that Holly Hill Lumber had not taken. Among the Georgia-Pacific parcels, Brunswig viewed the 1,686 Page 165 →acres closer to Beidler Forest as a critical upstream buffer for the sanctuary. As his land acquisition report stated, “swamp logging today involves the construction of high-fill roads, with the associated silting and hydrologic alteration.” Acquiring the Georgia-Pacific property also made sense from a management perspective because it gave Audubon a way to monitor poachers, maintain boundaries, and employ fire lines. The purchase price for all the tracts combined was around $1.5 million. To raise money, the National Audubon Society appealed to donors by sending out a brochure, which highlighted the beauty and ecological significance of Beidler Forest. The brochure noted that, “Ancient groves of cypress tower over clear pools and blackwater sloughs and form a natural cathedral of buttressed trees.” It highlighted rare plants like the dwarf trillium and green-fly orchid and a wide variety of animals in the forest and emphasized the importance of Beidler Forest for scientific research and educating the public about the value of old growth cypress swamps. Eventually, the fund-raising campaign was successful in expanding Beidler Forest to almost 6,000 acres.³⁰

The brochure and Norm’s acquisition report also reveal a deeper understanding of buffers and emerging science on habitat fragmentation. Paramount to preserving biodiversity was ensuring water quality and flow by protecting buffer zones along the main channel and branches that fed it. It was especially important to preserve the seeps that trickle through the limestone bluffs and give damp sanctuary to amphibians and invertebrates during dry spells. The limestone bluffs on the Mims tract contained dozens of these seeps, creating microhabitats that were as essential to biodiversity as the majestic cypress trees. Buffers also provide migratory forest interior birds protection from “hostile edges” and encroachment from agriculture as well as residential and commercial development. Given the Audubon Society’s origins, birds remained a top priority. In an analysis of breeding censuses one study found that Beidler Forest had the fourth highest density of nesting pairs of songbirds per acre and ranked first in sites east of the Mississippi. These findings were reassuring, but they also placed added pressure on the sanctuary to maintain and expand buffer zones through land acquisition and by embracing the principles of landscape ecology becoming more prevalent in bird conservation.³¹

Ornithologists had long been interested in the best way to manage ecosystems for healthy bird populations. As early as the 1930s, James Tanner, who spent years searching southeastern swamps for the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, argued that birds inhabiting old-growth forests required a core of preserved habitat surrounded by sustainably managed bottomlands. Thirty years later, Tanner’s concerns were confirmed by Page 166 →the emerging theory of island biogeography, which helped transform the way ecologists understood the destructive impact of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity. Meanwhile, scientists produced works on edge effects, patch dynamics, and the importance of corridors to sustaining wildlife populations. By the 1980s, when Audubon began expanding its reach in Four Holes, a clearer understanding of landscape ecology was emerging. In the case of birds, habitat fragmentation leads to lower species richness, reduced fertility, and an increased vulnerability to disease. Small, isolated populations simply have a lower chance of survival. For forest interior birds, fragmentation also increases exposure to hostile edges. The best ways to mitigate habitat fragmentation are through preserving large, complex ecosystems and establishing wildlife corridors that allow safe passage for birds and other wildlife. Patches produced by natural disturbances such as hurricanes or fire can also add complexity and provide valuable resources for birds that specialize in early successional habitat. Likewise, some species of birds thrive on forest edges. As one landscape ecologist wrote, “preserving these specialized species requires large, interconnected expanses of natural habitat … large enough to support a full range of successional stages, from newly disturbed areas where the vegetation is regenerating, to long undisturbed sites where the vegetation is relatively stable.” Or, as Norm Brunswig says, “When it comes to birds, bigger is better.”³²

These ideas were validated by the impact of Hurricane Hugo, a Category 4 storm that ravaged South Carolina in 1989. Hugo made landfall just north of Charleston on September 22 with sustained winds near 140 miles per hour and headed northwestward, leaving a path of destruction in its wake, and severely damaging the Palmetto State’s forests. The US Forest Service estimated the loss of the state’s softwood inventory at 23 percent and hardwood inventory at 6 percent, but in some areas the loss was catastrophic. Francis Marion National Forest in Berkeley County, for example, lost 75 percent of its trees, and Hobcaw Barony, north of Georgetown, lost 90 percent of its longleaf and loblolly pine stands. At Beidler, the hurricane destroyed or damaged 80 percent of the bottomland hardwood forest and took direct aim at the specimen trees in the old-growth tract. Yet, all was not lost. Brunswig observed that some secondary growth forests withstood the storm relatively well. Hugo also left gaps or pockets of damage that young vegetation and cover-loving birds like white-eyed vireos and hooded warblers quickly inhabited. And, in keeping with his ability to learn through experience, Brunswig’s thinking deepened regarding gap dynamics and the role that Page 167 →secondary growth forests could play in creating a resilient conservation landscape. Bigger is better, but size without variety and complexity can be a vulnerability.³³

Audubon could not simply purchase all of Four Holes Swamp, however, and magnifying the reach of Beidler Forest to ensure biodiversity and create a resilient landscape required imaginative thinking about environmental preservation to complement land acquisition. During the 1990s and the early 2000s, Brunswig expanded his conservation toolkit to include easements, federal funding, mitigation, and hunt club leases. Brunswig especially has credited conservation easements with transforming the vision of habitat preservation and bringing private landowners on board with Audubon’s mission throughout the Four Holes Swamp watershed. Conservation easements became increasingly popular for environmental protection and land stewardship in the early 1980s after the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made them tax deductible. In most cases, these easements involved an agreement between landowners and conservation organizations that restricted certain uses of the land in exchange for a tax deduction. Easements allowed families to retain ownership and continue to use land for hunting and fishing but prevented sale, subdivision, and development. Easements also allowed private landowners to maintain traditional land uses, such as farming and timber harvesting. In this way, Brunswig and landowners in the Four Holes Swamp watershed developed a cooperative relationship in the name of conservation. Water quality and valuable habitat were preserved, but so was the cultural landscape that rural South Carolinians treasured.³⁴

Another way that Brunswig merged environmental and cultural preservation was through hunting club leases. Hunting had long been a staple of South’s Carolina’s culture landscape as exemplified by the works of writers such as Archibald Rutledge and Havilah Babcock. In Orangeburg, Dorchester, and Berkeley counties, driving deer with dogs was the preferred method of hunting due to the social nature of the orchestrated drives and the excitement of the chase. Hunting with dogs required large acreage, and few local landowners held pieces of property large enough to accommodate the tradition. Even for still hunters, clubs allowed access to a wider deer population by collectively leasing large tracts of land. In Four Holes Swamp, hunt clubs often leased land from timber companies, and as Beidler Forest expanded its landholdings, Brunswig recognized this practice as an important way to generate income and regulate trespassing. Hunt club members also maintained and improved access roads and fire lines. In this way, Brunswig formed local partnerships to benefit the goals Page 168 →of Audubon in Four Holes Swamp while also contributing to the protection of cultural landscapes.³⁵

The USDA’s Wetland Reserve Program (WRP) proved fundamental to Brunswig’s plan. The WRP had its origins in a 1980s compromise bill between fiscal conservatives and environmentalists, which denied farm subsidies on crops grown on wetlands that had been converted to agriculture. Resistance to the lost subsidies was strong, so rather than focusing on subsidy restriction, the WRP attempted to slow the conversions by paying farmers to retire their wetland acreage from production for ten years. The WRP program also extended to wetland restoration projects. For example, much of the original land Audubon and The Nature Conservancy purchased from the Beidlers contained elevated logging roads that impeded the natural flow of water through Four Holes Swamp. With WRP funding, Audubon and the Natural Resources Conservation Service lowered the old roads and restored the natural hydrology of the swamp and placed more than 6,000 acres in conservation easements.³⁶

Additionally, Brunswig recognized the importance of mitigation, a tool often used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to offset lost waterfowl habitat due to the construction of dams and reservoirs across the nation. Mitigation, as applied to wetlands, allows infrastructure and/or development projects in violation of the Clean Water Act to mitigate the damage by paying to protect wetlands somewhere else. Mitigation gained popularity as an environmental management tool in the 1970s and expanded during the 1980s under the Army Corps of Engineers because, as historian Ann Vileisis has noted, “Reagan’s regulatory relief agenda pushed the Corps to speed its processing of permits, [so] consulting agencies felt they had no alternative but to recommend mitigation.” On the surface, mitigation appeared a good compromise for industry and developers looking to fill, dredge, or alter wetlands and the environmentalists who hoped to protect as many of these ecologically significant areas as possible. Though mitigation sometimes results in creating artificial wetlands that do not function well, when done strategically mitigation has allowed organizations like the Audubon Society to enhance their holdings around Beidler Forest as the threat of Charleston’s growth and expansion northward proceeds at a rapid pace. Although mitigation may seem antithetical to environmentalism, (too much like making a deal with the devil) when combined with land acquisition, easements, and public and private funding it has led to Beidler Forest’s growth to over 18,000 acres and extended conservation to private lands beyond its holdings.³⁷

Page 169 →Protecting Four Holes Swamp is still a work in progress. In 2024, the Beidler Forest faces threats from sand mining, climate change, and the relentless sprawl of commercial and residential development emanating from Charleston (see fig. 6.3). These challenges will require continued resourcefulness and outreach if biodiversity and cultural landscapes are to be preserved and past exploitation addressed. Beidler Forest, for example, is now designated a carbon sink, which allows the sanctuary to sell carbon credits in the global effort to combat climate change. Likewise, recent efforts to designate Beidler Forest as a stop on the Underground Railroad mark a major step toward recognizing the importance of the swamp for freedom seekers. As environmental historian, Mark Fiege has written, “if preservation is to have any use … it must revive and deepen its democratic roots. The act of saving and protecting need not be imagined as serving only a separate, nonhuman end.” In this spirit, a canoeist on a paddle through Beidler in 1991 noted, “we entered as intruders, talking in loud voices and swirling up mud … but the forest absorbed us and we were now speaking softly, attentive to the bark-covered pillars around us.” She later reflected that “the stillness was unruffled, and I realized that as the Beidler sanctuary, on a night walk, had once taught me about the darkness of night untainted by city lights, now it was offering the balm of seclusion.”³⁸

Page 170 →The history of Beidler Forest and Norm Brunswig’s work offers a model for what might be accomplished through collaborative conservation as environmentalists seek to create space for non-human species to thrive and for humans to connect with them. It also reveals the importance of the individual in affecting environmental change at the local level. Justifiably, historians have focused on the life and work of figures such as Rachel Carson and Aldo Leopold or on the important regulatory legislation of the 1970s in producing environmental change. These approaches to the movement have often failed to recognize the significant work performed at the grassroots or cypress-knee level by pragmatic visionaries like Brunswig. Limited by budgetary concerns and constrained by local ambivalence toward environmentalism, Norm relied on those traits his academic advisor Sydney Johnson recognized in him even as a graduate student: idealism balanced with practical and technical knowledge. His diplomatic skills assuaged tensions with most of Beidler Forest’s neighbors, persuaded Audubon’s real estate division to support his acquisitions, and facilitated easements and leases that made expansion of conservation in Four Holes successful. His trial-and-error approach to land management exemplified a willingness to learn and commitment to getting things right. Most importantly, Norm’s devotion to sharing nature and making Beidler accessible to the public inspired visitors, including the author as a young boy, to become passionate about the environment.³⁹

1. 1. Lawrence Walkinshaw, “Life-History of the Prothonotary Warbler,” Wilson Bulletin 65, no. 3 (September 1953): 152–16; Charles R. Blem and Leann B. Blem, “Composition and Microclimate of Prothonotary Warbler Nests,” Auk 111, no. 1 (January 1994): 197–200; James E. Lyons, “Habitat-Specific Foraging of Prothonotary Warblers: Deducing Habitat Quality,” Condor 107, no. 1 (February 2005): 41–49; William E. Davis and Oliver Komar, “Prothonotary Warbler Eats Lizard,” Wilson Bulletin 115, no. 1 (March 2003), 102; Jared D. Wolfe and Erik I. Johnson, “Geolocator Reveals Migratory and Winter Movements of a Prothonotary Warbler,” Journal of Field Ornithology 86, no. 3 (September 2015): 238–43; Jeffrey P. Hoover, “Decision Rules for Site Fidelity in a Migratory Bird, the Prothonotary Warbler.” Ecology 84, no. 2. (2003): 416–30; Matt Johnson, “Geolocators Provide Clues About Prothonotary Warblers, and How to Protect Them,” https://beidler.audubon.org/.
2. 2. At the time of this writing, Francis Beidler Forest owned 17,939 acres in the Four Holes Swamp watershed and an additional 406 acres on the Edisto River. On key principles for reconstructing conservation in the twenty first century, see Rolf Diamont, J. Glenn Eugster, and Nora J. Mitchell, “Reinventing Conservation: A Page 171 →Practitioner’s View,” in Ben A. Minter and Robert E. Manning, eds. Reconstructing Conservation: Finding Common Ground (Island Press, 2003), 313–26
3. 3. “Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave,” The Emancipator, August 23, September 13, September 20, October 11, October 18, 1838, https://docsouth.unc.edu/. This source is believed to be written by James Matthews though no author was originally attributed to the article. David S. Cecelski, The Waterman’s Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina (University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Kathryn Elise Benjamin Golden, “Through the Muck and Mire: Marronage, Representation, and Memory in the Great Dismal Swamp,” (PhD diss. [unpublished], University of California, Berkeley, 2018); Scott Giltner, “Slave Hunting and Fishing in the Antebellum South,” in Dianne D. Glave and Mark Stoll, eds., “To Love the Wind and the Rain:” African Americans and Environmental History (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), 21–36; Londa Schiebinger, Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017);
4. 4. Ann Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape: A History of America’s Wetlands (Island Press, 1997), 166–28; Phillip Hoose, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), 29–34.; “William O’Brien, George A. Lammers, Albert Lammers, and Ernest B. Putnam to Minnesota-South Carolina Land and Timber Company, Conveyance of Real Estate and Timber Rights of Way, etc. 12 February 1912,” Halsey Lumber Company records, 1904–1909, Theodore Dehon Jervey Family Papers, 1869–1947, South Carolina Historical Society; M. J. Forsell, “The First Swedish Bride in Minnesota,” Swedish American Genealogist 21, no. 4 (December 1, 2001); “Stillwater Lumberman George Lammers,” October 25, 2007, https://www.presspubs.com/. Also see, Donald Empson, “Heirloom Home: George and Ida Lammers House,” http://www.stillwater-mn.org/.
5. 5. “Letters from Fred R. Seeley, manager of the Santee River Cypress Lumber Mill, Ferguson, SC, to attorney and conservationists Henry Savage, Jr., Camden, SC,” May 4, 1953 and May 27, 1953, South Caroliniana Library, Columbia, SC; Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), January 24, 1971; Francis Beidler II to W. Carlyle Blakeney, April 25, 1974.
6. 6. Frank Graham, Jr., The Audubon Ark: A History of The National Audubon Society (Alfred Knopf, 1990), 14–40; Hoose, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird, 35–58; Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape, 151–56.
7. 7. Though all bird feathers were valuable, breeding plumage of wading birds like the snowy egret were most highly prized. Stuart B. McIver, Death in the Everglades: The Murder of Guy Bradley: America’s First Martyr to Environmentalism (University Press of Florida, 2003); Graham, The Audubon Ark, 55–67; Watchman and Southron (Sumter, SC), September 30, 1908; Bamberg (SC) Herald, September 24, 1908; Second Annual Report of the Audubon Society of South Carolina (Gonzales and Bryan State Printers, 1909), South Carolina Department of Archives; Third Annual Report of the Audubon Society of South Carolina (Gonzales and Bryan State Printers, 1910), South Carolina Department of Archives.
8. 8. Second Annual Report of the Audubon Society of South Carolina; Third Annual Report of the Audubon Society of South Carolina.
9. 9. Page 172 →Graham, Audubon Ark, 193–95.
10. 10. News release from The Nature Conservancy, January 10, 1971, NASR, NYPL; Post and Courier (Charleston, SC), January 24, 1971.
11. 11. Graham, The Audubon Ark, 250–52; No author, “Partnership for Preservation,” South Carolina Wildlife, May-June 1974, 34–39; https://www.nature.org/.
12. 12. The following content on Norm Brunswig’s life and work comes from series of interviews conducted with the author between September 2022 and December 2023.
13. 13. Norman L. Brunswig to John M. Anderson, December 6, 1972; Norman L. Brunswig Resume; Charles H. Callison to Robert Boardman, August 15, 1973, in National Audubon Society Records (NASR), New York Public Library (NYPL).
14. 14. Way, Albert, “Herbert L. Stoddard,” New Georgia Encyclopedia, last modified Aug 17, 2015, https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/; Donald Worster, Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas, 2nd ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 364–70; Betty Jean Craige, Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist (University of Georgia Press, 2001).
15. 15. Brunswig Interviews; Brunswig to Anderson; A. Sydney Johnson to John M. Anderson, December 15, 1972, NASR, NYPL.
16. 16. Brunswig Interviews; Brunswig to Anderson; A. Sydney Johnson to John M. Anderson, December 15, 1972, NASR, NYPL.
17. 17. Brunswig interviews; Richard Bishop to Elvis Stahr, May 20, 1976; Charles H. Callison to Richard Bishop, May 24, 1976; R. Markley Dennis, Jr., to Richard Bishop, June 24, 1976; Charles H. Callison to W. Carlyle Blakeney, Jr., October 19, 1975; Patrick Noonan to Charles H. Callison, in NASR, NYPL.
18. 18. Brunswig interviews.
19. 19. Brunswig interviews; Norman L. Brunswig, Kenneth J. Strom, and Stephen G. Winton, A Plan for the Management of The Francis Beidler Forest a National Audubon Society Sanctuary, July 1, 1981, Francis Beidler Audubon Sanctuary.
20. 20. Brunswig Interviews; Paul B. Hamel, Bachman’s Warbler: A Species in Peril (Smithsonian Institute Press, 1986); Scott Weidensaul, The Ghost with Trembling Wings: Science, Wishful Thinking, and the Search for Lost Species (North Point Press, 2002), 17–18.
21. 21. Brunswig interviews.
22. 22. “An Invitation to Buy a Piece of the Boardwalk at Four Holes Swamp,” undated document; Francis Beidler III to Charles H. Callison, June 12, 1975; Charles H. Callison to Elvis Stahr, November 24, 1975; W. Carlyle Blakeney, Jr. to Grant Simmons, Jr., January 15, 1976, Louis Hyde to Norm Brunswig, March 4, 1977; Walter F. Pate and James Paddock, “A Visitor/Interpretive Center for National Audubon Society, Francis Beidler Forest, Four Holes Swamp, Dorchester, South Carolina,” May 19 1976, in NASR, NYPL.
23. 23. Brunswig interviews.
24. 24. Norman L. Brunswig and Stephen G. Winton, The Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp: A Self-Guided Tour of the Boardwalk (National Audubon Society, 1978). I draw from the 1970s edition, which was used throughout the 1980s.
25. 25. Brunswig and Winton, The Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp.
26. 26. Page 173 →Brunswig and Winton, The Francis Beidler Forest in Four Holes Swamp; John Dennis, The Great Cypress Swamps (Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 69–70; “Visitor Comment Book,” Francis Beidler Audubon Sanctuary.
27. 27. “Naturalist Notebooks,” Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Sanctuary.
28. 28. Bob Gale, “Our Vanishing Bottomland Forests,” South Carolina Wildlife, May–June 1986, 38–45.
29. 29. National Audubon Society, Report on Field Review of the Sanctuary System, September 1, 1986; National Audubon Society, The Francis Beidler Forest Land Acquisition Fund.
30. 30. National Audubon Society, Report on Field Review of the Sanctuary System; National Audubon Society, The Francis Beidler Forest Land Acquisition Fund.
31. 31. National Audubon Society, The Francis Beidler Forest Land Acquisition Fund; Memo, The Nature Conservancy, September 20, 1977; Ernest Brooks, Jr. to George H. Taber, December 8, 1977, NASR, NYPL.
32. 32. Robert A. Askins, Restoring North America’s Birds, Lessons from Landscape Ecology (Yale University Press, 2000), 99–130, 229–45, quote on p. 238; Jodi A. Hilty, William Z. Lidiker, Jr., Adina M. Merenlender, Corridor Ecology: The Science and Practice of Linking Landscapes for Biodiversity Conservation (Island Press, 2006); Lenore Fahrig, “Relative Effects of Habitat Loss and Fragmentation on Population Extinction,” Journal of Wildlife Management 61, no. 3 (1997): 603–10.
33. 33. Raymond M. Sheffield and Michael T. Thompson, Hurricane Hugo: Effects on South Carolina’s Forest Resource (Southeastern Forest Experiment Station, June 1992); Brunswig interviews.
34. 34. Brunswig interviews. Brunswig’s work has been complemented by the important work of the Lord Berkeley Conservation Trust, which holds an easement on 1,232 acres at the headwaters of Four Holes Swamp.
35. 35. Brunswig interviews.
36. 36. Brunswig interviews; Ann Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape, 300–305.
37. 37. Vileisis, Discovering the Unknown Landscape, 323; Catherine Owen Korning and Sharon M. Ashworth, Wading Right In: Discovering the Nature of Wetlands (University of Chicago Press, 2019), 196–218.
38. 38. Mark Fiege, “The Democratic Promise of Nature Preservation,” in Ben A. Minter and Stephen J. Pyne, eds. After Preservation: Saving American Nature in the Age of Humans (University of Chicago Press, 2015), 114–22; New York Times, May 12, 1991.
39. 39. The author extends his gratitude to Norman Brunswig and Beverly Brunswig for their generosity and hospitality as well as the staff at the Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Sanctuary for their assistance and time.