When: Friday, September 26 from 9 am to 12 pm

Where: SAHC’s Bowditch Bottoms Preserve in Yancey County, NC

Join the North Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy for volunteer work day and invasive plant species removal at SAHC’s Bowditch Bottoms Preserve in Yancey County.

Originally protected as a conservation easement in 2020, the landowners donated the land to SAHC in 2023. (With SAHC’s ownership of the land, the conservation easement was assigned to our partners at Blue Ridge Conservancy.) Bowditch Bottoms contains mixed hardwood forest, cleared agricultural fields, valuable wetland habitat within the South Toe River Watershed, and a riparian area that buffers over a half mile of Ayles Creek.

We will focus our workday along the creek targeting Japanese knotweed. The significant length of natural stream and several wetland areas makes this property stand out as an opportunity for restoration projects (clean ups, invasive species removal, revegetation with native plants) that will directly benefit wildlife and multiple habitat types. This is part of a long-term process to restore the land – which will also include planting native species in the stream corridor. We will be working on a management plan for the property over the next year.

This is one of a series of collaborative volunteer work days on SAHC-conserved land organized by our partners at NC Wildlife Federation.