Pocosin and similar wetlands containing a dense shrub layer, an open, mature-pine canopy, and few mid-story trees occur in a part of the refuge southeast of Lake Drummond, commonly referred to as “the Blocks” (fig. 1). Each Block consists of  approximately 1 square mile (640 acres) of wetlands bounded by ditches on all sides. Approximately 2,171 acres of these wetlands potentially can be restored, managed, and preserved to provide habitat suitable for reintroduction of the red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis) (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2004). The red-cockaded woodpecker (fig. 3) has been listed as a federally endangered species throughout its range since October 13, 1970. The current population of red-cockaded woodpeckers is estimated to be about three percent of the population present during initial European settlement. The red-cockaded woodpecker requires an open, mature pine forest with little mid-story vegetation for foraging habitat and for boring nesting cavities. Invading hardwood species, primarily red maple (Acer rubrum), however, are filling the mid-story and canopy in the Blocks and, therefore, must be harvested and prevented from returning so that this habitat can be restored, maintained, and preserved. Periodic fire also is one of the essential elements needed to maintain this type of habitat such that prescribed burning is one of the key management tools. Harvesting of the hardwoods and prescribed burns, therefore, will help restore, maintain, and preserve the pocosins as habitat needed by red-cockaded woodpeckers.

Management of water levels in the Blocks will be essential to the success of restoring, maintaining, and preserving these pine-forest habitats. To properly manage water levels in the Blocks, the interactions between water levels in the ditches and groundwater levels near the ditches and in the interior of the Blocks need to be studies and understood. Precipitation likely is the primary source of groundwater to the Blocks. Groundwater levels, therefore, can be managed partly by controlling water levels in the ditches by use of the water-control structures and hence, controlling the discharge of groundwater from the wetlands to the ditches. Controlling groundwater levels will help limit the tree species present and maintain sufficient soil moisture to protect the organic peat soils and tree and shrub roots during prescribed burns.

Removal of a large number of hardwoods from the Blocks, however, could appreciably reduce evapotranspiration rates and raise groundwater levels during the growing season. Roots of the pine trees likely have grown to depths adapted to current groundwater levels. With shallower groundwater levels, parts of the pond-pine root systems could remain in saturated soils throughout the growing season, thereby creating prolonged stress that could damage or kill some of these mature pine trees and severely damage the habitat that is to be restored. Such stress likely would reduce growth rates of surviving trees and could be reflected in tree growth rings. Such impacts need to be considered and the ability to mitigate them through management of the ditch system needs to be assessed.

Water quality also is thought to be a critical element of pocosins and similar systems. Precipitation typically is thought to be the only natural outside source of water to these systems and the atmosphere, therefore, is the primary source of nutrients (ombrotrophic). Because this nutrient supply is extremely limited, inputs from other outside sources could adversely alter the nutrient chemistry and budgets and other characteristics of these wetland systems. The ditches throughout the Blocks and sheet flow across the refuge could become significant transport pathways for nutrients, particularly if areas west of the refuge become developed for either agricultural or urban uses. A study of the hydrology and nutrient chemistry, therefore, is essential to the success of restoring, maintaining, and preserving the pine-forest habitat for the red-cockaded woodpecker.