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Everglades Day is coming in February and Sylvia Pelizza brings us the latest on Everglades issues and research at our February meeting. Wildlife and wild places have always been important to Sylvia Pelizza and her family. Since 2008 Sylvia has been the manager, then project leader, at the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. Her husband Charlie manages the newly established Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and Conservation Area. Sylvia brings over 30 years of experience at U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service posts, managing diverse national wildlife refuge habitats including East coast salt and freshwater habitats, Dakota’s native prairie, Southwest saline wetland and deserts, tropical forests on Oahu and now our own unique Everglades habitat. With this breadth of experience, it is easy to see why supervisor, David Riker, recently announced that Sylvia will be the field based Area Supervisor for the “Subtropics,” which will initially include the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee and Hobe Sound Complex, the Florida Keys NWR Complex, and after a transition period by the end of the fiscal year, the Caribbean NWR Complex including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. In addition to all of these experiences, Sylvia has worked as a Type II wildland firefighter, studied endangered species issues on refuges, and has worked with Congressional staff, local federal, state, and county agencies, non-profit organizations, established advisory groups, scientists, consumer groups, the media, and other interested public parties. In between all of this, she manages to keep up with her two teenagers!
visit sylvia_pelizza@fws.gov to learn more — Sylvia’s vision for the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is to improve water quality and quantity; reduce invasive exotic plant populations and meet maintenance control levels; continue and enhance the environmental education program; support prescribed burning activities; improve visitor opportunities; and maintain science integrity in all research and biological activities on the Refuge.
The meeting is free and open to the public – join us at Pine Jog Environmental Education Center,rooms 101 and 102,6301 W. Summit Blvd.,in West Palm Beach. The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. Refreshments are served beforehand,so come at 7:00!
