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Coming up... An abandoned coal mine gets new a rare celebrity sighting and Catoctin's fiery past.

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ANNOUNCER: Outdoors Maryland with the Maryland Department DNR: inspired by nature, [waves crashing] Closed Captioning has been made empowering those who are deaf, or speech disabled * * NARRATOR: They arrive on a damp a caravan of thrill-seekers in and some rugged mountain terrain to the limit.

PARK VISITOR: So, and safety equipment.

NARRATOR: Off-Road Vehicle Alliance is at Wolf Den Run State Park ...And they're off, navigating named for the north branch of the property's Southeastern For Shelley Argabrite, SHELLEY ARGABRITE: Because you what's in front of you, groceries or all the other NARRATOR: The first section of opened in 2019.

Wolf Den Run is the only state It welcomes everyone, for off-road vehicle Park Manager Donny Oates has DONNY OATES: It's like the because before the state it was called the So, you know they put a lot of before we got it.

NARRATOR: Before that the land mined for coal.

The land's new incarnation 40 miles of trails, based on its technical features.

Like a ski slope, they range Today's group is riding mostly [dirt bike engine revs] the slag pile.

RANGER JOHN FORD: All of this on the ground is left over from the old coal mines that NARRATOR: And according to this vestige of the park's of its most popular spots.

RANGER JOHN: We'll have people a good part of their day here, and eating lunch here.

It's probably got the most of the whole system as well.

NARRATOR: Brian Johnson, is a first timer who let for the climb and subsequent BRIAN JOHNSON We almost I thought, I'd be really upset the car or something like that it was just a tremendous amount MAX ANTHONY: Back up with BRIAN: And then to work together out how to get it out Thank you.

Nice Max.

Nice.

NARRATOR: The goal is not only from damaging the vehicles, from further damaging abused for decades.

It takes conscientious riders MAX: There's no trails through That's a big thing to keep out of our streams.

If you go through some of these it splashes out into the field back into the puddle that that sediment's not leaving NARRATOR: As a state park, recreation with stewardship.

Certain parts of the park strictly off limits to to reclaim the wilderness here.

That's where Maryland Department Dan Feller comes in.

DAN FELLER: I should do it.

It's like about 2,500 feet DONNY: Alright.

NARRATOR: Today, Dan and Donny outcropping in the Huckleberry traversing precarious crevices, of the endangered Allegheny DAN: It's an awesome I've seen old woodrat sign here, they're here anymore.

We're hoping that when the they're going to recolonize this in the state forest.

DONNY: Yeah.

Look at these crevices, some of these are 20, This is great Allegheny woodrat This rock out crop goes for NARRATOR: There are only about in Maryland, When Dan started studying them Wolf Den Run isn't one of them, DAN: This particular outcrop They took away most of the which would be the food supply So, it doesn't appear that it's but there's old sign.

They used to be here and on the state forest.

So, we're expecting that this in the future as the NARRATOR: To find an active you have to head about 15 miles on Savage Mountain known as DAN: Rocks are a little We have our first woodrat It looks like a latrine; on the rock.

NARRATOR: Dan and his assistant, keep track of the resident through trapping and tagging.

DAN: Oh, we have a woodrat.

One of the neat things about is that it's a species that It's not the rat that you see Those rats were introduced This is a native rat.

NARRATOR: These cute little of the ecosystem.

Helping the plants by moving seeds around, Instead, in piles called "middens."

DAN: Here, This is really cool.

This is woodrat's gather up and non-food items.

They kind of put them It's where the name Some of these sticks have This little spot's been used through many ancestors.

And its kind of neat, ... 1090 grams.

NARRATOR: Dan hopes that by at Wolf Den Run, one day soon, latrines, and the lovable long DAN: This small mammal just and these remote rock out crops.

So, it's an indicator that and a little bit of NARRATOR: potential woodrat habitat, after another exhilarating day.

To get the full experience, Brian finishes out the day by BRIAN: It is what I thought with a minor adjustment, with people than it is just A lot of standing around, getting to know people.

MAX: You get to be out places wouldn't have been if it wasn't * NARRATOR: On a gray January Day, interrupts the dreary winter in Montgomery County: the aptly GABRIEL FOLEY: It's this small that's just extraordinarily It's green and blue and red.

It's vibrant.

It's fabulous.

NARRATOR: First spotted on this solitary straggler's nearly 1000 miles north of wintering grounds, of eager birders.

Among them, Gabriel Foley.

GABRIEL: He's down at almost where there's a little I came out to see this bird for I got an alert that had shown up and I thought, I've got to see in Maryland."

It may have gotten up here just It could be a genetic thing to the wrong place.

But here he is all by himself, with the drabber brown Sparrows his celebrity status a little NARRATOR: But while this is something of an anomaly, birders might have more Painted Buntings in the future, pushes the species summer from Florida and Georgia into In fact, in 2017, of Painted Buntings nesting during something called the GABRIEL: A Breeding Bird and document all of the birds within a certain region.

NARRATOR: And Maryland's own the state's third since the with Gabriel at the helm as GABRIEL: It started last and it's going to run for The objective is to try and get and to find every single I think that it's a possibility Painted Buntings nesting NARRATOR: Already, Atlas have Southern transplant, EMILY: The Mississippi kite in the Southeast and also in the there's starting to come up.

And now, we have a well-known NARRATOR: Smack dab in the EMILY: I'll be documenting this It is a pair that have nested and being fed.

So, it has the highest NARRATOR: Emily Wong is one of many who make this science project possible.

GABRIEL: All of the data And it's just this We've got about a thousand with it right now.

NARRATOR: Today, Emily is at Wildlife Management Area where she also serves as the EMILY WONG: Atlas is Basically you bird, In addition, you spend a little of the birds that you see.

NARRATOR: And logging any For example, carrying food for its young into platform called "E-bird," to everything from the the right habitat at to singing, to nest building, to actually spotting a baby bird GABRIEL: And anybody can go and see the results.

So, if you wanted to see...well, in Maryland, and you can find where the NARRATOR: EMILY: The whole state and DC are 1300, 1302 blocks, three by three mile areas.

And each sighting is tied Blocks are usually best taken adopting them.

So, a volunteer birder will bird covering all the different NARRATOR: Whether woodland, farmland, suburbs, wetland, or water, Dave Brinker is the central with the Maryland Department DAVE BRINKER: you want to develop breeding of birds.

My approach is, that are breeding on Highlands NARRATOR: Not to mention to protect the vulnerable Today, he's out on the water with Worcester County Atlas Dave Wilson, Atlasing... DAVE WILSON: I saw three and I can see a number of in here too.

So that means that's Well, you know the Breeding Bird over the past 20 years.

And the 20 years before that NARRATOR: Including, like the Brown Pelican, here in 1986, and some losses birds like the common tern in 2016.

Plus, a lot of movement.

VOLUNTEER: These water birds that don't have predators that comes and goes and so move around.

NARRATOR: Take this island, currently home to nesting Double Crested Cormorant VOLUNTEER: Twenty years ago, on this island.

Twenty years ago, NARRATOR: Created using dredged erosion and sea level rise have at this once much larger island.

VOLUNTEER: At the rate it's it probably doesn't make it And it's gone.

NARRATOR: The latest in a long but where the Atlas is it can be just as important to aren't breeding as it is to know GABRIEL: You can use this and see how bird distribution here in the region.

NARRATOR: And by correlating deforestation, development, and climate change, scientists can begin to unravel best protect the state's both for their sake EMILY: It sounds funny, I have a lot of memories of eye to eye with a bird, or a bird just sat still for me Those types of connections * NARRATOR: 16 square miles of with two world class parks, managed by the Department of and Catoctin Mountain Park under Both lie side by side in the just West of Frederick in of the Appalachian mountain The parks feature seven some with cabins, and miles, including the 26-mile-long Catoctin National Recreation A 43-acre Hunting Creek Lake is of summer.

And at 78 feet Cunningham Falls cascading waterfall in Maryland.

This amazing recreation area for over a half a million But 200 years ago, Ruins scattered along the and in other areas of the parks and molten iron, the industrial revolution.

[somber drum music] From 1776 to 1903, held sway over this land and [somber drum music] SAM MACER: Certainly, Isn't it?

You just have to wonder, enslaved labor, immigrant labor, what they experienced every day.

And I wonder, was it as This being a hustling bustling I don't think it was as pretty We've got our beautiful trees Yeah.

NARRATOR: Sam Macer and his to catch a glimpse of what [background chatter] MACER FAMILY MEMBER: You know; how hot it is today.

Imagine being here with the SAM: Yeah.

You can imagine it was ELIZABETH: This would've been You can hear route 15 today.

So, you can imagine that times and filled with the smell of there would've been sparks NARRATOR: Archeologist of the Catoctin Furnace and Curator of the Museum of the She says, "Several natural to make iron."

And you can find them all in The most important is in deposits.

ELIZABETH: The iron war is so it makes it easier to mine.

And then, we have streams that with good water flow for power.

And then, the final component NARRATOR: From Colliers who made to the molders in the casting turning raw iron ore into cast MICHELLE WRIGHT: You had a real working together, free, enslaved, convict, Generally, there was a hierarchy that this the enslaved Africans of that.

NARRATOR: Michelle Wright is and Africana studies at the of Baltimore County and has slave experience at furnaces MICHELLE: But you would often that had skills.

Those would be enslaved workers at auction and would be by a lot of the iron masters state of Maryland.

ELIZABETH: We should assume with a long tradition of iron were then utilized, by their owners here at Catoctin MICHELLE: I find within the that whole weird thing where are creating items that continue And I find the most disturbing Those iron collars were fitted but these iron collars were by the individuals who would MACER FAMILY MEMBER: Oh, is this NARRATOR: At least 271 at Catoctin Furnace until around when they were reportedly But their presence here was until a 1979 road construction along route 15 unearthed ELIZABETH: That roadway an archeological that identified a cemetery.

And when the cemetery was that's when 35 graves were were found and from those, NARRATOR: The remains are housed for further study, through the art and science of two of the enslaved Africans have been memorialized with in Frederick, Maryland.

[applause] ELIZABETH: Really, it was all to the museum, into the eyes of these And it really does You can sort of understand about their lives by looking NARRATOR: Sadly, it's impossible to trace their family roots but they are linked by what a "collective kinship."

ELIZABETH: We have developed a collective heritage so that you know, even if they don't familiarly related to an who was here at Catoctin, their heritage as enslaved built the industrial might NARRATOR: The hallowed ground slave cemetery sits is on but a commemorative viewing of the wooded gravel path Sam and his family, SAM: To walk the same road and now to come them here and that these individuals walk, yeah...and we should remember We should remember them...yeah.

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