An open house will be held Jan. 23 honoring Dave Hartig, who is leaving to accept a Fulbright Scholarship to study conservation efforts to restore the health of the Great Lakes.
John Hartig, manager of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge for the past 14 years, is retiring this month after accepting a Fulbright Scholarship to study the effectiveness of decades-long conservation efforts to restore the ecological health of the Great Lakes.
Hartig, 65, is retiring from the post as an employee of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service ( FWS).
In February, the Trenton resident will move to Waterloo, Ontario, where he will spend six months as the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. The school is about 185 miles northeast of Detroit. After that, he plans to spend at least two years working on related topics.
His last day will be Jan. 19. An open house and farewell reception is planned from 4 to 7 p. m. Jan. 23 at the Brownstown Township Event Center, 23451 King Road. Reservations are due Friday by calling the International Wildlife Refuge Alliance at 734-692-7671 or e-mail iwr_alliance@yahoo.com.
Steve Dushane, assistant manager at the refuge and employed there for 13 years in April, will be acting refuge manager until a search is made by FWS for a successor.
Dushane, 49, lives in Carleton with his wife and two daughters.
To be named a Fulbright Scholar is among the most prestigious academic honors in the world, Hartig said. Fulbright scholars study, conduct research and teach abroad in their field.
“I am so honored to work with Canadian and U.S. colleagues to perform this important work on one-fifth of the standing freshwater on the earth’s surface (the Great Lakes) and to help increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and Canada,” Hartig said in a press release.
He will conduct multidisciplinary research to help evaluate the impact of 32 years of remedial work to restore degraded areas of the Great Lakes. These “areas of concern” include 43 pollution hot spots across Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario.
Hartig has spent his entire career with FWS as manager of the refuge and has seen it grow from 300 acres to more than 18,700 acres today.
The cleanup and recovery of the Detroit River represents “one of the most remarkable ecological recovery stories in North America,” he said.
“I am proud of fostering public-private partnerships for conservation, helping to bring conservation to cities in innovative ways, and showing how (FWS) and its important conservation work can become part of the community fabric.”
Before working for FWS, he was with the Greater Detroit American Heritage River Initiative and the State Department’s International Joint Commission, where he worked on the U.S.-Canada Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.
He helped write the Conservation Vision statement between the U.S. and Canada that led to the establishment of the refuge and gave testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., in support of the refuge.
The refuge is the only international refuge in North America. It was established in 2001 as a result of bi-national efforts between the United States and Canada to build a sustainable future for the Detroit River and western Lake Erie ecosystems.
The refuge conserves habitat along the river and lake, 20 miles south of Detroit.