Every spring the National Aquarium partners with the National Park Service to recruit volunteers to restore habitat for wildlife, remove debris, and maintain trails at the wetland adjacent to Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine.  Volunteers represent the diversity of the Baltimore community and come from local community associations, corporations, schools, churches, civic groups, social clubs, and others.  Since the National Aquarium took over stewardship of the Fort McHenry Wetland in 1999, volunteers have helped collect nearly 600,000 pieces of debris!  Fort McHenry Field Days are more than just debris cleanups, however; work also includes trail maintenance, light construction, and planting native flowers in our rain and butterfly gardens.  This work all adds up to create a valuable green space in the heart of Baltimore City that is utilized by hundreds of species of birds, reptiles like box turtles and diamondback terrapins, and aquatic critters like juvenile blue crabs and small fish.

 

By supporting the Fort McHenry Field Day, you help make the marsh a cleaner place for native animals to live, and a great place for student groups from the city and surrounding counties to learn about marsh ecology.