Former Blackwater NWR Project Leader Glenn Carowan tends the "planked" shad, which takes 6 to 7 hours to cook.

Volunteers Wolf Hehn, Michael MacKinnon, and Zeeger deWilde staff the Blackwater NWR exhibit at the Shad Festival.

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge's portable exhibit was on display at the annual Shad Festival in Vienna, MD, on April 28, 2007. The Festival, which is organized by the Nanticoke Watershed Alliance and attracts 1,500-2,000 people annually, is held to raise awareness of the fisheries, heritage, and health of the Nanticoke River, located on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Volunteers Zeeger deWilde, Wolf Hehn, and Michael MacKinnon staffed the Blackwater and the Friends of Blackwater exhibits, talking to festival attendees and answering visitor's questions. Fisheries biologist John Gill of the Annapolis Ecological Service's Field office also represented the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Blackwater Refuge exhibit. John displayed two live Atlantic sturgeon in an aquarium, and talked to visitors about the recovery efforts for sturgeon and other fish species in the Chesapeake Bay.

The center piece of the Shad Festival is the traditional shad cooking demonstration called "planking," in which shad fillets are smoked on oak planks, then served to the public. The planking is conducted by the Chicone Ruritan Club, and has been led since its inception by former Blackwater NWR project leader Glenn Carowan, who retired from the Service this past January. Blackwater Refuge park ranger Tom Miller has been the cooking apprentice to Glenn for the past 3 years, and represents both Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and the Chicone Ruritan Club at the Festival.