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Volunteers gathered at the Canaan Valley NWR on Saturday and Sunday April 12 and 13 to help restore the historic red spruce forest which once predominated refuge lands. Logging and fires virtually extirpated red spruce from the forest ecosystem in Canaan Valley at the turn of the century.  Since that time natural regeneration has been slow and limited to small pockets along ridglines and river corridors.  This forest ecosystem supports a variety of northern wildlife species reaching some of their most southern distributions such as blackburnian warbler, fisher and snowshoe hare.  In addition the threatened Cheat Mountain salamander and currently endangered Virginia Northern flying squirrel occur in direct association with red spruce forest.  Refuge staff have been working to bring back this community type in part by working with partners to collect cones, process and grow out seed and then plant seedlings in high priority areas within the refuge.  This weekend a total of 370 volunteers hours were logged to plant over 30 acres with 4,800 native red spruce seedlings.  This event was captured by Voice of America news and will have a story webcast on Earth Day, April 22, 2008.