Dierssen Wildlife Management Area is a

Wildlife Management Area A wildlife management area (WMA) is a protected area set aside for the conservation of wildlife and for recreational activities involving wildlife. New Zealand There are 11 wildlife management areas in New Zealand: * Horsham Downs Wildlife Ma ...

(WMA) near

Seneca Seneca may refer to: People, fictional characters and language * Seneca (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname : :* Seneca the Elder (c. 54 BC – c. AD 39), a Roman rhetorician, writer and father ...

Montgomery County, Maryland Montgomery County is the most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 United States census, the county's population was 1,062,061, increasing by 9.3% from 2010. The county seat is Rockville, Maryland ...

. The WMA covers a tract of marshy woodland, with two man-made ponds ('impoundments') for wildlife, located between

Chesapeake & Ohio Canal The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, abbreviated as the C&O Canal and occasionally called the Grand Old Ditch, operated from 1831 until 1924 along the Potomac River between Washington, D.C., and Cumberland, Maryland. It replaced the Patowmack Canal, w ...

towpath (mileposts 20.08 to 20.90 p. 50) and the

Potomac River The Potomac River () is in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography D ...

. The nearest access point is the

Pennyfield Lock The Pennyfield Lock (Lock #22) and lockhouse are part of the 184.5-mile (296.9 km) Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (a.k.a. C&O Canal) that operated in the United States along the Potomac River from the 1830s through 1923. The lock, located at towp ...

parking lot at MP 19.7. Unlike most WMAs in Maryland, Dierrsen is a wildlife sanctuary - no hunting is allowed, but hiking and photography are encouraged. Because of the impoundments and location on the Potomac migration route, the tract is a well-known habitat for waterfowl, wading birds and songbirds. There are nesting boxes for wood ducks. Also present are white-tailed deer, gray and red fox, beaver, and wild turkeys. The site, donated as a waterfowl sanctuary, is named for Marshall Bidwell Dierssen.

References

External links

Dierssen Wildlife Management Area
Wildlife management areas of Maryland Protected areas of Montgomery County, Maryland Chesapeake and Ohio Canal {{Maryland-protected-area-stub