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Haunting Echoes: The Frisby Plantation

Ouchley
K. Ouchley

Standing on the bank of the Tensas River more than thirty years ago, deep within a swamp bearing the same Native American name, I could hear the hollow peals of a plantation bell - at least in my imagination.  With no human habitation for miles on this subtropical summer day, there wasn't much chance of it happening in real time.  But a century and a half earlier the scenario was likely.

  

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.
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