Written and photographed 

 by Carla Burgess 



It's close to noon on Rocky 

 Branch Creek, and Joe Chaplin 

 kneels beside a sliver of the 

 muddy stream. Something is 

 bubbling, squirming below the 

 clouded water and he scoops it 

 gingerly into a cupped palm. A 

 salamander, he acknowledges 

 excitedly, closing his fingers 

 around it. 



The creek is making a 

 comeback, he says, plopping the 

 wriggling creature into the water 

 a few yards downstream. Chaplin 

 is one of a team of Midwesterners 

 summoned to repair a portion of 

 this degraded waterway that 

 carves through the N.C. State 

 University campus. Today the 

 school's maintenance workers are 

 diverting the flow of the stream 

 through a pipe so that the repair 

 team can shore up the eroded 

 banks along the channel. Chaplin 

 is tackling a personal project, 

 plucking and relocating a few 

 amphibians and crayfish from the 

 muddy puddle left behind. 



Aquatic organisms are tell- 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 



17 



