From the back of the skiff, on a homemade poling platform bolted to the johnboat hull, Walter “Joe Guide” Dinkins is taking no chances. “Watch close, now,” the 59-year-old says. “Watch good. These ...

Wildlife biologists from the S.C. Department of Natural Resources and the Nemours Wildlife Foundation are working together to study king and clapper rails in the Ashepoo, Combahee, Edisto (ACE) Basin.

The rail has vanished in plain sight, until Dinkins pushes the skiff a few feet deeper into the marsh, and the hard shells of periwinkle snails scraping the aluminum hull sound like long rips of paper ...