by Ben Wurst, Senior Wildlife Biologist
For the past two summers, Victoria Rosikiewicz has worked for Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey at the Long Beach Island Foundation (LBIF) of Arts and Sciences. LBIF is a non-profit organization whose mission is to “promote the arts and sciences on Long Beach Island and the surrounding communities by enlightening, educating, and stimulating thought and discussion about current trends in the arts and sciences through educational and cultural programs for all ages.” We began working with LBIF in 2015 to help encourage ospreys to utilize a nest platform on their 20 acre preserved saltmarsh. Over the years, our relationship has grown and we have worked to improve science based programming and environmental features on site. From enhancing their Nature Trail and installing the live streaming LBIF Marsh Cam, building the Osprey Blind, and creating terrapin nesting habitat. Victoria has helped to expand environmental education through leading LBIF’s Discovery Days public walks, CWF’s wildlife summer camp, and conducting wildlife surveys. This work has been funded through a grant from the Osprey Foundation.
She also helped to maintain a wildflower meadow on Long Beach Blvd., which we created by not mowing a lawn. She removed invasive trees, like Autumn olive and established native wildflowers, including Purple coneflower and Common milkweed. She also assisted with maintaining a nesting site for northern diamondback terrapins, monitoring three osprey nests, maintaining the .7 mile Nature Trail and beekeeping. Victoria has really loved conducting environmental outreach at LBIF and loves inspiring others to appreciate the importance of preserving all parts of our natural ecosystem on the island.
Victoria is a passionate environmental educator, who graduated of The College of New Jersey, with a bachelor’s degree in biology and secondary education. During the school year, she works as an Environmental Science teacher at Hillsborough High School. We can’t thank her enough for all of her hard work at LBIF over the past two summers! Thank you to the Osprey Foundation for supporting our continued work at LBIF!