Biologist Allegra Mitchell works with CWF interns to record plant species and quantity during a bog turtle survey,
When every work day feels like an adventure out of Charles Darwin’s pocket diaries, you know you are living a conservationist’s dream. Thanks to the Conserve Wildlife Foundation, interns like me have the amazing opportunity to realize our childhood aspirations to study and protect wildlife, and we can do so right in our own neighborhoods and communities.
Here are the current CWF interns and what we’ve been up to!
CWF took Asbury Park School students on a virtual field trip to the Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center in Barnegat Bay.
Asbury Park elementary schoolers participating in the district’s Summer Enrichment Program have had a wild reason to look forward to Wednesdays this summer – Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s virtual Wildlife Explorers Program sponsored by New Jersey Natural Gas.
CWF
Director of Education Stephanie DAlessio has been teaching students about the
wildlife that lives, breeds, and migrates in their community. Virtual field
trips, engaging lessons, and live webcams have exposed elementary schoolers to
a gamut of topics ranging from oystercatcher adaptations to ocean litter.
This two-month
curriculum reinforces the Asbury Park School District’s emphasis on STEAM
(science, technology, engineering, art, and math) and gives students access to
nature right from their own homes. To participate in activities authentic to
biologists, students have been recording weekly observations and data in
science field journals, holding meaningful discussions about the environment,
and completing at-home activities.
“New
Jersey Natural Gas has been involved in the Asbury Park community for nearly 70
years,” said Tom Hayes, the Director of Customer and Community Relations.
“Strengthening sustainability and engagement in our communities, especially
educating about our environment, are the main focus of our community
involvement, so this is exactly the type of program we are excited to be a
partner on.”
A
‘living fossil’ today swims the Delaware River, having survived eons from the
days of the dinosaurs through the caviar craze a century ago that nearly wiped
it out for its roe, or valuable eggs.
However, as explored in the latest episode of State of Change – Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s regular podcast exploring climate change impacts on New Jersey wildlife –the Atlantic sturgeon faces an abundance of modern threats.
From
a historic population of 360,000 adults, “Based on our best estimates, there’s
less than 300 in the river. There’s less than 1 tenth of 1% that was there
historically,” says Dewayne Fox, a professor of fisheries at Delaware State
University. “The loss of one or two adults is a significant loss of spawning potential
in the Delaware River.”
Among
the largest river fishes in North America, the Atlantic sturgeon can grow up to
14 feet and weigh up to 800 pounds. One sturgeon from New Jersey is believed to
have been over 1,000 pounds. The Atlantic sturgeon’s features indicate that
their existence can be traced back to millions of years.
Yet
that lengthy run was in jeopardy after facing ensuing perils of caviar
harvesting and pollution.
Bald Eagle in Bogata nest watches over newborn chicks.
The return of Bald Eagles witin the United States has been one of the greatest wildlife conservation success stories of the past few decades. Once a rarity in New Jersey and the rest of the U.S., these majestic raptors have undergone an amazing recovery to once again become a staple in the skies over our rivers and streams. But our work is never finished, as great success leads to new problems and new questions to ponder.
Earlier this year in Bogota New Jersey, at a two story home located along the Hackensack River and the congested traffic of River Road, a pair of bald eagles bucked conventions and decided that this was the place to raise a family. It isn’t out of the ordinary to see an eagle fly over that area on the prowl for a meal, but nesting in such a busy, human dominated area was a big surprise.
Two year old terrapin. we found on the road shoulder.
CWF Habitat Manager Ben Wurst is known first and foremost for his work with New Jersey’s resident Osprey population. The job of a habitat manager doesn’t stop with ospreys, however. Ben’s work creating gardens for Diamondback Terrapins to safely nest in was recently the spotlight of an article by Pat Johnson of The Sand Paper.
Like tiny air raid shelters, protective cages sheltering the terrapin nests along Great Bay Boulevard in Little Egg Harbor keep them safe from predators, among them crows and gulls from the air and foxes and raccoons on the ground. The Great Bay Boulevard Terrapin Habitat Project site, commonly called the terrapin garden by its founder, Ben Wurst, habitat project manager for the Conservation Foundation of New Jersey, already has at least 50 nests on its sandy beach next to the salt marsh.
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation doesn’t just work with organisms of the furry, feathered, and scaly varieties, we also work with NJ’s threatened and endangered plan life! Michele S. Byers recently highlighted CWF’s contribution to surveys of the rare and endangered seabeach amaranth on CentralJersey.com.
If you are lucky enough to walk on the beach this summer, you may notice a plant that looks like spinach growing in the bare sand, apart from sea grass and other dune vegetation.
Don’t step on it! It could be the rare seabeach amaranth (Amaranthus pumilus) that is making a comeback in New Jersey.
An Atlantic horseshoe crab lies on the beach in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, not far from Delaware Bay. Photograph by Joel Sartore.
National Geographic’s Carrie Arnold recently wrote about the role horseshoe crabs and their “special” blood are set to play in the creation of a COVID-19 vaccine. She spoke with CWF partner Larry Niles about the horseshoe crab’s importance to the health of the Delaware Bay and what this means for the bay’s future.
Check out the excerpt below and read the full article on National Geographic!
Each spring, guided by the full moon, hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs clamber onto beaches across the U.S. mid-Atlantic to lay their eggs. For hungry birds, it’s a cornucopia. For drug companies, it’s a crucial resource for making human medicines safe.
Piping plover chick feeding at the restoration-created pond. Photo courtesy of Northside Jim.
Last winter the Conserve Wildlife Foundation, in partnership with Rutgers University, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service, and New Jersey Fish & Wildlife’s Endangered and Non-Game Species Program, completed the final stages of a beach restoration project in Barnegat Light State Park.
The project, which broke ground the winter before last, aimed to create more ideal habitat for the endangered piping plover away from human disturbance at Barnegat Light’s more recreationally busy beaches. This was accomplished by removing vegetation, grading dunes to be more suitable for nesting, and creating alternative feeding sites (i.e. ephemeral pools).
Now, with the beach nesting bird season at its peak and the final stages of the project complete, we can start to assess the effectiveness of the work that has been done.
Virtual award ceremony participants from left to right: (top row) CWF Executive Director David Wheeler, PSEG Foundation Chairman Rick Thigpen, CWF Director of Education Stephanie DAlessio, Third Place Winner Lauren Johnson, First Place Winner Virginia Higgins, and Second Place Winner Rory Leadbeater
If you browse through social media, you will find some incredibly creative and effective ways to help imperiled wildlife. You might be compelled by calls-to-action, experience stunning photographs, or may even discover posts about New Jersey’s vulnerable species that—thanks to talented New Jersey high schoolers—got their share of screen time, likes, and retweets during the Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s (CWF) fifth annual Species on the Edge 2.0 Social Media contest.
One of the winning Instagram posts by Virginia Higgins, highlighting the diets of Piping Plovers.
Over the course of 8 days, hundreds of students from across the state created Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook posts about animals that the CWF protects. Through campaigns that featured original artwork, photos, and infographics, contestants took the internet by storm, rose awareness about their chosen species, and garnered nearly 12,000 likes.
The three finalists were celebrated on June 18 in a Facebook Live virtual awards ceremony. The PSEG Foundation sponsored the contest and provided scholarships to the winners.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s research with scientist Dr. Larry Niles was highlighted in today’s New York Times feature detailing the 80 percent decline in red knots in New Jersey’s Delaware Bay this spring.
by Jon Hurdle, The New York Times
A sudden drop in the number of red knots visiting the beaches of Delaware Bay during migration this spring has renewed concern among scientists about the survival of the threatened shore bird’s Atlantic Coast population.
According to biologists, the number of knots that stayed to feed at the bay in May declined by about 80 percent from the same time last year. The Delaware Bay is one of the world’s most important sites for shorebird migration.
