Author: Leah Wells

This year marked my third time attending the Northeast Bat Working Group (NEBWG) annual meeting, held in Saratoga Springs, New York. Over the past few years, this three-day conference has become a valuable space for connection, learning, and collaboration among bat biologists, researchers, and educators from across the region. Once again, the meeting was both engaging and energizing, offering new perspectives while building on conversations from years past.

Continue reading “Protecting Bats Through Science and Collaboration”

A collection of some of my favorite camera trap photos from the field, capturing candid moments of New Jersey wildlife and offering a glimpse into the species we encounter through our monitoring work.

Enjoy!

The New Jersey Endangered Species List just got expanded, which leaves more data to be submitted to the New Jersey Wildlife Tracker! The NJ Wildlife Tracker is our go-to place for submitting: 1) rare wildlife species sightings as well as 2) observations of wildlife (of any kind) on roadways.

Our biggest submissions of commonly known species are bobcats, box turtles, and Bald Eagles! Bobcats are found in over half of New Jersey counties and are native wild cats historically found throughout New Jersey. 

We also have a significant number of commonly known species that were added to the Endangered Species List that you might be surprised to see listed there. A few of these that you might be familiar with include: Green Heron, Purple Martin, Northern Diamond-backed Terrapins, Bottlenose Dolphins, and the Monarch Butterfly.

A fact that is even more surprising than this precious butterfly being listed as Special Concern is that ALL bat species in New Jersey are now on the list, Yikes! If you happen to encounter on any of these precious bat species injured, please contact a NJ Licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator who treats bats. If you would like to learn more about how New Jersey Fish and Wildlife are combatting this, you can read all about it on their website NJDEP| Fish & Wildlife | Bat Conservation. 

Lastly, if you encounter any wild animal, please treat them with respect and ensure your safety first before attempting to assist it. To view the full list of endangered species, click here: NJDEP| Fish & Wildlife | New Jersey’s Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern Species. To view a comprehensive guide to New Jerseys Endangered and Threatened Species, click here: Rare Species Field Guide / Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ

Earlier this month, I attended the Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (NEPARC) conference at the Pocono Environmental Education Center in Pennsylvania. NEPARC’s mission is to build a community that values, protects, and conserves local amphibians, reptiles, and their habitats across the Northeast, and the conference was the perfect example of that vision in action.

Continue reading “NEPARC Conference Recap: Salamanders, Waterfalls, and Conservation Connections”

The Barnegat Light habitat restoration site has wrapped up its best breeding season for beach nesting birds since the start of the restoration project in 2019. This is exciting news given it was a challenging year at many other breeding sites along the New Jersey coast this year.

Piping plovers, the prime focus of the restoration, had an especially good season. Seventeen (17) fledglings were produced from six pairs for a fledge rate of 2.83 per pair, well above the federal recovery goal of 1.50 fledglings per pair and even more above the anticipated statewide rate for 2025. The six pairs represent the high number for the restoration site, up from one breeding pair remaining at the inlet just before the project began.

Continue reading “Barnegat Light Habitat Restoration Breeding Update”

Audrey Randazzo – Crew Leader

This is Audrey’s third year with CWF surveying beach nesting birds. After graduating from Delaware Valley University’s conservation and wildlife management program in 2021, she has been doing field research on endangered birds throughout the Eastern U.S. From studying Henslow’s sparrow in North Carolina to working on raptor research in upstate New York, she has a lot of experience with studying birds.

Audrey’s favorite parts of the job are finding nests and watching chicks grow into fledglings. She also really enjoys how her work with CWF allows her to spend more time outside, especially in places that are inaccessible to the public. She is greatly appreciative of the opportunities she has had to work so closely with wildlife and recognizes what a privilege it is. 

A raptor-lover at heart, Audrey’s favorite bird is the Northern harrier, but of the beach nesting birds, piping plovers take the cake. She loves their personalities and their adorable chicks, which she affectionately describes as “puffballs with legs”. Her favorite plover is MJ (Michael Jackson) due to his outgoing personality.

Outside of work, Audrey enjoys hiking, paddleboarding, and kayaking.

Gianna Canale

Gianna has been working for CWF for three years and has spent that time focused on the beach nesting birds project. She graduated from Juniata College with a degree in wildlife conservation, inspired by her childhood spent enjoying nature with her family. In addition to her work with CWF, Gianna also helps the state of New Jersey with chronic wasting disease sampling in deer and with the Waterfowl Ecology and Management Program. 

Her favorite parts about working for CWF are the closeness she has developed with the crew and the jokes and stories that they share. She also enjoys getting to see the birds incubate and raise their chicks.

Of the beach nesting birds, Gianna’s favorite species is the piping plover because she finds them to have unique personalities and attitudes. She is especially fond of the plover Sasquatch, since she was part of the crew that got to name her and because Sasquatch tends to live up to her name (her nests are often tricky to find).

In her free time, Gianna enjoys birding and being active outdoors.

Kaiulani Sund

Now in her second year with CWF, Kaiulani joined the team after graduating from Gettysburg College with a degree in environmental studies and a minor in data science. During her senior year at Gettysburg, she worked closely with common and Arctic terns on Petit Manan Island in Maine. 

For Kaiulani, the most rewarding part of her job is getting to know the people and the birds that she works with. She loves Atlantic puffins and piping plovers, and her favorite plover in the project is Zucchini, who built the first nest she ever found. 

When she’s not working, Kaiulani can be found reading and horseback riding.

Mary Adams

This is Mary’s first season with CWF. She attended Franklin & Marshall College, majoring in biology and minoring in environmental studies and French. While in college, she did a thesis on avian habitat selection and during her senior year, she studied wildlife ecology in Dublin, Ireland. She has worked for a wildlife refuge, trained scent-detection dogs, and worked at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania. Even with that amazing lineup of past experience, Mary says that her job with CWF is her favorite experience yet.

She loves finding new nests, seeing each one as a new opportunity for the success of the species. Of the bird species she works with, Mary’s favorite is the American oystercatcher. Her favorite plover is MJ (Michael Jackson), because his was the first plover nest she ever found. Her favorite bird species overall, though, is the red-winged blackbird.

Mary is a proud Philadelphia Phillies fan and she is currently fostering a dog from a shelter. She also likes to read.

Madison Patterson

Madison joined CWF this past spring after graduating from Monmouth University, where she majored in biology. In college, she joined a wildlife ecology research lab in which she studied mammalian predation of box turtles. 

While her background is mainly in herpetology, she has grown to love working with birds, especially black skimmers and a plover named Pikachu, whose nest she found on her first day out surveying. She feels that she has learned so much about shorebirds in her time with the Foundation, from their behavior to their conservation, and she appreciates having the opportunity to do research that she finds so fascinating.

Back at Monmouth, Madison was the vice president of their outdoors club. She frequently goes hiking, camping and backpacking with her friends, and recently, she has been learning how to forage wild edible plants and fungi.

On Monday, July 14, the first of two groups of winners of Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s 2025 ‘s Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest had the chance to visit Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center with  New Jersey Fish and Wildlife  (NJFW). These fifth-grade students and their family members were in for an exciting day full of marshland activities and hands-on wildlife education.

The morning started with a boat ride on Barnegat Bay from Island Beach State Park to Sedge Island, which is closed to the public and only accessible through NJFW programs.

After docking in front of the Sedge House, a century-old old building which once served as a duck hunting lodge, everyone was invited on a tour of the property. There, the staff told the story of Sedge Island, from its earliest history to the modern day.

Once the visitors had settled in, it was time for a kayak adventure through the marsh.

The students got to paddle through New Jersey’s unique marshland ecosystem, stopping every so often to learn from NJFW’s staff about the wildlife that surrounded them. Ospreys, American oystercatchers, and even a bald eagle made an appearance, along with a myriad of shellfish in the water below.

While kayaking, a staff member collected a male Northern diamondback terrapin. When they returned to shore, students were invited to help collect data on the terrapin, from measuring the length of the shell to counting the scutes.

After the turtle had been tagged, it was set free back into the bay.

Families were then free to enjoy the sights and sounds of the island along with their lunches before heading to the next activity: Clamming.

Off the Western shore of Sedge Island, little neck clams abound. Students were able to tread through the dirt, collecting clams as they went.

Afterwards, the students sorted the clams by size and, after learning about clamming regulations and the importance of conservation, sent the larger ones back into the bay.

The ones they did keep, though, had another purpose.

Back at the house, the group participated in a clam dissection, learning about clam anatomy and their water-filtering abilities. Then, the remaining clams were put on the grill and everyone got to enjoy the fruits of their work in the bay.

Soon, it was time to get back on the boats and return to the mainland. As they made their way across the water, the group spotted schools of fish, flocks of gulls, and a couple of rays, all coming together to create the beautiful natural harmony of the bay.

For the students and their family, it was surely a day to remember. 

Thank you to our Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest sponsors PSEG Foundation, Phillips 66 Bayway Refinery, Church & Dwight, Atlantic City Electric, and The Zoological Society of New Jersey.

Much of the research that is being done by Conserve Wildlife Foundation on beach nesting birds is confined to the shorelines of New Jersey’s Atlantic coast, but that isn’t the only place in the state where these species can be found.

CWF Wildlife Biologist Emmy Casper and CWF Biological Technician Christine Albrecht spend their days working with an understudied population of American oystercatchers on the Delaware Bay. These birds nest on Moores Beach, which was once a Bay-front neighborhood, but now, after the houses were destroyed by floods and bought out by the state, all that remains are a few scattered bricks. The area has been restored to its natural state and is now teeming with plant and animal life. 

If one is willing to hike the mile-long marshy trail to get there, the public is also free to enjoy the space most of the year (the beach is closed through May for shorebird season). That means that Casper and Albrecht have a bit of extra work to do.

When the biologists find a new nest, they record its location and the parents responsible for it, as is standard across the whole project. But, when they’re done with that, they must also fence in the nest with string and signs warning visitors to keep away, so as to not disturb it.

The pair walk down the beach, checking in on known nests, documenting the behavior of the adults, and searching for new eggs along the way. They’re not always an easy find, but it helps that they’re so desperate to find them. So far this year, none of the oystercatcher parents monitored along the Bayshore had any eggs hatch, even with about twenty pairs calling the region home. Unfortunately, it’s not hard to see why. Raccoon and fox tracks dot the sand at every turn, many leading right to the scrapes where nests had once been. 

Moores Beach accounts for almost a third of all of the Delaware Bay oystercatcher pairs in NJ, and CWF has been monitoring this spot for three years now. Each nesting season has had varying levels of success. In 2023, this beach produced nine chicks, two of which reached fledging. In 2024, one chick fledged. With only a few years of data to look back on, biologists are still left to wonder why the adults continue to come back to this beach to lay their eggs. 

Part of figuring out the “why” is analyzing nests. They measure the distance from the scrape’s centerpoint to the edge of the marsh, to the nearby high tide lines indicated by dry and wet wrack (washed up marine plants and debris), and any nearby foraging sources in the intertidal zone. All of this gives some insight into what conditions oystercatchers prefer and how they minimize distance to their food while also avoiding potential flooding.

Then, the biologists take a look at what the nest is made of. While the oystercatchers don’t have to build intricate structures to hide their well-camouflaged eggs, they still have a choice about where they want to set it up. Using a quadrat to mark a square meter around the nest, the biologists note the percentage of different materials in the area. Some nests have more plant matter, some have more pebbles, others are mostly just sand. Whatever they’re made of, this data can be used to understand what type of nesting habitat oystercatchers prefer on the Bayshore, which may be used to inform future management or restoration decisions.

Additionally, Casper and Albrecht observe the adult oystercatchers, hoping to catch them foraging for food. If they do, that helps the team to learn more about where and what food sources the birds go after on this beach compared to shores on the Atlantic coast. It can also show the effectiveness of living shoreline  restoration projects.

While it may be tough work at times, there is also a lot of excitement. As the nesting season comes to a close, the opportunities for finding new eggs slims. But, one pair wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

Moby and Evermoore are an older oystercatcher pair, with Evermoore being banded in 2018. As the biologists were walking through the pair’s territory, they spotted a single, speckled egg. This was the couple’s fourth attempt so far this season, which is uncommonly high for oystercatchers. But there it was, a beautiful little beacon of hope. Casper and Albrecht took their measurements and set up the fence and a trail camera, and continued on their way, now with big smiles on their faces.

A small cluster of gold glints below the water’s surface, moving carefully and purposefully through the matrix of underwater habitat. It is the shell of a Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata), a small freshwater dwelling turtle found across our state of New Jersey. I wasn’t kidding when I said Spotted Turtles are small, typically reaching around 3.5 to 4.75 inches at maturity! They inhabit a wide range of wetland habitats; including vernal pools that dry up in the summer, bogs, flooded fields, and even ditches. Their diet consists of mainly smaller aquatic animals, from amphibians and their eggs to invertebrates like worms and even aquatic plant material at times. The nature of their more generalist diet may make them opportunists, utilizing locally abundant food resources at different times of the year. An example of this could be wood frogs and their eggs, which are hyper-abundant in vernal pools in the early spring. The activity window for Spotted Turtles begins around this time and they may key in on Wood Frogs as a food source before moving on to the next abundant prey item. Spotted Turtles are sexually dimorphic, meaning you can visually separate adult males and females. Females have colorful lower jaws, flat plastrons, and shorter tails whereas males have drabber jaws, con-caved plastrons, and longer thicker tails.

Continue reading “Connecting the Spots: Field Research on New Jersey’s Spotted Turtles”

Last week, we had the pleasure of celebrating the beauty of New Jersey’s wildlife through the eyes-and lenses-of seven incredibly talented photographers. Our Wildlife Photography Reception, hosted at the Somerset Hills Art Collective, was an inspiring evening that brought together nature lovers, art enthusiasts, and conservation supporters from across the Garden State.

With an estimated 85 attendees filling the gallery space, the reception was a huge success. Guests had the chance to meet photographers, connect with Conserve Wildlife Foundation wildlife biologists, and engage with fellow art and nature enthusiasts. Throughout the evening, attendees enjoyed learning how these striking images reflect CWFs mission to protect at-risk species and the habitats they call home.

Continue reading “Celebrating Wildlife Through the Lens: An Evening of Art and Conservation”