CWF invites high school students from across the state to submit an original social media campaign showing why it is important to protect wildlife in New Jersey!
The fun and educational Species on the Edge 2.0 Social Media Contest capitalizes on high school students’ expertise with social media platforms and provides them with the opportunity to showcase their talent, creativity, and love of nature.
Students will create their own original content (for example: video, text, photograph, computer graphic) or utilize existing Conserve Wildlife Foundation content to create a series of posts focusing on one of New Jersey’s vulnerable species that CWF helps protect.
Best of all, it’s free – and gives students the chance to win prizes!
1st place wins $1,000
2nd place wins $500
3rd place wins $250
This is a wonderful opportunity for high school students to learn about and advocate for New Jersey wildlife, while also earning the chance to win a scholarship! Moreover, the students utilize social media for purposes of this contest!
Please note that entry forms must be received by Saturday, March 27, 2021.
A wild turkey spotted in a Manitoban provincial park. Photo by Vince Pahkala.
Over the years, the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
has been widely domesticated for food and has become part of this country’s
heritage for Thanksgiving dinner. There is evidence that Native Americans have
been hunting turkeys as early as 1000 A.D. Each year, over 46 million turkeys
are eaten each year on Thanksgiving – but how much do you really know about the
turkey?
Instead of our holiday emblem, the wild turkey nearly found
a drastically different role in American culture. Ben Franklin proposed it to
be the official bird of the United States, and though some say he did it in
jest, he praised the turkey as “a true original native of America…a bird of
courage…and a much more respectable bird” than the bald eagle!
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.”
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.
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.
CWF biologist Ben Wurst (above), and all our staff and volunteers are practicing social distancing and following all state and CDC guidelines while in the field to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
With the COVID-19 pandemic causing global shutdowns, how has wildlife reacted to the absence of humans in New Jersey – and across the world? What impacts are we seeing so far, and what should we expect in the long-term?
COVID-19 has changed our lives in virtually every possible way over the last few months. Our relationship to wildlife is no different. This three-part series explores the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown on wildlife in New Jersey and across the world. Read Part 1 and Part 2 and check out our podcast on COVID-19 and wildlife.
Part 3 The Threat of COVID-19
No discussion of COVID-19’s impact on wildlife would be complete with its fated beginning and its long-term threats posed by the global economic shutdown. As a zoonotic disease, COVID-19 likely was triggered by a virus in bats that got into a pangolin in a wet market that was then consumed by people, chance encounters made much more likely by a number of destructive human activities.
Clearing primal forests bring people into contact with remote wildlife for the first time, while also changing wildlife behaviors to increase the likelihood of their interaction with humans. Live animal markets offer ideal opportunities for viruses like COVID-19 to emerge. Illegal trafficking incentivizes further habitat clearing and poaching. Trading in exotic wildlife creates a host of problems both to the species themselves and to their ecosystems. (Though underexplored in the popular Tiger King series, the impacts of the exotic wildlife trade could make a fascinating series in its own right).
COVID-19 has changed our lives in virtually every possible way over the last few months. Our relationship to wildlife is no different. This three-part series will explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown on wildlife in New Jersey and across the world. Be sure to also check out our podcast on COVID-19 and wildlife.
From my car window, I observed as many red foxes in a recent week as I had seen in the previous year combined. And it wasn’t just fox I was seeing more of. Wild turkeys, raccoons, migratory songbirds – I was seeing them all in greater abundance since the COVID-19 pandemic restricted most of us to our homes for nearly all of our waking hours.
Wildlife takes center stage this summer in a series of virtual presentations.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation and Mercer County Park Commission will present four one-hour webinars this summer, focusing on wildlife that affects our lives, even in an urbanized environment.
Each year on the third Friday in May, the United States celebrates National Endangered Species Day. It is a chance for people of all ages to celebrate and learn about endangered species and how to protect them. Here are 5 ways you can celebrate New Jersey’s wildlife virtually, individually, and locally to stay safe during the corona virus crisis. Without the Endangered Species Act there wouldn’t be as many species in New Jersey to celebrate.
