Category: Wildlife News

by Christine Healy, Wildlife Biologist

Rainy nights with evening temperatures edging into the mid-40s or above. Seems easy to plan for rescue nights, doesn’t it? Certainly not this year!

CWF’s Amphibian Crossing Project targets the earliest breeders in northern New Jersey, including wood frogs, spotted salamanders, and Jefferson salamanders. These vernal pool obligates must find their way from forested winter habitat to ephemeral wetlands each spring in order to successfully reproduce. Snowmelt and warm, moist air signal individuals to resume activity after a long winter’s brumation (hibernation for ectothermic “cold-blooded” animals) underground. As soon as they emerge, they head to the pools which, in our increasingly fragmented world, often means entering into a real-world game of Frogger. The stakes are incredibly high and many do not make it out alive.

To combat this problem, our team of devoted volunteers has been braving the elements for the last 20 years, ferrying slow moving amphibians across busy roadways during the earliest wave of the annual migration. Their efforts not only increase survivorship and breeding potential, but also raises awareness and contributes valuable data to justify the construction of long-term solutions. This season, 103 participants were involved in the project, working across three CWF managed roads in Byram, Liberty, and Hampton Twps. and one site in Hardwick Twp. organized by Blaine Rothauser, a senior ecologist for GZA GeoEnvironmental and Dennis Briede, stewardship manager at the Land Conservancy of New Jersey. All together, we assisted with the movement of 2,456 amphibians of 9 species, 26% of which represented species of concern.

Without a doubt, these numbers are impressive, however, I can’t help but reflect on this season with agitation. Late February and March featured dramatic temperature swings, characterized by sunny days in the 70s followed by cold snaps with snow and ice. Freezing conditions can damage amphibian egg masses and fluctuating weather may punctuate and elongate the migration, making movement difficult to predict. Lightning storms and heavy wind kept us off the roads during a few of the seasons peak nights, though based on the results of morning mortality surveys, the same cannot be said for drivers…

While amphibian rescue events do localized communities a lot of good, seasons like this one really highlight the need to remove a dependence on humans from the survival equation, especially as global climate change continues to cause deviations from “normal”. We’re anticipating the first frog/salamander-specific wildlife passage in NJ to break ground at our Byram Twp. site in the summer of 2023, after years of planning by the Endangered and Nongame Species program and many partners.

We can’t wait to see the impact this project has on the population of amphibians reliant on New Jersey’s largest vernal pool and how it inspires similar projects in the future.  

by: Larissa Smith, Wildlife Biologist

We received a call about a homeowner who found two great horned owlets on the ground. They had fallen out of a nest located in a pine tree in her backyard. The female owl was still sitting in the nest with one chick. Great horned owls use the vacant nests of other bird species and this nest was too small for three growing chicks. At this age the young owls are defenseless from predators, plus a rain/wind storm was predicted for that evening. The plan was to keep the owlets overnight in safe location and renest them the next day.

We met Ray Byrant, with Tri-State Rescue & Research, raptor renesting team at the nest site. Due to crowding the owlets would end up on the ground again if placed back in the nest. A basket serving as a substitute nest was secured in a nearby tree that was sturdier than the nest tree. The two nests are close enough that the adults can go back and forth between nests caring for the young. The female owl watched us closely the entire time and the owlets were “clicking” with their bills, so she knew they were there.

The homeowner will keep an eye on the nests to make sure the owlets remain in them until they start to branch. She reports that the adult has been at the basket nest several time since the renest. Thank you to the homeowner for calling to report these owlets, Vicki Schmidt, Matt Tribulski, Ray Byrant and Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research. It takes a team.

• what do I do if I find injured or young wildlife?
• List of NJ wildlife rehabilitators

by Meaghan Lyon, Wildlife Biologist

Recently the service recognized Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL) for their collaborative conservation work alongside the New Jersey Field Office and other partners in the region. The Military Conservation Partnership Award was presented to JB MDL on January 21 to acknowledge their efforts in conservation and research. 

Through CWFNJ’s partnership with the USFWS New Jersey Field Office, there has been years of effort restoring native grassland habitat for Upland Sandpiper, Bobolink, and Grasshopper Sparrow at the JB MDL. Roughly 400 acres have been restored to date and will continue into future years. Additional work with Northern long-eared bats at JB MDL has been really successful and insightful in recent years.

The service writes, “the JB MDL demonstrates an exceptional commitment to cooperative partnerships, protection of rare species, and provides high value outdoor recreation programs to the public and our veterans, all while achieving military readiness”.

Click here to read the full article.

by Meghan Kolk, Wildlife Biologist

The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey is working on a new project starting this winter to restore habitat for two species of imperiled marsh birds, the eastern black rail (Laterallus jamaicensis jamaicensis) and the saltmarsh sparrow (Ammospiza caudacuta).  CWFNJ has partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on a three-year project to identify potential habitat restoration sites, conduct outreach to landowners, and implement conservation practices recommended for the target species.  Outcomes of the project will include at least three habitat management plans and restoration of at least twenty-five acres of wetland and/or salt marsh habitat utilizing techniques in the Black Rail and/or Saltmarsh Sparrow Conservation Plans developed by the USFWS.

Continue reading “Salt Marsh Restoration Project to Benefit Imperiled Marsh Birds”

by Todd Pover, Senior Wildlife Biologist

Most people are surprised to hear that American oystercatchers are present in New Jersey in the winter. They usually associate the charismatic shorebird as a breeding species here. Our state’s wintering oystercatchers, a combination of breeders from further north and our own, are at the northern extent of the Atlantic coast wintering range.

Continue reading “CWF Assists the State with Wintering American Oystercatcher Survey”

NJDEP & CWF Announce Successful Bald Eagle Nesting Season

by Larissa Smith, CWF biologist

The NJDEP and Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey have released the annual NJ Bald Eagle Project Report.

The 2021 nesting season was another successful one for New Jersey’s bald eagles, with the statewide population remaining stable at 247 nest sites. Of these nests, 222 were active (with eggs) with 296 young produced. Twenty-seven new eagle pairs were found.

Continue reading “2021 NJ Bald Eagle Project Report Released”

By Todd Pover, Senior Wildlife Biologist

With 2021 coming to an end, we thought it would be fun to look back at this year’s beach nesting bird season in New Jersey, focusing on some of the surprises.

At the top of the list is the huge jump in our piping plover breeding population, up to 137 pairs from just 103 in 2020, an unprecedented 33% increase in one year and the third highest on record for the state since federal listing. This was a much-needed bump, as productivity has been high over the past few years, but we weren’t seeing any sustained growth in the population as a result as would be typical. So, when the final pair number was tallied this year, we were both relieved and surprised at how big it was! The challenge now will be to maintain that higher level or increase it even more, as it has fluctuated up and down quite a bit in recent years.

Continue reading “A Year of Surprises – New Jersey’s 2021 Beach Nesting Bird Season”

by Barbara McKee, NJ Eagle Project Volunteer

A year ago November I began tracking Duke. I was fortunate to see and photograph him more than a dozen times and wrote two blogs for CWF about these adventures. 

See “Duke’s Homecoming” and “Playing Hide and Seek with an Eagle”.

Continue reading “Found! Duke’s Tracker Reboots”

by Larissa Smith, CWF biologist

We are happy to announce that the Three Bridges Eagle Cam will go live on December 15th. This fall, the nesting platform atop the transmission tower received some improvements from PSE&G. The perches were moved for a better camera view and replaced with wood to provide better perches for the adults and a second wooden perch was added along one of the sides. A foam baffle was added to the microphone to help buffer wind noise. These improvements will make the platform better for the eagles as well as enhance the viewing experience.

Continue reading “A New Season of Wonder at Three Bridges Eagle Cam”

by: Larissa Smith, CWF biologist

Congratulations to Luke Tan for having his photo Semipalmated Sandpipers Feeding win Runner Up in the Student Category for NJ Monthly’s Cover Search Competition. Luke volunteers as a CWF Shorebird Steward on the Delaware Bay during the spring shorebird migration. He captured this photo while on Reed’s Beach, Cape May County.

Learn more about Luke and the contest:

https://njmonthly.com/articles/jersey-living/the-winners-of-new-jersey-monthly-and-unique-photos-2021-cover-search-contest/