DONATIONS TO BENEFIT CWF WILDLIFE EDUCATION PROGRAMS
By Emily Hofmann
Newark 5th-graders enjoy a day at the beach exploring nature as part of CWF’s WILDCHILD Program for underserved youth.
Connecting kids with the natural world around them does wonders for their health and self-esteem, builds leadership skills, and often fosters a love of science at a very young age.
And nothing awakens that environmental awareness like wildlife!
Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s exciting hands-on programs – classroom presentations, field trips, live wildlife, and webcam lessons – teach children about the state’s rare wildlife and the need to protect it. And while some schools can cover the costs of these lessons, far too many can’t afford programs and field trips.
Through December 31, all donations to Conserve Wildlife Foundation to support our education and outreach to under-served schools will be generously matched by the Merrill G. & Emita E. Hastings Foundation. This will greatly strengthen CWF’s ability to provide equitable opportunities for children in at-risk areas to become environmental stewards.
Thanks to that generosity, a donation of $25 will be worth $50, and a donation of $100 will be worth $200.
Learning about the eagles, ospreys, bats, peregrine falcons, butterflies, and other animals that might share their neighborhood engages kids with their environment,” says Liz Silvernail, CWF Director of Development. “Our education helps open children’s eyes to the wonders of wildlife and nature, regardless of whether their school can pay for our programming.”
This holiday season, CWF encourages supporters to give the gift with an enduring legacy for the next generation of scientists!
WORLD IS EXPERIENCING A DECLINE IN POLLINATORS, NEW JERSEY IS NO EXCEPTION
By Kendall Miller
New Jersey is not exempt from the worldwide decline in pollinators. We face the challenge of protecting wildlife in a highly modified and populated landscape. But the fight is not without hope.
A milestone has been reached for wildlife conservation in Hawaii – and is a win for the world of conservation as a whole. This month, seven species of bees indigenous to the Hawaiian archipelago were added to the endangered species list and brought under federal protection. These are the first species of bees to be listed in the country.
Hylaeus assimulans is one of the seven species of yellow-faced bee to receive Endangered Species Act protection. (Photo: John Kaia. Picture taken from Xerces Society.)
We had the pleasure of interviewing our 2016 Women & Wildlife Education honoree, Tanya Sulikowski, and are pleased to share some excerpts below.
As a Program Manager at Duke Farms, 2016 Women & Wildlife Education Award Winner Tanya Sulikowski works tirelessly to connect New Jersey’s people and wildlife. A champion in environmental education, she hosts hands-on creative projects that include bird banding and monitoring, as well as rain gardens and barrels just to name a few. However, Ms. Sulikowski considers her creation of the Teen Action and Leadership Opportunities for Nature program to be her greatest professional achievement because it inspires urban students to make lifestyle changes that incorporate their newly discovered love of nature. Her reach has extended statewide through her various roles within the Alliance for NJ Environmental Educators, where she currently serves as Vice President. Continue reading “Duke Farms’ Tanya Sulikowski Honored for her Conservation Education”
It’s that time of year again. The trees around us, in our yards, on our streets, and in our forests are shedding their leaves with each gentle breeze or strong gust of wind. A dazzling display of colors drew tourists to gaze at our Northeast forests. After the brief but beautiful show, the leaves drift to the ground to litter the forest floor.
Our red, white, and black oaks, red and sugar maples, american beech, hickory, and cherries and other deciduous trees that dominate New Jersey forests all drop their broad leaves on cue. The few evergreen firs, spruce, and pines that we have hold on to their needle-leaves and contribute to the little greenery we have in the landscape until the following spring. Continue reading “Autumn in New Jersey: Why Do Trees Shed Their Leaves?”
Martha Maxwell-Doyle, 2016 Inspiration Award Winner
We had the pleasure of interviewing our 2016 Women & Wildlife Inspiration honoree, Martha Maxwell-Doyle, and are pleased to share some excerpts below.
Currently working at the Barnegat Bay Partnership as a project coordinator for estuary protection and restoration, Ms. Maxwell-Doyle’s years of experience at multiple national estuary programs has made it second nature for her to implement conservation and management plans. Her professional and personal partnerships help advance the ability to survey, restore, and monitor coastal communities such as the Barnegat Bay shorelines. Continue reading “Barnegat Bay Partnership’s Martha Maxwell-Doyle Honored for her Inspiration in Coastal Restoration and Management”
As a Senior Fish and Wildlife Biologist at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 2016 Women & Wildlife Leadership Award Winner Wendy Walsh has proven herself invaluable in the endangered species field for her work with wildlife such as the piping plover, swamp pink, and seabeach amaranth. Her most notable work is with the red knot. Ms. Walsh took the species lead in the middle of the federal listing process. Her tireless efforts coordinating, analyzing and interpreting data, particularly detailing the effects of changing climate on these long-distance migrant shorebirds has made her work widely acclaimed as the final rule. From biology to policy, she has an uncanny ability to grasp important information and translate it for any species she finds herself working with. She has created partnerships with additional organizations to accelerate conservation efforts. In such collaborations, Ms. Walsh’s open-mindedness to others’ expertise makes for effective planning and implementation of the vision she has to one day recover all threatened and endangered species.
CWF asked Wendy a few questions about what working in wildlife rehabilitation means to her:
What motivates you to get out of bed each morning and go to work?
“Engagement with the work. Of course there are those mundane tasks we all have, but in general I find my work highly engaging. Sometimes when I’m at home, I’ll think of some new resource or approach to a conservation problem I’ve been working on — then I can’t wait to bring that idea to the office and try to apply it. When it works, my job can also be very rewarding.”
What is your favorite thing about your job?
“I love that I’m constantly learning something new. Over the years, I’ve had the chance to learn about and observe so many species, and I’ve had the chance to really get to know a few in particular — piping plovers, seabeach amaranth, bog turtles, swamp pink, and red knots. And I’ve had the opportunity to work on such a wide range of issues — utility lines, transportation, mitigation, stormwater, beach nourishment, bird collision, volunteer programs, restoration, fishery management, listing, and most recently aquaculture. I’m very fortunate to have a job where there is always a new learning opportunity on the horizon.”
Do you have a New Jersey wildlife species that you like best? Why?
“From a non-scientific point of view, I love watching dragonflies and wading birds with my kids, and taking the family to count and tag horseshoe crabs. But professionally, I’m partial to the beach species I’ve worked on — piping plovers, red knots, seabeach amaranth. I enjoy the beach ecosystem, and I feel a responsibility to these beach-dependent species that face so many challenges along New Jersey’s human-dominated coast.”
What interests you the most about New Jersey’s wildlife?
“I’m fascinated at the contrast between New Jersey’s really remarkable habitats and ecosystems in the context of our equally remarkable human population density. Generations of pioneering conservationists from past decades have allowed our State’s wildlife to persist even with so many people. I view our generation — and my kids’ — as stewards of that conservation legacy.”
What is your favorite thing to do when you aren’t working?
“I love spending time with my family, such as taking trips with my husband, Mac, and two daughters, as well as time with extended family — Mom, brothers, cousins. I enjoy working with my kids’ Girls Scout troops and helping at their schools.”
We are excited to recognize the leadership and inspiration they provide for those working to protect wildlife in New Jersey. Women & Wildlife will also celebrate the timeless and inspiring journeys of wildlife migration in New Jersey and beyond.
Under the sweltering September sun, our team discovers the earth at our fingertips. We ready the manure, topsoil, and mulch, wield the pickax and trowel, and labor the wheelbarrow through the trees and up the slope of a tidal berm.
We plant 250 native shrubs and 580 native herbaceous plugs. We hammer in nest boxes, install pollinator houses, construct mounds of brush for local and migrating wildlife, and create nesting habitat for northern diamondback terrapin, an at-risk turtle species.
We lose ourselves in nature for the day.
A migrating butterfly flits past leisurely and I look up from the soil to wipe my brow. Suddenly I remember exactly where this newly vibrant natural ecosystem is. Nearly overhead, I can watch never-ending streams of commuters and tractor trailers motor past over one of the busiest bridges in the nation – the Newark Bay Bridge. Just across the bay, I can see heavy industry. Out beyond the fence, more industry – ancient, tireless, modern progress marching forward.
Yet on this morning, and those that follow, we now have ecological progress here as well, in a place that was written off entirely not so long ago. The Newark Bay region has suffered a century and a half of environmental degradation at the hands of industry and unbridled development.
This active industrial site is home to Firmenich Inc., one of the largest manufactures of fragrances in the world. We have transformed the land today to invite wildlife partners to help balance the scales of the region’s damaged ecology.
Green Darner dew laden on Echinacea.
These partners are vital to our environment, to our health, to the world around us. They are the butterflies and bees, the wasps and beetles, the flies and moths that make up an army of pollinators that in coordinated effort provide humanity with the lungs of our planet. Without these pollinators, native plants could not sink carbon dioxide and impart oxygen to our surroundings, every minute of every day. Without these pollinators, the bread baskets of the world would wither away, no longer filled with grains, fruits, and vegetables.
The natural partnerships don’t stop with the pollinators born forth from meadow creation. These partners extend to migrating songbirds and mighty raptors, small mammals and diamondback terrapins.
“If we give nature an inch, it’s going to take a yard. Give it a chance and nature will return,” says biologist Blaine Rothauser, who is directing the restoration for GZA Environmental. “Wildlife just needs an opportunity.”
Immature night heron with crab.
Nature’s inspiring return builds upon decades of ecological recovery in the region. Thanks to President Nixon’s Clean Water Act of 1973, the water began to get cleaner. Improving the water quality reanimated the food chain from the bottom up – phyto- and zooplankton, invertebrates and crustaceans reappeared. In turn, a fishery was reborn, which ushered in the return of herons, ibis, osprey, turtles, and even harbor seals – seen sunning on the banks of tidal shores in winter!
Yet much of the land around the water’s edge is still wanting.
“The restoration site is an important buffer habitat to a large portion of undeveloped tidal bay directly adjacent to the Firmenich complex,” says Rothauser. “Today we have 60 people planting a native community of shrubs, trees and plants on a formerly sterile lawn and an unnaturalized earthen berm. It is vital work that makes a real difference.”
The team has also created opportunities for rare species to nest. Above our heads, an osprey platform has been installed, empowering this magnificent fish-eating raptor to continue its recovery along Newark Bay and many other New Jersey waterways, industrial and remote alike.
A barn owl box offers one of our most mysterious nighttime predators the opportunity to set up shop in a beneficial area – where there is no shortage of rabbits and field mice to help control.
Close up of a barn owl.
Across the pond, a purple martin condominium-like house offers the ample space necessary for these communal swallows to reside, a home base where they can feast on flying insects.
With the first phase of the project almost complete, the second phase will seek to transform the site’s holding ponds into ecologically productive floating wetlands, bringing herons and egrets and other wading birds.
Ultimately, this project is envisioned as one that can be replicated just about anywhere along Newark Bay – or any industrial waterfront for that matter. All it takes is the willingness to look at a site’s land from a different perspective – and in so doing, to understand that the ecological benefits of bringing back many wildlife species aren’t negated by losing economic tradeoffs.
Instead they can mean parallel economic benefits. Natural pest control. Fewer landscaping and pesticide costs. Increased employee morale and productivity, with a newfound opportunity to recharge body and mind with a rejuvenating break outside, enjoying natural beauty and the engagement of your senses.
Images above from left to right – Killdeer, 12 Spotted Skipper, and American Kestrel.
New Jersey has long served as a primary engine for America’s industry and commerce – and in return has often been derided as the “Which exit?” land of nothing but turnpike and smokestacks. The Meadowlands just to the north of here bore the brunt of that reputation, yet in recent decades has made a mind-blowing ecological recovery to become a wildlife – and ecotourism – destination.
The waters flow south from the Meadowlands along the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers, and they come together in the Newark Bay. Now, that next wave of wildlife recovery and habitat restoration has arrived just downstream – along the Newark Bay waterfront.
For wildlife, it’s where the action is.
David Wheeler is the executive director of Conserve Wildlife Foundation and author of the book, Wild New Jersey: Nature Adventures in the Garden State.
This Halloween, while you are with friends and family celebrating a spooky evening of fun, I ask you to take a moment and think about one more thing – Halloween without bats. I want you to think about bats today not as the spooky creatures of the night that some people normally think of them as, but as incredible mammals that are invaluable to our ecosystem. In New Jersey, all of our 9 bat species are insectivores. They can eat thousands of insects in one night, protecting our crops and forests from insect destruction, and they pollinate many important foods that we love. A study published in Science magazine estimates that bats’ insect-eating services may be worth as much as $53 billion to US agriculture alone.
Photo courtesy of Blaine Rothauser.
Despite the many environmental and economic benefits bats provide, bat populations around the world are still declining. Bats face many threats, including habitat loss and destruction, human persecution, wind energy development, and White-Nose Syndrome.
Little brown bats. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Feigin.
Devastatingly, we have lost over 6 million bats nationwide due to the spread of White Nose Syndrome (WNS) – a disease caused by a cold-loving fungus called Pseudogymnoascus destructans or Pd. It attacks hibernating bats, disturbing them during hibernation when the bats’ immune response is low, and prevents them from conserving enough stored energy to survive until spring. WNS also causes dehydration and unrest as well as severe wing damage that can prevent bats from flying. Much is still unknown about White-nose syndrome, its spread, and its consequences. The federal government, states, several universities, and organizations like ours are working hard to track and understand this disease.
Big brown bat emerging from barn. Photo courtesy of Mackenzie Hall.
In New Jersey, about 50,000 bats were killed by WNS in the first year (2009) – and we now estimate over 60 tons of mosquitoes and other night-flying insects go undevoured each year from loss of bats. Though bats are one of the most beneficial animals to humans they are still poorly understood and underappreciated, which is why today I ask you to think of them in a new light. Today, think about bats for all of the wonderful benefits they provide, think of them as amazing animals that work hard at night to protect our ecosystems, because we need to make a change.
To protect the bats we still have, it is important that people understand the stress these bats are under. It is important that we re-think how we view bats, remove the spooky stigmas that surround them and appreciate their importance to us. So today, think about bats think about how important they are, how badly we need to protect them and how scary a world without bats would be.
Big brown bat. Photo courtesy of Stephanie Feigin.
Stephanie Feigin is a wildlife ecologist for Conserve Wildlife Foundation.
Oyster reef to be dedicated to New Jersey Veterans at second annual event
By Emily Hofmann, Project Coordinator
A seine net about 75 feet long is dredged in the bay and brought up on the beach to collect the species for study. Photo courtesy of Middle Township Gazette.
You and your family are “whelk-come” to join American Littoral Society and Conserve Wildlife Foundation and for our 2nd Annual Veterans Day on the Bay on Saturday, November 12 from 11:00 AM -2:00 PM at Moores Beach on the Delaware Bayshore! In April, we held our 2nd Annual Shell-A-Bration where proud volunteers braved the elements and helped build an oyster reef at Moores Beach.
The 1st Annual Veterans Day on the Bay was held on November 11, 2015 at South Reeds Beach. The oyster reef was dedicated to all veterans and highlighted veteran involvement in the effort to restore New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore. Event attendees honored their own military veterans by inscribing that special person’s name on a shell and placing that shell on “Veterans Reef.”
This year we’d like to continue to show our appreciation and mark the progress we’ve made by dedicating another reef to a specific military branch.
Please join us for the 2nd Annual Veterans Day on the Bay, which will feature:
Raw oysters and fare from Spanky’s BBQ
Beach Clean-up
Seining and marine wildlife study
Arts and crafts for children
Photo courtesy of David Benson.
Help us study the wildlife living in this new reef with hands-on, interactive marine science activities like seining and species identification!
The highlight of the event will be the dedication of Moores Beach oyster reef in honor of our military veterans. Attendees are invited to honor their own military veterans by inscribing that special person’s name on a shell and placing that shell on the reef.
This family fun day and volunteer event will be held from 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM; with the reef dedication ceremony taking place at 12:30 PM. Veterans Day on the Bay is rain or shine. The celebration will be a picnic-style event, so please bring blankets and chairs.
Join us at Moores Beach, at the end of Moores Beach Road (which intersects with NJ Route 47 near Delmont United Methodist Church) Maurice River, New Jersey, 08314.
This fall, Conserve Wildlife Foundation partnered with Firmenich and GZA Environmental to provide pollinator plants to build an entirely new butterfly and rain garden on the Waldorf School campus in Princeton.
Firmenich volunteers stationed the plants around the garden and planted them on their annual global volunteer day. Plants include aromatic lavender, bright black-eyed susans and echinacea, shrubs like winterberry holly and spice bush, and trees such as common hackberry and sweet bay magnolia. These plants are all native to the local environment and provide essential nectar sources for pollinators.
From left to right, bee on lavender photo from Andrew Wilkinson through Flickr Creative Commons and eastern blue-tail visiting black-eyed susan Vicki Deloach through Flickr Creative Commons.
The space for the new garden was a previously fallow section of the school’s one acre garden. It was overgrown and somewhat sprawling until the project came about. Facilities manager Kevin Jones and gardening teacher Suzanne Cunningham both prepared the space for its transformation into a rich habitat of native plants.
Left. After planting, an unused and fallow area of the school’s garden is now home to several different types of native plants.
“Pollinators are in decline, which is very unfortunate since we rely on them as irreplaceable contributors to our health, our food, our environment, and our economy,” said David Wheeler, CWF Executive Director. “We are so thrilled to partner on this exciting and vital habitat project, particularly where the youngest generation can experience the beauty and vitality of nature first-hand.”
The Waldorf School of Princeton has built three butterfly gardens, which serve to create a safe environment for local pollinators, such as monarch and swallowtail butterflies, honeybees, and hummingbirds. To this end, a honeybee colony has made it’s home in one of their trees and has grown to host over 2,000 wild honeybees! The school has been honored by the National Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat, as well The Bronze Award from Eco-Schools USA program. They are certified from Monarch Watch as a Monarch Waystation.
The Waldorf School of Princeton is founded on principles of sustainability, environmental stewardship, and community cooperation. The school’s major green initiatives reflect the needs of their beautiful campus and the ability of their students to participate in the greening process. The Waldorf School of Princeton has the area’s oldest school garden, over 30 years old, which houses crops, herbs, flowers, and fruit trees.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s exciting hands-on programs – classroom presentations, field trips, live wildlife, and webcam lessons – teach children about the state’s rare wildlife and the need to protect it. And while some schools can cover the costs of these lessons, far too many can’t afford programs and field trips.
