Conserve Wildlife Foundation, in partnership with our sponsor PSEG Foundation, is proud to recognize the winners of our 2018 Species on the Edge 2.0 Social Media Contest. High school students from across the state submitted original social media campaigns showing why wildlife protection is so important in New Jersey. Our winners exceeded 10,000 likes on Instagram and Facebook.
Casey Finnegan of Toms River High School North was awarded first place and a $1,000 scholarship . Sedona Ryan, our second place winner from Haddonfield Memorial High School, received $500. Third place and $250 went to Kelly George from Toms River High School North.
The annual Species on the Edge 2.0 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. The contest helps to develop students’ experience in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) and their project management skills. Thank you to everyone who entered.
The contest is made possible through a grant from PSEG Foundation.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation today released a video featuring the range of nature programs available at Sedge Island Marine Conservation Zone and Island Beach State Park, from kayaking and fishing to birdwatching and diamondback terrapin releases. Edited by CWF videography intern Melinda Tibbitts and written by Executive Director David Wheeler, “Get Wild This Summer at the Jersey Shore” explores these unique ecosystems along the Barnegat Bay – with a special focus on the Sedge Islands Celebration Day earlier this summer!
Enriching Learning Experiences while Enhancing Biodiversity
by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager
Sunflower in bloom out front of Bass River Elementary School.
Bass River Elementary is a small school located in Bass River Township, Burlington County. Students and faculty are passionate about protecting wildlife and the habitat that’s required to survive. From headstarting hatching N. diamondback terrapins, composting, and raising monarch caterpillars, they know that hands on education is key to engaging future generations to care about our environment. We knew it would be the perfect place to create a wildflower garden to provide food for nectar feeding insects! Continue reading “Bass River Students Enhance Pollinator Habitat”
“Northside Jim” Verhagen regularly monitors the peregrine falcon family that resides in and around a new nesting platform in the marsh to the south of the eastbound stretch of the Dorland J. Henderson Bridge. Early last week, after the sole fledgling, named Blue Bonnet, was found dead on the roadway there, he believes her parents, Bridgeboy and Jo Durt, demonstrated mourning. “They do a certain call,” said Verhagen. “Jo Durt landed on the pier with her mate, which is very unusual.”
Despite the young peregrine’s death, as Ben Wurst, habitat program manager for Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, pointed out, “This is still kind of a success story.”
A new study investigates the habitat preferences of endangered Red Knots in their vast, remote Arctic breeding range. Credit: M. Peck for Phys.org
by The American Ornithological Society, via Phys.org
Rutgers University’s Richard Lathrop, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey’s Larry Niles, and their colleagues attached radio tags to 365 knots captured while migrating through Delaware Bay in 1999-2006. To learn where and in what sort of habitat the tagged birds nested, they then conducted surveys via small airplane across the south and central Canadian Arctic, a vast study area spanning from Victoria Island in the west to Baffin Island in the east.
The study shows that there are more than 74,000 square kilometers of suitable rufa Red Knot habitat across their Central Arctic breeding range—enough space for at least that many breeding pairs, assuming one square kilometer of territory per nest.
Last week, Conserve Wildlife joined the American Littoral Society at their annual Parade of Boats event in conjunction with the Operation Oyster program.
Conserve Wildlife, through funding from NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, has spent the last several years in a related effort to clean up Barnegat Bay. Removing derelict crab traps or ghost pots from the bay has been an ongoing initiative. Ghost pots are lost in a variety of ways including improper rigging to buoys and buoy lines cut by passing boat traffic.
The issue spans not only the commercial crabbing industry, but the recreational industry as well. The longer the pots sit on the bottom of the bay the more likely they are to serve as a deathtrap for a variety of marine species. The more marine life that becomes trapped the more the pots continue to attract other marine life. This is of particular concern for Northern Diamondback Terrapins that frequently investigate these pots looking for a quick meal only to be trapped and quickly drown. Continue reading “Helping oysters recover in Barnegat Bay through our crab pot recycling program”
Photos courtesy of Chanta L Jackson, Asbury Park School District Communications Director unless otherwise noted.
It is only week two of the Conserve Wildlife Foundation (CWF) Summer Learning Experience program, a part of the Asbury Park School District Summer Camp offerings, and third-grade students have had the opportunity to not only see an osprey up close and personal but to visit a local nest and learn to simulate building the predatory bird’s nesting place.
The contest is made possible through a grant from PSEG Foundation.
Last week, Conserve Wildlife joined the American Littoral Society at their annual Parade of Boats event in conjunction with the Operation Oyster program.
