Tag: endangered species

By Jasmine Lee, CWF Education Assistant

Spring has sprung, and peregrine falcon eggs have hatched! Viewers of our Union County Falcon Cam have enjoyed an exciting few days with the last of the four eyasses (baby falcons) emerging yesterday.

The adult female falcon 91/BA (“Cadence”) originally hails from Rochester, New York. She staked her claim on this nest last year and laid eggs very late last season, but the eyasses did not survive. This year, 91/BA got a timely start, with her first egg being laid on March 29, 2018. Incubation of her clutch of four eggs began on April 3.

While peregrine falcon feathers provide excellent insulation, it can be difficult for body heat to get past the feathers and to the eggs. An adaptation for this is the brood patch on the male’s and female’s chest. This patch has a high concentration of blood vessels close to the surface of their skin to allow for easier and better body heat transfer to the eggs.

After about 32 days, it is time for hatching to begin. The chicks begin by using a small “egg tooth” to peck a hole through the egg shell: this is called the external pip. After breaking the membrane, the chick can breathe some fresh air, and vigorously start the final process of hatching.

Around 8 AM on Saturday, May 5, the first eyas at Union County emerged! As we watch over the next few weeks, we will see a lot of activity in the nest as the parents work hard to feed the hungry chicks. The eyasses are completely dependent upon the adults and will eat an incredible amount, but they typically double in size in just six days! They will continue to be under constant care until they are ready to fly in approximately seven weeks.

An Inspiring Recovery

In 2017 there were 34 nesting pairs of peregrine falcons were reported in all of New Jersey. Around two-thirds are known to have made their homes in buildings like the County Courthouse.

Until recent decades, the peregrine falcon population was in steep decline along with other birds of prey due to habitat loss and the pesticide DDT. By 1964, peregrine falcons had disappeared completely from New Jersey and all other states east of the Mississippi River.

Peregrine falcons were one of the first birds to be the focus of conservation efforts after the 1960’s.

In the 1980’s an intensive re-introduction effort began in the tri-state region, with biologists from the Endangered and Nongame Species Program and CWF leading the way in New Jersey. Since 2000 the New Jersey population has stabilized at approximately two dozen nesting pairs annually.

Livestreaming in Union County

2018 marks CWF’s second year partnering with Union County, providing a live stream of the action in and around the peregrine falcon nest located on the roof of the County Courthouse in midtown Elizabeth. CWF is proud to share the excitement in livestreaming the UCNJ Falcon Cam on our website and to use the webcam in our Union County school presentations, generously funded by Phillips 66.

Go to our website today to watch our new feathered friends as they continue to interact, and to learn more about the Peregrine Falcon. For more information about peregrine falcons, you can also visit the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Fish & Wildlife.

That sentiment was widely shared that night in Oradell, at the state’s only wildlife art museum.
Art and animal lovers gathered on May 19 at the Hiram Blauvelt Museum to celebrate “Rare Wildlife Revealed: The James Fiorentino Traveling Art Exhibit.” The exhibit came to life in the gorgeous galleries of the museum, which was formerly a carriage house, accompanied by soothing harp music.

The free reception opened with remarks by Governor Kean, who shared the reverence felt by many in attendance. A longtime champion of Fiorentino, he also wrote the foreword to the exhibition’s hardcover book. After a riveting speech, the excitement was palpable.

David Wheeler, Executive Director of Conserve Wildlife Foundation, spoke next.

NJ Advance Media reporter Michael Sol Warren highlighted 17 endangered species in an insightful story looking at what can be done to save New Jersey’s rare wildlife. Conserve Wildlife Foundation has long focused on many of these species – from the piping plover and the bobcat to the bog turtle and the Pine Barrens tree frog – through monitoring and surveys, habitat restoration, and public engagement.

Read the story at NJ.com, then learn more through our online field guide.

To learn more about hosting a future showing of Rare Wildlife Revealed – whether for an extended exhibition or a single night’s event – please contact Liz Silvernail, CWF Director of Development at 609.292.3707.

First bee in continental U.S. added to endangered list

By Kendall Miller

The rusty patched bumble bee has been locally extinct from the Garden State since the late 1900s. Once a common sight, the species has been eliminated from 87% of its entire range and has been seen only in isolated pockets of its once wide range.

But finally, the long awaited day has come – the rusty patched bumble bee has officially been added to the Endangered Species List.

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation first petitioned for the listing of the rusty patch in 2013. The decision to list was finally reached in September of this past year, and the Rule was officially published on January 11, 2017. The official Ruling brings the species under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, which will enable it to receive much needed federal protection.

Following the listing of seven yellow-faced bees found only in the isolated archipelago of Hawaii this September, the rusty patched is the first bee to join the ESL that is native to the continental U.S. It seems as if it has not been a good couple of months for bees, however this perception is far from the truth. Pollinators are on the decline across the globe as a result of pesticides, habitat loss and degradation, and the spread of pests and diseases. Listing pollinators for the first time means that their plight is recognized, and it empowers those who are working to protect these species from extinction.

The multitude of ways that we rely on pollinators – for food, clothes, ecosystem functioning – means that their peril is our own. In New Jersey, the service provided by *wild pollinators is valued at $43 million; in the U.S. as a whole, it is $3 billion annually. Since the rusty patch (along with other species of bumble bees) is an excellent pollinator of New Jersey crops like blueberries, cranberries, and tomatoes, it is sorely missed from the Garden State.

This listing is another small step for the protection of native bees and pollinators everywhere.

Helping pollinators takes three steps:
1.  Plant flowering nectar sources spring through fall
2.  Provide safe nesting and overwintering habitat
3.  A pesticide free environment

 

*Wild pollinators are native bee species like the rusty patch bumble bee that have evolved with their native ecosystems. Honey bees that are commercially used for agriculture pollination services and honey production are not native to the United States.

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• Learn more about the rusty patched bumble bee
• Learn more about endangered pollinators
• CWF efforts to protect pollinators

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Kendall Miller is a project coordinator for Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

NEW, WEEKLY UPDATES FROM NEW JERSEY’S BEACH NESTING BIRD PROJECT TEAM

by Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager

There are many ways to gauge success for our beachnesting bird project. We look at how well our management tools work, the effectiveness of our partnerships, and how well our educational efforts work, to name a few qualitative measures we use. At some point, however, it comes down to cold hard numbers, how well did the birds do in a particular season and over the long-term. We are at that point in the season, and for the most part, I am happy to report it has been an excellent breeding year. I will caution that these are still preliminary figures, some quality checking of the data needs to be done before they are final, but the trends are clear.

First up are piping plovers. We will come in at ~115 pairs statewide, up modestly from the 108 pairs in 2015, and the second consecutive year of an increase after hitting our historic low of just 92 pairs in 2014. So, we have climbed back closer to our long-term average, but there is still room to improve. The really good news is our productivity this year – close to a statewide record at 1.37 chicks fledged per pairs – puts us in the position to continue our population increase. If trends hold, because piping plovers demonstrate high site (or region) fidelity, when we produce a lot of fledglings, our breeding population rises in the next year or two. With three straight years of well above average fledgling rates for New Jersey now in the books, our prospects look good in the short term for our breeding population levels.

Least terns and black skimmers, which nest in colonies, sometimes numbering hundreds (or even thousands), are more challenging to count and assess, but we had at least modest success this year for both species. As is typical, our least tern colonies were variable, with some completely failing and others being highly productive. The Monmouth County region, one of our strongholds for least terns in New Jersey, didn’t have one colony that was a standout but most of them had at least some success. In South Jersey, our two largest colonies at Holgate (EB Forsythe NWR) and Seaview Harbor were very successful and helped make up for losses and failures at other colonies. The majority of our state’s black skimmers are concentrated in one large colony at Seaview Harbor, and although skimmers are our latest nesters (so the season isn’t quite over for them), they appear to have been very successful there, which means a good season overall for the state.

We also track American oystercatchers, although only for the portion that nest on the barrier beaches and spits. Because the biggest percentage of oystercatchers in the state nest on back bay and marsh islands, we cannot determine true statewide population or productivity levels, but the population on the beach habitat appears to be rising in recent years. Typically breeding success is lower for oystercatchers on the beach habitat due to high levels of human disturbance and predators, but productivity has been relative high the past two years. Of particular note this year was Stone Harbor Point, where a record number of 27 pairs nested and produced over 30 fledglings.

The reality is our beachnester staff works just as hard in years when the birds do poorly, as when they do well like this year, but it is SO much more rewarding when we have a good season. So as we wrap up the season, we are all feeling in a bit of a celebratory mode now!

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LEARN MORE

• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Beach Nesting Bird Project
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Field Guide: American Oystercatcher
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Field Guide: Black Skimmer
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Field Guide: Least Tern
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Field Guide: Piping Plover

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NEW, WEEKLY UPDATES FROM NEW JERSEY’S BEACH NESTING BIRD PROJECT TEAM

by Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager

So far our weekly beach nesting bird updates have focused on statewide trends, but this week we are going to feature one special pair of piping plovers.

The story actually starts in the summer 1989…Ronald Reagan had just left the White House and the Berlin Wall would fall a few months later. It was also the last time a piping plover nested on the miles of oceanfront beaches at Island Beach State Park. That all changed in May of this year, when a pair of plovers was observed exhibiting breeding behavior at the southern portion of the park close to the inlet jetty. Eventually they laid four eggs, a cage was erected around the nest to protect it from predators, and right on schedule over the July 4th weekend, four itty-bitty chicks emerged. A week later, three chicks have survived the daily battles with predators (i.e. fox, crows, gulls) and a heat wave. The story isn’t over yet, we won’t know for another 3 weeks or so if they survive to the stage where they can fly, which is our metric for success.

Regardless of the outcome, this pair being at Island Beach State Park symbolizes an interesting point in New Jersey’s conservation efforts to recover this federally threatened and state endangered species. 2016 marks the 30th anniversary of federal listing for the Atlantic coast population of piping plovers, and with it extensive management to aid recovery. Those management efforts have led to varying results in New Jersey; our population has swung from a low of 92 pairs to a high of 144 pairs, but mostly settling in around 120 pairs. We are currently in a slight upswing, but the bottom line is New Jersey is a tough place for piping plovers to successfully breed – it represents a convergence of all the significant threats the birds face.

Why did piping plovers suddenly show up at Island Beach State Park again this year? Well, we may never know for sure, but we do think Hurricane Sandy probably had a part in it. While it was wrecking destruction up and down the Jersey Coast, Hurricane Sandy was also creating the kind of sparse, open habitat where piping plovers prefer to nest. Some of that was created at Island Beach, and soon after Sandy, we noted some “prospecting” plovers at the park. Nothing came of that, but meanwhile piping plover action was heating up just a little bit south on LBI at the Holgate Unit of the Edwin B. Forsythe NWR and just across the inlet at Barnegat Light. The storm created especially good conditions for piping plovers in those locations, including a giant “overwash” at Holgate, which in turn attracted more and more plovers, which produced a “bumper crop” of young fledglings. Barnegat Light only had one remaining plover, but it produced well above average numbers of fledglings for several years in a row.

Quick biology lesson…piping plovers exhibit very strong site fidelity, so the adults tend to come back to the same site year after year, often the same patch of beach. That includes their young, but they have to forge their own territory as existing pairs fiercely defend their established territory. This year we have seen a bump from one to four pairs in the Barnegat Inlet area and one of the new breeding birds was born last year at Holgate (we know that from bands now being placed on the birds by researchers). With Holgate reaching capacity, the returning young are looking nearby for other places to nest. The Island Beach plovers are not banded, but the banding in this area is new in our state, so they might also be young from previous successful nests at Barnegat Light.

At the moment New Jersey has high concentrations of piping plovers at Sandy Hook and the Forsythe NWR, over three-quarters of the state population occurs at these federal properties. They are performing well at these sites for now, but habitat conditions change quickly along the coast and real recovery has to happen over a wider geographic area. For any significant population rebound to occur, new sites need to be colonized, so the piping plovers at Island Beach State Park this year may be a small sign of that starting to happen.

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LEARN MORE

• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Beach Nesting Bird Project
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Field Guide: Piping Plover

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NEW, WEEKLY UPDATES FROM NEW JERSEY’S BEACH NESTING BIRD PROJECT TEAM

by Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager

While the July 4th holiday weekend is the celebratory peak of the summer season for beachgoers, it is not a joyous time for beachnester staff or beach nesting birds. The holiday brings an extra crush of people out on the beaches at the most critical time for our endangered nesting shorebirds. Nearly all the species – piping plover, least tern, black skimmer, and American oystercatcher – are at the peak of their breeding seasons in late June/early July so the holiday is sometimes a “make it or break it” day or in the case this year a long weekend.

So our beachnester staff went into overdrive this weekend, working extra hours to guard and monitor nesting sites, both day AND night. Fireworks, the symbol and heart of any July 4 celebration, are especially problematic. The disturbance from the fireworks themselves can be an issue, but the extra large crowds (and typically extra boisterous behavior) on the beaches at night can be a deadly combination for the beach nesting birds. Personal fireworks in proximity to nesting colonies also have to be “policed” by our staff and volunteers.

With this year’s holiday now just passed, it looks like our efforts largely paid off. There were areas where protective fence was vandalized and had to be restored, and some minor bird losses were documented this weekend, but it was fortunately minimized this year. With that in mind, we are sending an extra special thanks out today to the dedicated beachnester staff members and volunteers, not just in New Jersey but across the entire breeding range, for their hard work this weekend and throughout the season.

The bird’s still have several weeks to go before we’ll know if the season was a success overall (stay tuned for that news), but “holding down the fort” on July 4 is one more challenge that is now in the books for this year.

Juvenile Eagles take their first flights.

by: Larissa Smith, CWF Wildlife Biologist

So far this Eagle Nesting season 82 young eagles have been reported to have fledged (taken their first flight). Juvenile eagles will spend the next few weeks in the nest area strengthening their flying and hunting skills. The first year morality rate for first year eagles is high due to their inexperience. We wish all the NJ fledglings safe travels, and look forward to some returning to NJ to nest in the future.

 

SEVERAL SPECIES OF FRESHWATER FISH TO RECEIVE IMPERILED STATUS

By Michael Davenport, GIS Program Manager

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife has recently completed a status review of the freshwater fish species within the state. A total of 53 species were reviewed by a panel of experts and the results of that review were then presented to the Endangered and Nongame Advisory Committee which voted  on March 16th to recommend the status changes. As a result of this status review, ten additional species within the state will be receiving an imperiled status of either Endangered, Threatened, or Special Concern. The date for when those listings will become official is still unknown.

Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ’s online field guide, a one-of-a-kind free reference focused on New Jersey’s wildlife, has expanded to include the additional fish species.

To learn more about these fish species and the threats facing them, please click below to link to our field guide:

• American Brook Lamprey
• Blackbanded Sunfish
• Bridle Shiner
• Brook Trout
• Comely Shiner
• Ironcolor Shiner
• Mud Sunfish
• Northern Hog Sucker
• Shield Darter
• Slimy Sculpin