Barn Owls (Tyto alba) are one of the most widespread avian species in the world. Despite this impressive distribution, their numbers have been decreasing in parts of their range, and New Jersey is no exception. The barn owl population in New Jersey is in decline due to habitat loss associated with urban sprawl and development of former agricultural lands. Little is known about the Barn Owl population in central New Jersey. Through a grant from the Monmouth Audubon Society, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey is partnering with Monmouth County Park System and the New Jersey State Park to construct, install and monitor three barn owl boxes. By providing suitable nest site opportunities we can potentially boost the barn owl population locally within Monmouth County as well as regionally as fledglings disperse to find their own nesting areas.
The first step of the project has been completed. CWF biologist Christine Healy and her Father Jim Healy have constructed three nest boxes that are ready for installation.
Christine and Jim Healy construct Barn Owl nest boxescompleted Barn Owl nesting boxes
Would you like to learn more about the elusive Barn Owl, support the CWF Barn Owl Project and have a fun family night? Join us at Howls for Owls, at the Screamin’ Hill Brewing.
We Hope to see you there. This outdoor event will be cancelled for bad weather, so please stay updated on our website.
Work on this project is done under NJDEP Fish & Wildlife Scientific Collecting Permit SC2023048
When we founded the Great Bay Terrapin Project, our goal was to reduce roadkills of adult female northern diamondback terrapins. This was largely due to personal observations of multiple roadkills during the summer months along roads in Little Egg Harbor Township and past research which accounted for a large number of adults DOR (dead on road). Since 2010, we’ve been able to cut the historic roadkill rate in half, all thanks to our devoted volunteers who patrol area roads and raise awareness for them! This allows adults to grow larger and live longer lives, which helps to ensure their long term survival.
When looking at the expansive mudflats along the marshes of the Delaware Bay, it is hard to imagine that the area was once densely vegetated and home to a variety of bird species. This spring, CWF began work on a new marsh restoration project funded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and led by Ducks Unlimited and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). CWF was contracted to assist with biological monitoring at sites targeted for marsh restoration along New Jersey’s side of the Delaware Bay. Restoration efforts for our sites are being directed toward mudflats that exist due to significant physical alterations made to the marsh in the past. The story of how these mudflats came to be lies in the area’s history and roots in salt hay farming.
As early as 1675, settlers arriving on the Delaware Bay built dikes in salt marshes to protect land from saltwater inflow and create an environment more conducive to salt hay farming and development. One of the most important types of salt hay harvested along the Delaware Bay was Spartinapatens, a crop that was widely used as bedding and feed for livestock due to its high nutritional value. By the mid-1800s, at least 14,000 acres of marsh were impounded in Salem County alone with comparable areas altered in both Cumberland and Cape May counties (Cook, 1870). Impoundments restricted tidal flow within the marsh, which stopped the natural process of marsh accretion in which sediment is consistently added to the marsh to increase its elevation. Additionally, drier conditions exposed marsh soil to too much air, resulting in the breakdown of soil and further loss of elevation.
Salt hay farming circa 1940’s. Photo retrieved from”From Marsh to Farm: The Landscape Transformation of Coastal New Jersey,” by Kimberly R. Sebold. Retrieved through https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/nj3/contents.htm
Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey (CWF) works hard every summer to protect New Jersey’s bats by employing continuous research, education and outreach endeavors. Our Summer Bat Count project and Mobile Acoustic Surveys, both in collaboration with the State’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program (ENSP), are essential components of these efforts, enabling us to gather and document crucial information about bat populations within the state.
Since 2003, the Summer Bat Count project has relied upon the commitment of dedicated volunteers. Equipped with only a fresh set of eyes, these volunteers tally bat populations at known summer roost sites, whether it be a bat house, attic, bridge or church. The project’s primary goal is to gain a deeper insight into the distribution of bats across the state, their preferred roosting conditions and the fluctuations in population over time. While the outcomes of this year’s survey are still pending, emergence surveys during the 2022 maternity season revealed a noteworthy increase in bats for a particular roost in Warren County. This roost has been consistently monitored, with data dating back before the introduction of White-nose Syndrome.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) awarded Joint Base McGuire, Fort Dix, and Lakehurst (JB MDL) with the Military Conservation Partnership Award for outstanding efforts to protect both State and Federally listed threatened and endangered species. The award recognizes significant natural resource management achievements by military installations, particularly the conservation of important wildlife and their habitats through cooperative work with USFWS and other partners. CWF has been a major partner on many projects at JB MDL spanning from grassland habitat restoration and monitoring, myotis bat surveys and tracking, and a full mammal inventory.
Over the past six years, long term efforts have been ongoing to expand and protect grassland habitat at the McGuire Airfield. So far, roughly 600 acres have been restored to native warm season grasses with another 100 acres to be completed by next spring. The planting of species like little bluestem, sideoats grama, and blue grama has helped to create grassland bird nesting habitat. Grassland bird surveys are conducted each summer to monitor success of species like upland sandpiper and bobolink.
The population of seabeach amaranth (Amaranthus pumilus) in New Jersey has continued its upward trend for the 2023 season, marking another successful year of protecting the rare and vulnerable plant. Since 2019, CWF has partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – NJ Field Office (USFWS-NJFO) in monitoring and managing the state’s population of seabeach amaranth (SBA), a federally-threatened and state-endangered coastal plant. The number of SBA in the state fluctuates each year but suffered tremendously in the past due to coastal erosion, habitat loss, and disturbances from recreational use and municipal beach management. For 87 years, from 1913 until 2000, the species wasn’t seen in New Jersey. Plants have started rebounding on certain beaches in recent years, with numbers now in the thousands.
This past winter, CWF announced a new project designed to study and monitor the population of American oystercatchers breeding along the New Jersey side of the Delaware Bay. In addition to locating nesting pairs and tracking their success, our goal is to better understand how oystercatchers utilize the bayshore habitats and what factors threaten their productivity. The data we gather with our partners at The Wetlands Institute and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be used to inform future management decisions. We spent the past few months working hard to conduct the project’s first season of monitoring, and we are happy to say that we have made significant progress in beginning to unravel the mysteries surrounding this understudied population.
Delaware Bay American oystercatcher study area. Most oystercatcher pairs this season were concentrated in the bay beaches between Stipson Island and Heislerville WMA.
Since so little is known about this subpopulation of oystercatchers, we had a lot of ground to cover in our first season of fieldwork. First, we had to locate any breeding oystercatcher pairs across 35 sites spanning approximately 45 miles of bayshore from Cape May Point to Sea Breeze. Luckily, we had a head-start based on a preliminary census survey from 2021 that documented some already existing pairs as well as some sites with potentially suitable nesting habitat. We were also fortunate to have a dedicated seasonal technician assisting with the heavy workload. That said, figuring out how to access many of these sites was definitely a learning curve. We quickly discovered that many beaches were only reachable by boat or kayak and only during a narrow window of tide and wind conditions. Other sites were walkable, but only at peak low tides, which meant our surveys couldn’t take too long without risking becoming stranded by the rising tide.
Although I spend much of my time thinking about reptiles and amphibians, if you were to ask me if I could be classified as a “herper”, my immediate answer would be no. When I go for hikes, my objective is to reach the summit and take in the view- I’m not generally looking to offroad and go slow. I recently compiled a list, however, of all the herps that I have found during my outdoor adventures this year and was shocked to realize that I’ve encountered 31 species of wild turtles, snakes, frogs, and salamanders. Of those, I had the intention of locating 13 as part of my seasonal field assignments for CWF- the rest were all incidental finds. Moreover, despite the period in question being rather lengthy, it was very easy for me to parse apart which species were really 2023 observations versus some other year. And I can recall where I was and what the individual was doing in each case.
It’s always fun to learn the collective names for groups of animals. For example, in the amphibian and reptile world, we have an army of frogs; a congress of salamanders; a bale of turtles; and a lounge of lizards. I wonder what quippy term could describe a group of herpetologists- the folks who spend their lives studying the armies, congresses, bales, and lounges? Perhaps… a partnership?
In that case, a partnership of herpetologists from as far south as Virginia all the way up to Maine descended upon Middletown, Connecticut last month. Not to cross some rare species off their life list (though coincidentally, I crossed two off mine), but rather to attend the annual Northeast Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (NEPARC) conference, hosted at Wesleyan University.
CWF biologist, Christine Healy, holds a ribbon snake that was located during a NEPARC field trip along a powerline.
This year, CWF embarked on a new, ambitious project to monitor and characterize the previously understudied population of American oystercatchers nesting along the Delaware Bayshore. Since so little is known about this breeding population, we had a lot of ground to cover this first field season, both physically and metaphorically. One of the goals of the project is to characterize threats to oystercatcher nest success on the bayshore, whether it be predators, flooding, or something else entirely. It sounds straightforward, but when you consider the span of the project (35 sites across approximately 45 miles of bayshore), monitoring nesting pairs gets a bit more challenging. That’s where game cameras come in.
.CWF biological technician Caroline Abramowitz deploying a trail camera to monitor an oystercatcher nest.
Game cameras are an extremely useful tool for wildlife monitoring. Cameras deployed at nest sites can provide valuable information about oystercatcher behavior, predator presence, and nest fate (whether the nest hatched or was lost prior to hatching). This is especially important for our Delaware Bay sites, many of which are remote and cannot be monitored as frequently as other locations. Game cameras enhance our in-the-field monitoring and can pinpoint the true cause of nest loss that would otherwise be difficult to determine in the field. Accurate knowledge of nest fate and predator presence is crucial for understanding which factors significantly impact oystercatcher success along the bayshore.
