by Rachel McGovern, Communications and Outreach Manager
Just off the coast of Island Beach State Park, you can find the Sedge Islands Marine Conservation Zone. This unique area is managed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and is home to a great number of wildlife species. Across this 1,900-acre preserve, one can find ospreys, rays, Northern diamondback terrapins, American oystercatchers, and many other incredible animals. Tucked away in this area is an island with a historic building that was once a duck hunting lodge but is now the Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center.
The Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center is located in the Sedge Islands Marine Conservation Zone.
Each year, winners of the Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest are invited to the Sedge Island Natural Resource Education Center (often referred to as simply “Sedge” or “Sedge Island”) to spend a day exploring the salt marsh. The Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest is held annually for fifth graders in New Jersey. To enter, students submit an original art piece and essay centered around an at-risk New Jersey species of their choice. A panel of judges chooses a winner from each county in New Jersey. A trip to Sedge Island is one of the ways that we celebrate the winners’ achievements. Winners of the 2024 contest and their adult chaperones were offered a choice of dates to join us for a trip to Sedge Island this summer.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey’s Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest encourages fifth-grade students to create artwork featuring endangered or threatened species in New Jersey. Every year, fifth-grade students from Ridge Street Elementary School in Newark, New Jersey eagerly participate in this contest as an integral part of the Soaring with STEAM curriculum. This curriculum includes a series of specialized lessons taught by CWF educators throughout the school year. To honor these students’ engagement, CWF organizes an annual assembly featuring acclaimed artist James Fiorentino. Renowned for his diverse portfolio spanning wildlife, sports icons, and landscapes, James embarked on his artistic journey at the age of fifteen, with his work showcased in the Baseball Hall of Fame. During his visit to Ridge Street Elementary, James shared his inspiring narrative and engaged with the young artists on the subject of art.
For more than twenty years, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey has been organizing the Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest, inviting all fifth graders in New Jersey to participate. This year marked another successful run, with an array of imaginative and captivating submissions pouring in from all twenty-one counties. Each entry examined the plight of a threatened or endangered species native to New Jersey.
To take part in the Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest, students must craft an original piece of handmade artwork and compose an essay responding to a provided prompt. Both components of their submission center around a single at-risk species from New Jersey. We typically find that some species are represented more than others. This year, the golden-winged warbler stood out with numerous striking artworks spotlighting this bird. Other frequently chosen species included the blue whale, bobcat, and red-headed woodpecker.
Blue Whale by Chelsea Li (Jefferson Elementary School, Union County)
Species on the Edge Winners Show Off their Art During the Awards Ceremony
The annual Species on the Edge Art and Essay Contest invites all fifth-grade students in New Jersey to choose a threatened or endangered animal species that lives in the state to celebrate with an essay and original art piece. We received thousands of submissions in 2022, but only one could be chosen from each county. The winners’ extraordinary artistic talent and thorough research secured their first-place positions.
An awards ceremony for those winners was held on August 23rd. The awards ceremony brought the winners, their loved ones, and teachers out for an afternoon at the Mercer County Wildlife Center. The ceremony took place outdoors near animal enclosures that hold non-releasable wildlife- some of the birds were even calling throughout the ceremony! Winners received their certificates and a gift bag to commemorate their achievements.
Congratulations to the winners of Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s Species on the Edge 2.0 social media contest for New Jersey high school students.
Students from all over the state took part in the contest by creating a series of social media posts focusing on one of New Jersey’s vulnerable species. The contest gives students the chance to use their social media skills, and knowledge of wildlife biology, to help imperiled species.
Species on the Edge 2.0 2019 Contest Winners From left to right: Carisa Mainiero and Stephanie Dalessio, CWF; contest winners Ashley Laveriano, Katie Barcheski and Mayley Rodriguez; Maria Spina, PSEG Foundation; and David Wheeler, CWF
Sometimes the path to the wilderness starts with a screen. For teens growing up in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the country, connecting with nature can seem a bit unnatural. Smartphones, tablets, computers these are all a part of everyday life, but bald eagles, diamondback terrapins, or bobcats can seem like creatures from a different world.
The Species on the Edge 2.0 contest, a statewide educational competition open to all high school students, bridges these two worlds to inspire the next generation of wildlife lovers and conservation leaders.
In celebration of these future leaders, Conserve Wildlife Foundation and contest sponsor PSEG Foundation recently presented the winners of the fourth annual Species on the Edge 2.0 contest, with scholarships at a ceremony at PSE&G headquarters in Newark.
A barn owl hatched in captivity in 2008 is among the residents at Woodford Cedar Run Wildlife Refuge in Medford. (Photo: File photo, Courier Post)
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation invites high schools students from across the state to submit an original social media campaign showing the importance of protecting rare wildlife in New Jersey. The “Species on the Edge 2.0” contest is in its fifth year and sponsored by the PSEG Foundation.
Do you have a teen who loves animals and getting out in nature?
You might want to encourage him or her to spend more time on the phone — at least for one specific project.
The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey is inviting high school students from across the state to participate in a social-media contest to win scholarship money.
The “Species on the Edge 2.0” Social Media Contest encourages teens to leverage their digital knowledge for the chance to win prizes.
Wakefern Food Corp. interns Niki Tripathi and Nadia Saponara
This summer, we happily traded in our summer intern cubicles, laptops and professional attire for kayaks, clam rakes and bathing suits for a trip to Barnegat Bay. We headed to Sedge Island, off of Island Beach State Park, and kicked off the day with a boat ride to the island. There, we joined fifth grade “Species on the Edge” art and essay contest winners, their parents, and state wildlife biologists with their seasoned interns.
Past winners of Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest recently joined us at Jenkinson’s Aquarium for a fun and educational tour. Our guide, Carol, gave students a behind-the-scenes look at the many animals, including the opportunity to get up close and personal at the touch tank.
Over 200 attend kickoff for three-year art exhibit scheduled for venues across New Jersey and New York
This weekend the nonprofit Conserve Wildlife Foundation attracted over 200 art and wildlife enthusiasts to the premiere showing of their Rare Wildlife Revealed: The James Fiorentino Traveling Art Exhibition at D&R Greenway Land Trust in Princeton.
More than 200 supporters, including Governor Tom Kean (and four of our Species on the Edge Art & Essay Contest winners), attended our Opening Reception for the premiere exhibition of Rare Wildlife Revealed: The James Fiorentino Traveling Art Exhibition at D&R Greenway Land Trust on September 30th.
Former Gov. Tom Kean headlined the program, along with the nationally recognized artist Mr. Fiorentino, Conserve Wildlife Foundation (CWF) executive director David Wheeler, and D&R Greenway president & CEO Linda Mead. CWF field biologists were also present to discuss their innovative work protecting and restoring the region’s vulnerable wildlife species, many species of which were featured in Mr. Fiorentino’s paintings, as well as a live peregrine falcon, the fastest animal on earth, displayed by Mercer County Wildlife.
The event also honored several 5th-grade winners of the statewide Species on the Edge Art and Essay Contest, who were congratulated by the former Governor and Mr. Fiorentino before a cheering audience to conclude the program.
Crowd gathered at the art opening reception at D&R Greenway.
Mr. Fiorentino has painted 25 stunning watercolor images of at-risk wildlife species from New Jersey for this exhibition, from the bobcat and bald eagle to the Pine Barrens tree frog and little brown bat. The exhibition will travel around New Jersey and the Northeast over the next three years.
At 15, Mr. Fiorentino became the youngest artist to be featured in the National Baseball Hall of Fame with paintings of baseball legends like Reggie Jackson, Cal Ripken Jr. and Ted Williams; his sports art has since graced national magazines and landed him in interviews with ABC World News Tonight and countless other news studios. Now 39, Fiorentino’s Conserve Wildlife Foundation exhibit is being hosted at D&R Greenway through October 14.
“Renowned as one of the best sports artists in the country, Jim’s works hang in major museums,” says Governor Kean, who met the artist while serving as president of Drew University—Fiorentino was a student there in the 1990s, when his sports figures started receiving national attention. He was featured on ABC World News and in The New York Times. “In recent years he has turned to wildlife. Jim has created an amazing body of work… Many of the creatures he paints are endangered, and Jim celebrates their uniqueness and beauty.”
Fiorentino’s realistic paintings depict some of the state’s most endangered and vulnerable species. Among other venues, the exhibition will be shown at Salmagundi Club at 47 Fifth Avenue in New York next spring.
“Mr. Fiorentino’s incredibly evocative artwork inspires viewers by reconnecting them with the natural world all around us,” says Conserve Wildlife Foundation executive director and wildlife author David Wheeler. “His watercolor paintings help to educate and engage viewers about the precipitous declines that many of these vulnerable wildlife species have suffered, and helps us bring attention to the very tangible steps that people can take to save these species.”
Gov. Kean and Wheeler wrote the foreword and introduction, respectively, for the art exhibition hardcover book accompanying the exhibition. Through October, sales of the original paintings, limited edition digital prints, the exhibition book, and wildlife merchandise will benefit Conserve Wildlife Foundation and D&R Greenway Land Trust.
“The subject of disappearing New Jersey wildlife speaks directly to the work that we do to protect habitats,” says D&R Greenway President & CEO Linda Mead. “As an admirer of James Fiorentino’s artistic talent, I am thrilled that we were selected as the premiere venue for this exhibition.”
Fiorentino started painting animals when he was 10, and he later became a trustee for the Raptor Trust in Millington, N.J.
“We rehabilitate 4,000 wild birds a year and release about half that number,” says Fiorentino. “These wild birds have had a tremendous influence on me. I enjoy getting close to birds of prey, and it brought me back to nature art.” Before going back to his studio to paint the details, Fiorentino sketches the animals up close, sometimes holding them, taking in their details.
His two young sons enjoy being in nature, the oldest son joining his father to draw wildlife, especially butterflies—proving that humans, too, benefit from having wildlife in their midst. “I am awed by what we see in our own backyard: the Eastern box turtle, great horned owl, pileated woodpeckers, foxes, hawks and butterflies,” says Fiorentino. “It’s an amazing backyard ecosystem.”
Eastern Box Turtle by James Fiorentino.
Rare Wildlife Revealed: The James Fiorentino Traveling Art Exhibition is sponsored by Omni Distribution, LLC, Flying Fish Brewing Company, Merrill G. & Emita Hastings Foundation, Studio 7 Fine Art Gallery, and Somerset Patriots.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation has been a long-time partner with D&R Greenway, exhibiting our Species on the Edge fifth-grade art and essay contest winners annually in D&R Greenway’s Olivia Rainbow Gallery. This year, the fifth graders art will be exhibited simultaneously with the Fiorentino exhibit.
