The third
Friday in May has been a celebration of our nation’s wildlife and wild places
since 2006, when the United States Congress established the holiday. There is a
special urgency this year as the United Nations recently reported that nearly
one million species worldwide are at risk of extinction within decades (read
our post about the UN report for more information).
One of the
main points the report makes is that humans are dangerously degrading Earth’s
ecosystems, the delicate, interconnected webs of life that we all, people and wildlife
alike, need to survive.
A new report into human impacts on nature shows that nearly one million species risk becoming extinct within decades and that current efforts to conserve the earth’s resources will likely fail without radical action, UN biodiversity experts said this week. The report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) found that grave impacts on people around the world are now likely.
The report identifies five main drivers of this unprecedented decline: changes in land and sea use, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasion of alien species.
One of two adult bald eagles near a nest that looks out on Overpeck Creek, where the raptors have been seen for the past few years. (Photo: File photo from northjersey.com)
Bald eagles are New Jersey’s early birds. In the chill of winter, they’re the first to build nests and lay eggs.
Even in the short days of December, these early birds are busy gathering sticks, grass and other materials to build or repair their nests. Only two weeks into the new year, they start laying eggs.
Mercer
County is now home to two pairs of bald eagles and their nests. The discovery
comes nearly three decades after the species nearly vanished from New Jersey.
“Bald eagles in particular were wiped out to
where we only had one nest in all of New Jersey as recently as the 1980s, and
it wasn’t even a successful nest. And now we have over 200 pairs of bald
eagles,” said David Wheeler, executive director of the Conserve Wildlife
Foundation of New Jersey.
Wheeler said pesticides and people led to the
near extinction of bald eagles.
Friday, bird watchers came
equipped with binoculars and cameras to catch a glimpse of one the nests
located at Mercer County Park.
“To
see the nature and the national symbol of the United States all right here
in Mercer Park is pretty neat,” said Flemington resident Graham
MacRitchie.
Nearly 70 people were part of a new educational
walking tour run by the County Parks Commission.
…Let’s set aside a few minutes, shall we, and behold all the big birds and their continued resurgence in the Garden State.
Editorial by the (Bergen) Record / NorthJersey.com
Peregrine falcons have nested in Jersey City since 2000. photo by Ben Wurst
Exhibit One is the peregrine falcon, which in its swooping dive can reach speeds of 240 mph, and whose remarkable comeback was charted by NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey environmental reporter Scott Fallon. He wrote of how state researchers and wildlife advocates had documented a record 40 nesting pairs in 2018, a near-miraculous feat considering the species had been all but left for dead in New Jersey beginning in the 1960s….
Story by Darci Palmquist, Conserving the Nature of the Northeast
A saltmarsh sparrow photographed in Delaware. Credit: Matt Tillett, creative commons.
Even if you’re not a birder, there are a lot of reasons to care about birds. There are of course their aesthetic qualities — beautiful, charming, euphonious — and their incredible feats of survival as small creatures in a big, ever-changing world.
But like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, when birds aren’t doing well it usually means their habitat is suffering in some way. And if the habitat isn’t functioning, people lose out too; on the benefits that nature provides, from clean air and water to storm defenses.
Here are stories of how restoration efforts are helping ensure a brighter future for three bird species — red knot, piping plover and saltmarsh sparrow.
On a brisk November morning, a couple dedicated NJ Osprey Project volunteers joined myself and CWF Biologist Larissa Smith to install an osprey platform on the coastal saltmarsh of New Jersey. The new platform was installed to replace a very old and unstable platform that fell this summer. The new structure is more than twice the size of the old one and will give the nesting pair, who return in the spring, a much more resilient nest site. As you can see from the video above, it takes a bit of strength to raise up a 16′ tall wood nest platform. We decided to slow it down when WCC Volunteer, Wayne R. gives it a final push. Continue reading “Video from the Field: Osprey Platform Install”
That’s the main takeaway from a new report released earlier this week. The 2018 edition of the Living Planet Report, published by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London, found that the population size of some of the world’s vertebrate species had shrunk by 60 percent between 1970 and 2014.
Though tropical species have suffered the most, according to the report, the rash of wildlife decline hits home in the Garden State.
“It mirrors what we see in New Jersey,” said David Wheeler, the executive director of the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.
Senior biologist for the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey Todd Pover releases a piping plover, a species he has helped monitor for 25 years. (Jim Verhagen)
On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy plowed ashore near Atlantic City, N.J., with sustained winds of 75 miles per hour. In its wake, state officials declared it the most destructive natural disaster in the history of New Jersey. It changed communities dramatically.
Natural features of the coastline underwent significant changes too, but in some cases, those changes presented new conservation opportunities that could protect people and wildlife in the face of future storms.
“We were able to identify places where piping plover habitat had been enhanced by the storm,” explained Todd Pover, a senior biologist for the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey who has been involved in monitoring the federally threatened shorebird for 25 years. Places like Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge, where the storm erased the dunes in a three-quarter mile stretch of beach, creating an open expanse from ocean to bay.
