Congratulations to the 2019 CWF Women & Wildlife Leadership Award honoree Nellie Tsipoura, PhD, Senior Research Scientist and Director of Citizen Science at the New Jersey Audubon Society
Join us to celebrate Nellie and the four other 2019 Women & Wildlife Award honorees on Wednesday, November 13th at 6 PM. Purchase events tickets and find more information.
Continue reading “Women & Wildlife 2019 Leadership Award Honoree Nellie Tsipoura, PhD”
Join us to honor Gretchen and the four other 2019 Women & Wildlife Award Honorees on Wednesday, November 13th at 6 PM. Purchase events tickets and find more information.
Gretchen has been a biologist/GIS Specialist with NJ’s Endangered & Nongame Species Program (ENSP) for the past 15 years. She grew up in western Massachusetts, received a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Carleton College in Minnesota, and spent her summers while in college as a wilderness ranger in Wyoming and assisting with black bear research in North Carolina. After living in Oregon and Vermont for a few years, working as a vet tech and volunteering for conservation organizations among other things, she then went on to earn a Master’s degree in Wildlife Ecology from Idaho State University studying bighorn sheep.
Continue reading “Women & Wildlife 2019 Inspiration Award Honoree Gretchen Fowles”
A life-long interest in nature led Giselle Chazotte Smisko to pursue a B.S. in biology at Bucknell University with a focus on ecology and botany. Upon graduating in 1979 she started working as a part-time naturalist for the Morris County Park Commission and realized she needed to learn more about fauna the public would want to see on the walks. That brought her to Len and Diane Soucy who were rehabilitating wild birds.
Continue reading “Women & Wildlife 2019 Education Award Honoree Giselle Chazotte Smisko”
Wilma Frey is the Senior Policy Manager at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. She has more than five decades of environmental and planning advocacy experience and masters’ degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Design and Harvard Kennedy School of Government, fifteen years apart. Wilma has fought to stop oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, battled the PennEast Pipeline here in New Jersey, enjoys dancing and has learned the secret to giving frogs and toads head scratches.
Continue reading “Women & Wildlife 2019 Legacy Award Honoree Wilma Frey”
Once a common sight in New Jersey backyards, the box turtle is now a species of special concern – that is, a species that “warrants special attention because of some evidence of decline, inherent vulnerability to environmental deterioration, or habitat modification that would result in their becoming a Threatened species.”
Continue reading “The Celery Farm and Beyond: How to Rescue Box (and other) Turtles”Getting kids excited about a career in science is no walk in the park, but thanks to the Bayshore Adventure Program, it is a week at the marina.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation, the State Parks Department and the Leonardo State Marina held the Bayshore Adventure Program for 40 Monmouth County 8-11 year olds in August. The program gives kids the chance to peek into the lives of a variety of science based professionals through exciting, hands-on activities that foster exploration and discovery of the natural world.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey (CWF), the Asbury Park mayor’s office and public schools, and New Jersey Natural Gas hosted Wildlife Wednesdays Field Experience at North Beach at the end of July. The hands-on, project-based outing taught elementary school students about Asbury Park’s rare wildlife, and how to protect and preserve the environment the kids – and wildlife- call home.
Continue reading “ASBURY PARK STUDENTS EXPERIENCE NATURE ON “WILDLIFE WEDNESDAYS””Story by: Alison Levine, Communications Coordinator
Bats. They can be kind of creepy. Full disclosure, when I was a kid a bat got into our house and was so disoriented at being in an alien environment that it actually flew into my shoulder. So, I’m not exactly unbiased. I’ve learned to appreciate the important roles bats play – many help keep insect populations under control, some are crucial pollinators for fruits – but I’ve never really warmed up to them before.
While there are plenty of people who share my slightly-creeped out feelings for bats, fortunately there are lot of people who love the furry little flying mammals.
CWF Biologist, and bat ambassador extraordinaire, Meghan Kolk goes out and handles bats on purpose. As part of a joint project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Meghan and CWF Biologist Ethan Gilardi teamed up with USFWS staff to conduct bat surveys in the summer of 2018 and again this year.
The surveys are conducted at Joint Military Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in the northern part of Pine Barrens. The goal is to capture northern long-eared bats (Myotis septentrionalis), a federally threatened species, and track them back to their roost tree (ideally tracking females back to maternity roost trees) using radio transmitters.
Photo of big brown bat by John King
Continue reading “Maternity roosts, delayed ovulation and mating swarms: Protecting the (truly weird) reproductive cycle of bats.”The breeding season started off well enough for the peregrine family that star on our Falcon Cam in Jersey City this year. Four eggs were laid, three sisters hatched, were banded and were growing up high atop the skyscraper at 101 Hudson Street. Thousands of viewers enjoyed seeing them flapping and jumping, strengthening their flight muscles for their first flight to fledge from the nest.
PSE&G, Conserve Wildlife Foundation, Mercer County Park Commission, Mercer County Wildlife Center and Wildlife Center Friends team up with free public programs on Bald Eagles, pollinators, and bats.
Join us on August 8th at the Mercer County Wildlife Center to learn about pollinators like bees, butterflies and moths and how they help keep flowers in bloom and food on your plate.
Continue reading “KEEP NEW JERSEY’S SKIES WILD!”