By MICHAEL SHERIDAN, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Now here’s one whale of a tale.
A boat off the coast of New Jersey was struck by a whale that leapt from the water and landed on the craft Monday.
The massive mammal slammed into the 25-foot boat around noon, according to a post on the Friends of Seaside Park Facebook page.
(more…)by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager
Surveys of osprey nests in New Jersey have occurred annually for the past forty five years. They are conducted to help determine the overall size and health of the population. The first aerial survey over Barnegat Bay counted only five active nests. Ten years earlier there had been over 50. The combined effects of DDT and habitat loss had taken their toll. No osprey nests were productive and the population at risk of being extirpated from the state.
“In 1974 there were only five active osprey nests on Barnegat Bay. Today there are approximately one hundred and fifty.”
After ospreys were listed as endangered an innovative effort to transplant viable eggs from the Chesapeake Bay to Barnegat Bay began. In addition, to help replace natural nest sites that were lost to development, man-made nest platforms were designed and installed away from human disturbance. Slowly osprey pairs became productive thanks to the die hard effort of State biologists like Pete McLain, Kathy Clark and many volunteers and partners. It’s encouraging for us to look back to see how far we’ve come in the statewide recovery of ospreys in New Jersey.
(more…)Story by: Alison Levine
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.
Story by Justin Auciello, WHYY
Welcome home!
It’s that time of the year again when ospreys — the raptors that have staged a miraculous comeback in New Jersey since the early 1970s — migrate north from their wintering grounds in Central America, northern South America, and the Caribbean.
In recent days, ospreys, also known as fish hawks, were spotted in Ocean County and as far north as the Meadowlands.
Story by: Press of Atlantic City
To the trained eye, it was clear Kevin Courts and Michael Riff were illegal terrapin harvesters.
The Hatboro, Pennsylvania, men, one shirtless, were parked next to a marsh off Sea Isle Boulevard last July, with six nets and a long pole leaning against their green truck, the state said. A conservation officer who approached them spotted a turtle crawling under the driver’s side seat and found a cooler packed with hatchlings.
© 2019 Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey