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 Joe Cutter, New Jersey 101.5
A new report finds that a record number of ospreys were observed in New Jersey during the year 2018. The report was prepared by the state Division of Fish and Wildlife and The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.
Report co-author Benjamin Wurst, of The Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey, says 932 ospreys were spotted along New Jersey’s coast last year. Wurst says part of the increase has to do with less pollution.
“We are just not seeing the prevalence of these pollutants, in the form where it would actually hurt them,” Wurst said.
Editorial by the (Bergen) Record / NorthJersey.com
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….
NJTV News recently covered the continuing recovery of ospreys in the Garden State by visiting the nesting pair at Long Beach Island Foundation for the Arts & Sciences. CWF’s Ben Wurst and David Wheeler joined NJTV for this inspiring video and accompanying story.
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by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager
Jay T. loads gear into Horace’s boat on Sittee River.
For the final leg of our survey of Ridgway’s ospreys in the northern most part of our study area, we set out for Turneffe Atoll. Turneffe Atoll is an archipelago of mangrove islands and coral reef that’s approximately 20 miles east of Belize City. It’s 30 miles long and 10 miles wide and Belize’s largest coral atoll. Luckily, it was declared a marine reserve in 2012, which protects it from future development. Turneffe is an amazing assemblage of different marine habitats which provide habitat for a variety of many different species of wildlife, including American crocodiles (more on this later!), conch, spiny lobster, manatees, dolphins, sea turtles, and many species of birds, coral and fish. The mangrove islands are large with taller trees on the interior of the island. This is where most, if not all, the ospreys nest. We left on Monday, February 20th. (more…)
© 2019 Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey