Update on the Second Year of CWF’s Northern Long-eared Bat Study
by Lindsay McNamara, Communications Manager
Female (right) and male (left) eastern red bats after being removed from the same net. Photo by MacKenzie Hall.
In early June, CWF, in partnership with NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, began the second year of the Northern long-eared bat mist netting and radio telemetry study. The team will be focusing efforts in Southern and Coastal New Jersey this year. The goal of the mist netting and radio telemetry project to learn more about the summer distribution and habitat selection of the federally listed Northern long-eared bat; an important project that can shed light on a species we know all too little about.
To date, the team has completed its second week of mist netting. So far, our team has caught 6 eastern red bats, 3 big brown bats and accidentally caught 2 flying squirrels in two different sites in southern New Jersey. Though a myotis bat has not been caught yet, the team did get acoustic detection of a tricolored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) foraging near the net site in Colliers Mills Wildlife Management Area in Jackson, New Jersey!
Flying squirrel being removed from a mist net. Photo by Stephanie Feigin.
Stay tuned for more updates as the season progresses!
Watch a Family of Bats LIVE on Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s BatCam
by: Stephanie Feigin, Wildlife Ecologist
Juvenile big brown bat that was banded last year has returned to the roost!
Early April 2016, the BatCambats returned to their roost in the window of the Williams’ home. As of now, it seems that only part of the colony has returned — about 20 big brown bats.
Last year CWF’s Stephanie Feigin and ENSP’s MacKenzie Hall banded the BatCam bats. We banded a total of 48 bats, about half of the bats banded were adults (banded with silver bands) and the others were juveniles (banded with red bands). This has allowed us to now see that some of the returning bats were banded last year. We even have some juveniles that have returned to the roost with their moms from last year!
Make sure to stay tuned for when the moms give birth to their pups in June and other updates throughout the season!
“Luci,” a little brown bat banded in July 2014 at 2008 Women & Wildlife Award Winner Barbara Brummer’s pond house (a New Jersey maternity site) was recently resighted!
Biologists doing a hibernaculum survey in New York State found Luci in a mine in one of New York’s largest little brown bat hibernaucula about 70 miles north from her summer roost site in New Jersey!
“She is spending the winter with 37,000 of her closest friends.” – Carl Herzog Wildlife Biologist, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Wildlife Diversity Unit
MacKenzie Hall, Pat Hamilton, Tanya Oznowich honored at Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s 10th Annual Women & Wildlife Awards
by Lindsay McNamara, Communications Manager
The Honorable Christine Todd Whitman with past and present Women & Wildlife Award winners, representing a decade of strong female leaders in wildlife conservation. From left to right: Dr. Erica Miller, Edith Wallace, Linda Tesauro, Kathy Clark, Amy S. Greene, the Honorable Christine Todd Whitman, Pat Hamilton, MacKenzie Hall, Tanya Oznowich, and Diane Nickerson.
Our Tenth Annual Women & Wildlife Awards, held at Duke Farms, recognized three women – MacKenzie Hall, Pat Hamilton, and Tanya Oznowich – for their leadership in protecting wildlife in New Jersey. The Honorable Christine Todd Whitman served as the keynote speaker.
The Women & Wildlife Awards celebrated Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s past decade of honoring women for their success in protecting, managing, restoring, and raising awareness for the Garden State’s endangered and imperiled wildlife species.
“The inspiring leadership of MacKenzie Hall, Pat Hamilton, and Tanya Oznowich not only benefits New Jersey’s wildlife and the countless people who care strongly for our outdoors – it provides successful role models for the next generation of girls in scientific fields that have for too long held a glass ceiling for young women,” said CWF Executive Director David Wheeler. “Their unparalleled dedication and hard work – like that of the Women & Wildlife honorees over the past decade – has helped make New Jersey a national leader in wildlife conservation.”
The three honorees were recognized individually with awards in Inspiration, Leadership, and Education:
MacKenzie Hall, a powerful force behind the conservation of wildlife in New Jersey, who began working as a wildlife biologist for Conserve Wildlife Foundation in 2004 before joining the Endangered and Nongame Species Program in 2014, is the recipient of the Women & Wildlife Inspiration Award. She has been involved in a number of projects spanning bat colonies, migrating amphibians, and grassland birds.
In her work to implement conservation programs such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program, Ms. Hall’s keen understanding of the process and positive attitude turned many farmers and landowners into dedicated environmental stewards. What may be most remarkable about Ms. Hall is her ability to motivate the public and inspire non-scientists of all ages to become passionate conservationists.
Women & Wildlife Leadership Award Winner Pat Hamilton has worked for the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Bureau of Freshwater Fisheries since 1980. She is considered to be the champion for Eastern brook trout, the state’s only native salmonid, and a species once extirpated from over 50% of its historical habitat due to human impacts.
Ms. Hamilton is one of three fisheries biologists in New Jersey endeavoring to strengthen the state regulations to further conserve native brook trout streams. Thanks to her efforts, more than 200 northern New Jersey streams have been designated as Trout Production Streams, which afford the streams higher levels of state protection.
The recipient of the Women & Wildlife Education Award is Tanya Oznowich, Environmental Education Supervisor of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, who has championed environmental education for over three decades.
Schools across New Jersey are incorporating environmental education into their curriculum, a new movement inspired by a growing awareness of environmental issues and our shared role in understanding and resolving them. To a large degree, this growing prominence is thanks to Tanya Oznowich. She has been engaging the public in natural resources since 1979. Since beginning her tenure with the NJDEP in 1988, she has dedicated herself to integrating environmental science into New Jersey’s classrooms, from kindergarten to college.
The Tenth Annual Women & Wildlife Awards, held on Wednesday, October 28 at Duke Farms in Hillsborough, New Jersey, included a presentation of the awards to the recipients, hors d’oeuvres, cash bar and a silent auction.
We gratefully thank our generous Eagle Sponsors who made the Women & Wildlife Awards possible: PSEG, Atlantic City Electric, Janice King and Bill Masonheimer, and Eric Sambol.
Lindsay McNamara is the Communications Manager for Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation Biologist and 2015 Women & Wildlife Inspiration Award Winner Featured in Halloween Special of The Creature Show
by Lindsay McNamara, Communications Manager
Just in time for Halloween, learn more about New Jersey’s bat population in the latest episode of The Creature Show! In this episode, join Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s wildlife ecologist Stephanie Feigin and 2015 Women & Wildlife Inspiration Award Winner MacKenzie Hall on their journey to track the federally listed Northern long-eared bat, hear from a young bat advocate and learn more about current threats to bat populations.
The Creature Show Halloween Special offers a glimpse into the work by New Jersey’s bat biologists to protect the remaining population of these misunderstood creatures of the night. Learn how to radio track a bat, see the joy in our biologists’ faces when all of their effort in the field pays off, and listen as common myths about bats are de-bunked.
The episode is running through Halloween in the small theater downstairs at Duke Farms‘ Orientation Center (Hillsborough, New Jersey) on a continuous loop in their “bat cave.”
The Creature Show is a documentary webseries dedicated to conservation storytelling. Their stage: the wilds of New Jersey, within the nation’s most crowded state. Here they find represented all the villains of global extinction, including habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species and wildlife disease. They also find wildlife biologists and regular citizens who have devoted themselves to protecting the region’s biodiversity, no matter what the challenges may be.
