The Peregrine Project For The Classroom

The Peregrine Project is a hands-on, multi-disciplinary project using the peregrine falcon as its focus to teach reading, writing, science, geography, technology, and art.

Teachers can use the peregrine webcam as an exciting resource in the classroom. The Jersey City Peregrine webcam streams live video from a nestbox atop 101 Hudson Street between March or April and July each year.

You can start the year with activities and resources to prepare students for the nesting activity in the spring.

By engaging students in the wonders of our natural world, it encourages respect for all living things and helps promote stewardship for rare wildlife.

In the winter of 2004, the Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ (CWF) partnered with the Cornelia F. Bradford School in Jersey City on The Peregrine Project, created to raise awareness about one of the New Jersey’s endangered and threatened species, the peregrine falcon. One product of the effort is The Peregrine Project Curriculum. The Verizon Foundation generously provided funding for this project.

The Peregrine Project is a hands-on, multi-disciplinary project using the peregrine falcon as its focus to teach reading, writing, science, geography, technology, and art. The Cornelia F. Bradford School is located around the corner from 101 Hudson Street, where in 2001, the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife installed a Web cam on a nesting pair of peregrine falcons.

Second graders at Cornelia F. Bradford School, learned about this endangered species through reading, writing, and art, using the Internet and library for their research. Using classroom computers, the children were able to observe the peregrines and their behavior as the birds cared for their newly hatched chicks. The second graders kept a journal about the peregrine falcon family as well as observations of all urban wildlife that they encountered on a daily basis. The hallways of the school were lined with pictures, articles, and artwork about birds of prey and peregrine falcons. Encouraged by their teachers, students “thought like birds” for a weekend and then constructed bird nests that were displayed throughout the school.

• The Peregrine Project and Curriculum - The lesson plans and activities contained in the curriculum, entitled "Peregrine Falcons, Raptors, and Other Urban Wildlife," details the lessons and activities they used to teach about the peregrine falcon in the classroom. Using the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards, the 23 lessons are multi-disciplinary, incorporating reading, writing, science, art, and technology. The lessons build off one another, first discussing birds in general and then focusing on birds of prey and finally onto peregrine falcons.


• "The Great Peregrine Scavenger Hunt" Lesson Plans
• Peregrine Falcon Kids Book
• Raptor study lesson plan
• Peregrine Falcon Webcam Homepage

Back To School Week on Endangered NJ

All seven days this week I will offer some resources for teachers to use to use in their classrooms to incorporate an awareness of endangered species and threatened environmental issues in NJ and elsewhere that can be used across different disciplines and grade levels.

Click out education and classroom links to see all our posts about teaching and learning activities and projects.

Please add your comments about resources on the environment that you use in your teaching - whether you teach in NJ or not!.

ASMFC Horseshoe Crab Board Extends Addendum V Provisions to Fall 2010

The following is a news release from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission's Horseshoe Crab Management Board approved extending the provisions of Addendum V to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Horseshoe Crab for an additional year as it awaits the results of the upcoming peer-reviewed stock assessment.

Addendum V's measures include a delayed, male-only harvest in New Jersey and Delaware, prohibiting the harvest and landing of male and female horseshoe crabs from January 1 through June 7 in the Delaware Bay, and restricting the annual harvest to 100,000 males per state from June 8 through December 31. As with all Commission plans, states can implement more conservative management measures. In the case of New Jersey, it currently maintains a moratorium on the harvest and landing of horseshoe crab.

The Addendum also requires a delayed harvest in Maryland, prohibiting horseshoe crab harvest and landings from January 1 through June 7 and prohibits landing of horseshoe crabs in Virginia from waters outside the Bay from January 1 through June 7. No more than forty percent of Virginia's quota may be landed from ocean waters and those landings must be comprised of a minimum male to female ratio of 2:1.

The Addendum's measures seek to address the needs of the migratory shorebirds, particularly the red knot, while allowing a limited commercial bait fishery. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Shorebird Technical Committee has indicated that the red knot, one of many shorebird species that feed upon horseshoe crab eggs, remains stable at very low population levels. Red knots have shown no sign of recovery, despite a nearly 70 percent reduction in horseshoe crab landings since 1998.

Based on the most recent surveys of horseshoe crabs, management measures over the last several years have resulted in increased juvenile abundance and no trend in adult abundance in the Delaware Bay region. A horseshoe crab trawl survey administered by Virginia Tech shows no significant trend across all horseshoe crab ages and sexes over the past six years. However, the Virginia Tech coastal survey and a Delaware Bay survey continue to show increased recruitment of juvenile crabs. A survey of spawning crabs on the beaches of Delaware Bay indicates stable female and male spawning activity over the past nine years.

For more information, please contact Braddock Spear, Senior Fisheries Management Plan Coordinator for Policy, at bspear@asmfc.org

The Greater Newark Conservancy

The Greater Newark Conservancy promotes environmental stewardship to improve the quality of life in New Jersey's urban communities. Founded in 1987, the Conservancy has four program areas--environmental education, community greening and gardening, job training and advocacy for environmental justice.

The Community Greening Program addresses Newark's deficit of quality preserved open space by enhancing existing community parks, creating new pocket parks, establishing greenways, and improving neighborhoods with street trees, street-side planted flower barrels and community gardens.

The program works with Newark residents to transform neighborhoods with curbside flower barrels and lush community gardens on former vacant lots. These urban farms increase accessibility to food sources for urban residents by providing high quality, locally grown healthy food using natural pest control methods.

The Conservancy's greening strategies not only promote visual improvements to city neighborhoods, but also empower residents to take back their streets and to understand the role that they can have in local issues that affect their quality of life.

Greater Newark Conservancy's Education Program offers a variety of hands-on environmentally themed lessons. Active participation in the programs increases student enthusiasm, comprehension and retention of key concepts that span the school's curriculum.

All programs and in-class lessons are:
Hands-on
Interdisciplinary
Science and literacy based
Correlated to the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards
Tailored to student ability

Download the Current Program Brochure for programs offered at the Prudential Outdoor Learning Center for adults and children.


Greater Newark Conservancy is transforming two vacant buildings and the surrounding 1.5 acres in downtown Newark, NJ into the state's first urban environmental education resource center. What will become the main building of the Center is an historic 1884 former synagogue/church on Prince Street, near Springfield Avenue. This 15,800-square-foot building will be transformed into a large lecture hall/community space, environmental classrooms, a demonstration kitchen/laboratory, environmental exhibit galleries and a computer library.

U.S. Endangered Species List May Get Additions

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that it would move forward on a review of 29 plant and animal species and assess their inclusion on the federal endangered species list. This is real news considering the lack of considerations for adding any species during the last eight years.

On the other side of this issue, the service recently rejected petitions for nine species. Those critical of the decisions say that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is following a Bush-era approach of denying protections to species which has its basis in incomplete and selective interpretation of the science.

The possible additions represent twenty plant, six snail, two insect and one fish species.

The 20 plants that will undergo status review are: Yellowstone sand verbena, Ross' bentgrass, Hamilton's milkvetch, Isely milkvetch, skiff milkvetch, precocious milkvetch, Cisco milkvetch, Schmoll's milkvetch, Fremont County rockcress, boat-shaped bugseed, Pipe Springs cryptantha, Weber whitlowgrass, Brandegee's wild buckwheat, Frisco buckwheat, Ostler's peppergrass, Lesquerella navajoensis (a bladderpod), Flowers penstemon, Gibben's beardtongue, pale blue-eyed grass and Frisco clover.



The fish is the northern leatherside chub.

The two insects are the Platte River caddisfly and mist forestfly (or meltwater lednian stonefly).

The six snails are the frigid ambersnail, Bearmouth mountainsnail, Byrne Resort mountainsnail, longitudinal gland pyrg, Hamlin Valley pyrg and sub-globose snake pyrg.

The Service received petitions seeking to protect 206 species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) of which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that 29 may warrant Federal protection.

Now, they must undertake a more thorough review of these species to determine whether to propose adding them to the Federal list of threatened and endangered wildlife and plants.

Though the 38 species addressed in this recent finding are not found in New Jersey, residents should take note of the results of the findings as an indication of the direction the Service may take in the future.

What are NJ's most serious environmental issues?

In our recent online poll of this site's users, we asked: "What are New Jersey's most serious environmental issues?"

Users were allowed to select multiple issues from a list of eight.

The results are:

• 45% water quality
• 42% preserve open space
• 42% toxic cleanup
• 37% air quality
• 34% urban sprawl
• 23% coastal protection
• 21 fish and wildlife protection
• 17 energy (nuclear, wind etc.)
  

Endangered Due To Climate Change

We won't have a decision until early next year, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife may list the American pika as the first animal in the continental U.S. listed under the Endangered Species Act because of climate change. The Center for Biological Diversity filed the petition to list the pika.

Pikas are a relative of the rabbit and live in the mountain of the eastern United States. These small chinchilla-like animals, with short limbs, have rounded ears, and short tails. Pikas are also called rock rabbits, coneys and the "whistling hare" (due to its high-pitched alarm call when diving into its burrow).

Researchers say warmer temperatures are putting it at risk for extinction.

Pikas are very territorial - a trait that may be lead to their disappearance. While many species respond to climate change in their habitat by migrating, pikas seem to remain and are dying off.

Changes due to global warming often have results that may seem illogical to the public. For example, the warming of the oceans can lead to more severe winter sorms and snow in some areas. For pikas, the warming on their mountain habitat has reduced the snowpack which the animals rely upon for shelter from freezing winds. So, a warmer climate may cause them to freeze.

Further, in summer, they not be able to gather sufficient food (cut grass and flowers to make hay) for the winter.

The possible listing of the pika has industries that emit greenhouse gases worried. Their listing could motivate policy developments and restrictions.

General information about pikas

Beach Protection Legislation Passed

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee recently approved legislation Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-OH) authored to increase funding to states to protect water quality, and to require tough new beach water quality testing and public notification standards so beachgoers are better informed about the safety of their beaches. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ-06) is the sponsor of companion legislation in the House of Representatives.

"New Jersey's beaches are a treasure we must protect. Our law nine years ago was an important step toward cleaner, safer beaches and this new measure will further protect our shores and our waters from pollution. Our bill also helps protect coastal economies by providing more timely and accurate information about beach quality and by keeping our shores clean," said Sen. Lautenberg, who along with Rep. Pallone authored the 2000 BEACH Act which set water quality testing and notification requirements so beachgoers are better informed about the safety of their beaches.

The Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act of 2009 reauthorizes grants awarded to states through the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health (BEACH) Act through 2013. It would increase the annual grant levels from $30 million to $60 million.

The Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act mandates the use of rapid testing methods by requiring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to approve the use of rapid testing methods that detect bathing water contamination as soon as practicable and not more than four hours after a water quality sample is received by the testing facility.

Current water quality monitoring tests, like those used in New Jersey, only test for bacteria levels and take 24 to 48 hours to produce reliable results. During this time many beachgoers can be unknowingly exposed to harmful pollution. More immediate results would prevent beaches from remaining open when high levels of bacteria are found.

In addition to the water quality monitoring and notification standards currently required under the BEACH Act, the Clean Coastal Environment and Public Health Act would expand the scope to include pollution source tracking efforts. The bill also would require that beach water quality violations are disclosed not only to the public, but to all relevant state agencies with beach water pollution authority.

"The coastlines in New Jersey and throughout the country are environmental and economic treasures that need to be protected and preserved. They are central to multi-billion dollar tourism industries with an environmental value that is incalculable. This law will ensure that beachgoers will have clean shores and clean ocean water to enjoy for generations to come,” said Rep. Pallone.

http://lautenberg.senate.gov

http://www.house.gov/pallone/

http://www.house.gov/list/press/nj06_pallone/pr_june18_beachprotectionsenate.html

About The Earth's Oceans

From Mother Earth News, comes an interesting list of surprising facts about our oceans.

Just to get you interested, how about these to get you started -

• 94% of life on Earth is aquatic? That makes us land-dwellers a very small minority.
• About 70% of the planet is ocean, with an average depth of more than 12,400 feet. Given that photons (light) can’t penetrate more than 330 feet below the water’s surface, most of our planet is in a perpetual state of darkness.
• 50% of the United States (in terms of our complete legal jurisdiction, which includes ocean territory) lies below the ocean.
• The deep sea is the largest museum on Earth: There are more artifacts and remnants of history in the ocean than in all of the world’s museums, combined.

Becoming an Outdoors Woman - Coastal Workshop.

The registration deadline of Friday, August 14 is quickly approaching for the NJDEP's Division of Fish and Wildlife "Becoming an Outdoors-Woman" (BOW) Coastal workshop.

Although oriented towards women, this workshop is open to anyone who is at least 18 years of age who would like to learn about wildlife and outdoor skills on the Jersey coast. Snorkeling, fishing, geocaching, shooting, kayaking, archery, falconry, boating, crabbing and bird watching are just a few of the 24 hands-on learning sessions being offered. No prior knowledge or skills are required - just a willingness to learn from experienced and talented instructors.

Slated for September 11 - 13, 2009, the workshop is a fabulous opportunity to spend three value-packed days and two nights in beautiful Cape May when the crowds are gone and the weather and water are usually superb. The incredibly low fee of $370 includes lodging at the oceanfront Grand Hotel, seven meals and free instruction and use of equipment needed for the various wildlife and outdoor skill classes.

This workshop has been a life changing experience for many women who discovered the joy of the outdoors and enriched their lives with the skills and confidence they acquired. It can do the same for you or someone you care about.

Sending someone to the workshop is a super gift idea and a great way to say, "Thanks, you deserve some time for yourself".

Visit http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/pdf/2009/bow_coastal09.pdf today to view and print the workshop brochure and registration form.

Endangered Sharks

Sandbar shark

A third of the world's open water sharks, including the great white and hammerhead, face extinction, according to a major conservation survey. Those species that are hunted on the high seas are particularly at risk. In that group, more than half are in danger of dying out, reports the Shark Specialist Group at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

New Jersey waters have long been the home for a number of shark species. Though no species is on the NJ endangered list, their protection is still a concern as species are federally and globally endangered. The inevitable summer news story about a sighting or attack at the Jersey Shore always brings to mind images from films like Jaws and stories like that of the 1916 NJ attacks.

The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks between July 1 and July 12 in which four people were killed. Scientists are still not sure which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently being blamed.

Though there is an assortment of sharks that can be found in New Jersey waters, most would be found offshore in oceanic waters and are rarely a danger to swimmers, surfers or divers. Though they can often be put off by the noise and bubbles, they should still always be treated with caution.

Blue, basking, great white, shortfin mako, porbeagle, thresher, and other "inshore" and "dogfishes " are all found in our waters. The "dogfish" is actually a generic name for a large number of small, generally harmless and unaggressive sharks, not all of which are very closely related.

Most NJ shore visitors are familiar with skates which are closely related to sharks and rays. Skates can be found in shallow bays to deep-sea habitats and live on the bottom of the sea floor. If you have ever been fishing offshore, you probably have pulled one of these doormats up thinking you had a huge fish on the line.

Their flat body and large fins give skates the appearance of flying when swimming through the water. They eat a variety of crustaceans, mussels, clams, snails, and
worms. The best-known NJ species is the little skate, which is 1 to 2 feet (30 to 61 centimeters) long. A larger skate that lives along the New Jersey coast is the barn-door skate.

Skate are oviparous (egg layers) and after a breeding season, female skates can store sperm to fertilize and secrete eggs continually throughout a 3-4 month period. The eggs are encased in a tough, leathery protective egg case that is black, with four points and are frequently found washed up on the beach by bathers.

Collapsing shark populations are mainly caused by overfishing. Some 100 million sharks are caught in commercial and sports fishing every year. Sharks are especially vulnerable to overfishing because most species take many years to mature and have relatively few young. Sharks are prized for their meat, and in Asia especially for their fins, a prestige food thought to convey health benefits. For decades, significant numbers of sharks, including blue and mako, have perished as "by-catch" in commercial tuna and swordfish operations.

The smooth hammerhead, great white, basking, and oceanic whitetip sharks are listed as globally vulnerable to extinction, along with two species of makos and three types of threshers.

The Sand Tiger shark is fairly common off Atlantic City and Cape May.

For example, the Spanish fleet of so-called surface longline fishing boats ostensibly targets swordfish, but 70 percent of its catch, by weight, from 2000 to 2004 were pelagic sharks. There are currently no restrictions on the number of sharks that these fisheries can harvest.

Europe is the fastest growing market for meat from the porbeagle and another species, the spiny dogfish.

What would be the impact from the loss of sharks from the world's oceans?

"Removing large predators would deprive ecosystems of players that have been around for more than 400 million years," said Francesco Ferretti, a researcher at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Recent studies have shown that sharp reductions of coastal shark populations along the US East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico caused major disruptions throughout the food chain, including on aquaculture.

The IUCN issues the Red List of Threatened Species, the most comprehensive and authoritative conservation inventory of the world's plants and animals species.

Shark Research Institute
Scuba Diving NJ - info on sharks
Images: nmfs.noaa.gov

Call For Volunteers - Delaware Bayshore

Volunteers are needed on the morning of August 13th in Green Creek, NJ on the Delaware Bay to help with Project PORTS (see earlier post).

Volunteers are needed to help transplant shell bags from a lower Delaware Bay
location. The shell bags, which were constructed by more than 500 school children, are part of a community-based oyster restoration project. The shell provides a settlement surface/habitat for oyster larvae.

Working at low tide, the volunteers will walk off shore to the location of the bags, lift the bags from the sand, load them onto skiffs, and float the skiffs to a larger vessel as the tide rises. The bags will be emptied on the larger vessel, which will transport them up bay to the Gandy’s Beach Oyster Restoration Enhancement Area. (Volunteers will not participate in transporting the bags up bay.)


When & Where - August 13th Rain date Aug 14th
From 8:00 am until finished (9:30 or sooner)
Cape Shore Facility of the Haskin Shellfish Research Lab
Green Creek, NJ

For contact information and more about this volunteer opportunity, see the Littoral Society's website:
http://www.littoralsociety.org/userfiles/doccenter/PORTS_CallForVolunteers_August-2009.pdf

Using Dogs To Sniff Out Endangered Species

You have probably heard of dogs being trained to find hidden drugs, bombs, even cell phones. Well, there are also dogs whose highly developed sense of smell is being used to find endangered species.

An issue of The Scientist reported that conservationists are training dogs to track down rare species of plants. Many of those species are extremely hard for humans to find.

In the video below, you can see John Vesely, executive director of the Oregon Wildlife Institute, and Rogue the Belgian sheepdog sniffing out the Kincaid's lupine, an endangered plant that is host to a rare, endemic butterfly found only in Northwest Oregon.

Surfrider NJ

The Surfrider Foundation is a grassroots, non-profit, environmental organization that works to protect our oceans, waves, and beaches.

They were founded in 1984 and have 60 chapters located along the East, West, Gulf, Puerto Rican, and Hawaiian coasts. The Jersey Shore Chapter offers a a number of activities and projects.

"Respect the Beach" is an educational program that introduces students to beach ecology and to the watershed process.

The Surfrider Foundation's Blue Water Task Force is a water quality monitoring, education and advocacy program, to educate New Jersey citizens about coastal water quality problems and to build support for national coastal water quality testing and monitoring standards.

The Jersey Shore Chapter often addresses political and environmental issues that threaten New Jersey beaches and waters, including beach replenishment, ocean dumping, and public beach access.

Chris Carhart at an overpublicized inlet in Northern Ocean County during a 2009 spring run of North swell. Photo by Jack Ryan

As you might guess from their name, they also strive to open and preserve surfing beaches in coastal communities all along the Jersey Shore. They host and participate in surf clinics and contests, including the Chapter's annual Manasquan Classic (this year it will be Sept. 19), to promote surfing to the young and young-at-heart.

Many of their activities are aimed at increasing the public awareness of issues impacting NJ beaches by being visible at community and music festivals, beach cleanups and beach mapping projects, and at local beach/sporting events.

You can read their State of the Beach report for NJ gives a good summary of state activities and concerns.

One recent campaign was the Manasquan to Barnegat Beachfill. The Army Corps plans to do a massive dredge and fill for the beaches from Manasquan Inlet to Barnegat Inlet, NJ. This would include the towns from Point Pleasant to Seaside Park.

If you are interested, their next monthly chapter meeting will be August 8 at 9 AM at the Monmouth Beach Cultural Center, Ocean Ave., Monmouth Beach, NJ.

Humpback Whale Washes Onto Monmouth Beach

As thrilling as it is to spot a whale breaching on one of those whale-watching cruises, it is even more exciting to see one off the NJ coast.

So, it is quite the reverse to see a dead a dead humpback washed up on one of our beaches.

That is what happened last week when a juvenile humpback washed up dead onto Monmouth Beach.

Photos via Atlantic Highland Herald

Because the whale hit the rock sea wall before ending up on the beach, it was difficult for scientists to clearly determine the cause of death.

This can also be a teachable moment. The shocking sight of the dead whale with its stomach literally inside out coming out its mouth, indicates that it was likely to have been hit by a ship in the stomach. The major threats to many whales are entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes. In our NJ waters, tanker ships are quite common.

A child examining the detached baleen from this whale will hopefully be told something about baleen whales.

Perhaps, the incident will create a conversation about how a reduction of speed by large ships entering areas where whales are present reduces strikes because it allows whales to move away after hearing the ship's engines.

Whales that was up dead on NJ beaches are generally cut in pieces and the remains are buried somewhere on the beach, according to officials with the Marine Mammal Stranding Center. It appears that this whale was dead for a week before it washed ashore.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center has worked since 1978 to help not only stranded whales, but dolphins, seals and sea turtles that have washed ashore along the Jersey Shore.

For more coverage and photos: www.ahherald.com