6 Years of Endangered NJ

Late February means that spring is a possibility - although it doesn't feel that way in NJ this week. Back in February 2009, I started posting on this blog, so this is the end of year six and into our seventh blogging year.

Having volunteered in New Jersey's Wildlife Conservation Corps for a lot of years, I didn't have as much free time and there didn't seem to be as many possibilities to volunteer. I had been doing talks for the Speakers Bureau and focusing on the threatened and endangered species.

Those talks with slides made me aware of just how many people in our state did not were unaware of the program or the species that were in trouble. I decided that the blog (a re-purposing of an earlier website that was a student project involving my son) could probably reach a bigger audience than those talks both in NJ and beyond.

As a lifelong New Jerseyean, I tire of the Jersey jokes and like to share some of the many good things in the state. Now, you could say that writing about things that are threatened and endangered in NJ doesn't show our best side. But the blog is really about all the efforts to protect those species. Every state and every country on the planet has endangered species, but not all of those places are making a good effort to prevent and protect them.

When I look at the stats for popular posts here, I continue to see that people in and out of NJ like to read about Wolves in New Jersey (Wolves are popular, but does NJ actually have any?) and people want to know about the two venomous snakes that we do have living here. It's great to write about successful species comebacks - like the bald eagle and to inform people about species that aren't endangered and that we would like to keep that way like the bees.

Over the years, I have broadened the scope of the blog to include some history, like NJ's whaling history,
and things to do (like hiking) or the original people of our area, the Lenape.

I write about some of our state's best features and places. I love the Pinelands that may be called the Barrens but are not barren. They may even harbor a Jersey Devil, or at least a legend of one.

You may not think of hiking trails as being endangered, but the land they cross often is threatened by development.

Thanks for reading. Please explore the tags and archives and spread the word about what New Jersey does and needs to do to protect its precious things.