Tenth Annual Women & Wildlife Awards

Tenth Annual Women & Wildlife Awards
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Duke Farms, Hillsborough, New Jersey

The event honors outstanding women for their contributions to wildlife conservation. It includes a cocktail party and silent auction on Wednesday, October 28, 2015, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. This year's event will have keynote speaker Governor Christine Todd Whitman. 

You are invited to celebrate New Jersey’s wildlife and the women who protect our unique biodiversity.  Tickets go on sale this month and the proceeds benefit Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey’s work to protect our rare and imperiled wildlife.

http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/getinvolved/event/women/

Down the Shore Ecology

Sandy Hook

Here we are at mid-summer at our Jersey beaches. Of course, when kids go back to school there is still plenty of good weather and things to do down the shore. September and October are my favorite times to be at the shore.

If you are looking to the Jersey shore as a place of nature and the environment more than just as a beach spot, you might be interested in checking out these sites with ecological information.

1. NJ Clean Shores Program
2. NJ Adopt A Beach Program
3. NJ Coastal Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program
4. New Jersey Clean Marina Program
5. Monmouth County Planning Board's Eco-Tips for Sand Dunes 
6. NJ Beach Nesting Bird Management
7. Bureau of Marine Water Monitoring
8. USEPA Beaches Website
9. Clean Ocean Action
10. American Littoral Society
11. Surfrider Foundation - Jersey Shore Chapter
12. Ocean Conservancy
13. Alliance for Living Ocean
14. NJDA - Jersey Seafood
15. TheSurfersView.com - Surf Cams

Island Beach State Park

A Manatee Visits the Delaware River

Many New Jerseyeans journey to Florida in the colder months, but it is unusual for endangered manatees to visit us in NJ during the summer. But last week, one did decide to visit the Garden State area.

New Jersey Fish and Wildlife officials confirmed that they spotted the large marine mammal last Tuesday near the I-295 bridge and Crosswicks Creek in Bordentown City.

Manatees are also known as sea cows and generally stay in Florida’s coastal waters. They are herbivores and eat a primary diet of sea grass and aquatic vegetation. They can grow up to 13-feet long and weigh in at 1300 pounds. The one spotted was about 7 feet long.

The manatee did not seem to be in distress. The last and possibly only other spotting in NJ waters was in 2009 in Linden and that manatee needed to be rescued. Our current tourist manatee will most likely feed and then leave on its own. The greatest danger to manatees comes from boat traffic.

Cecil The Lion and New Jersey

All the media coverage of the death in Africa of Cecil the Lion, seems to have also brought attention to a New Jersey bill to protect endangered species.

New Jersey Assemblyman Tim Eustace (D) announced last week that he will file a bill during the state's next legislative session that would ban transporting animal carcasses of endangered or threatened species through airports overseen by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty airports).

A second bill would add "threatened" species to an existing New Jersey law that prohibits the possession or transport of endangered species.

Earlier in the week, media reports that an American, Walter Palmer, paid $55,000 for a "hunt" in which the well-known lion was lured from Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe to a nearby hunting zone made news worldwide. After a two-day stalking, the lion was shot by Palmer with bow and arrow.