Group spreads its wings to protect bird habitats
$50,000 grant helps partnership restore wildlife refuges in Central Jersey.

Every spring, thousands of endangered grassland birds make extraordinary journeys from Central America and Mexico to some of their last remaining habitats in New Jersey: the Six Mile Run area of Franklin Township, Duke Farms in Hillsborough and the East Amwell grasslands on the northern slopes of the Sourland Mountains.  With the goal of preserving these areas and other key habitats in Central Jersey, a consortium of nonprofit organizations and government agencies announced Friday the creation of the Raritan-Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership.  Launched with a $50,000 grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the consortium will focus its efforts on Somerset and Hunterdon counties.

"This is an opportunity for nonprofit organizations, local governments and Duke Farms to work together to make a huge difference to protect these species, to help local farmers and protect the quality of life in the area," Michael Catania, president of Conservation Resources Inc., said at a news conference at Duke Farms.

The first of a series of projects will be a grasslands restoration initiative to promote and restore grasslands in the Six Mile Run area, the East Amwell grasslands and Duke Farms.  Six species of threatened and endangered birds make their home in these areas: the bobolink, savannah sparrow, eastern meadowlark, grasshopper sparrow, upland sandpiper and vesper sparrow.  Preserving their habitats ensures the area remains one of the most significant grassland areas in the state.

"These species are rare enough that they need to be monitored and managed accordingly, with the idea of hopefully increasing and enhancing the population," said Chris Aquila, supervisor of research and natural resources for Duke Farms.  The partnership will identify and map priority grasslands areas and reach out to landowners with information about management techniques, as well as financial incentives they can receive for preserving grasslands.  A long-term goal is buying some of the priority areas to prevent development.

"This was an amazingly important place for the past 100 years," Aquila said about Duke Farms. "Now it's ten times more important than it was. As housing developments go up throughout the area, it becomes more of an oasis."  Because of the demand for housing and increasing number of developments in Central Jersey, preserving wildlife can seem like an uphill battle at times, Catania said, but the consortium is a step in the right direction.  "The boulder is going to go a couple of notches up the hill from here," he said.

The initiative is expected to generate significant revenue for the state. According to a 2001 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service study, the 1.9 million ecotourists who live in or visit New Jersey spend $2.4 billion a year.  "If we protect these habitats, people will come from all over the world to see these species," Catania said.

The partnership plans to hire a part-time coordinator in early 2006 to serve as a liaison between member groups and local residents, municipal officials and landowners.  Temporary office and meeting space for the partnership will be provided by Duke Farms, and the effort will be co-chaired by Linda Mead, executive director of the Delaware and Raritan Greenway Land Trust, and Gene Huntington, the group leader for research at Duke Farms.

Several statewide agencies are participating in the consortium, including the New Jersey Audubon Society, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, The Nature Conservancy of New Jersey and the New Jersey Field Office of the Trust for Public Land.  Regional nonprofits taking part are the Delaware and Raritan Greenway Land Trust, the Sourlands Planning Council, the Stony Brook Watershed Association and the Upper Raritan Watershed Association.  Representatives from the Duke Farms Foundation, Hillsborough, Franklin Township, Somerset County and the New Jersey Endangered and Nongame Species Program also are participating.

By Kim Brown
Courier News Staff Writer 

Copyright 2006 Courier News. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved

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