Issue #15 

Spring 2007

The Basin Bulletin

Newsletter for Stakeholders of the Raritan River Basin

Prepared on behalf of the Raritan Basin Watershed Alliance

Shared Strategy for the Conservation of Grassland Birds

As recognized in the New Jersey State Wildlife Action Plan (http://www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/ensp/waphome.htm), the agricultural portions of Somerset and Hunterdon Counties provide critical habitat for grassland bird species. To stem the loss of habitat in these fast growing Counties a coalition of scientists from the Raritan-Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership (RPWHP) under the direction of Troy Ettel, the Director of Conservation for the New Jersey Audubon Society, developed the Grassland Conservation Plan. 

New Jersey Audubon Society  (www.njaudubon.org), a founding member of the Raritan-Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership, worked jointly with staff from the New Jersey Endangered Species Program, Conserve Wildlife Foundation (www.conservewildlifenj.org), New Jersey Conservation Foundation (www.njconservation.org) and Conservation Resources Inc. (www.conservationresourcesinc.org), to develop a scientifically based and spatially, explicit plan for the conservation of grassland bird habitat in the Central Piedmont Plains.  The Raritan-Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership (RPWHP) represents a broad coalition of private and public organizations whose mission is to insure the prompt and effective implementation of the State Wildlife Action Plan.  The Partnership chose grassland bird restoration as its first project. 

As noted in the Grassland Conservation Plan the Raritan Watershed includes some of the largest grassland habitats in New Jersey including one of the best examples located at Duke Farms in Hillsborough.  The area encompassed by the RPWHP accounts for just over 6% of New Jersey’s agricultural lands, yet it contains nearly 9% of the best remaining examples of grasslands in the State (NJDEP Landscape Project Analysis 2006).   The Grassland Conservation Plan employs three strategies; protection, enhancement and restoration.  Already several organizations in the Raritan-Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership including the D&R Greenway Land Trust (www.drgreenway.org) are working to implement the actions included in the plan. 

Funding to support the development of the Grassland Conservation Plan was secured through a 2005 grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to Conservation Resources Inc.   Recently the Raritan-Piedmont Wildlife Habitat Partnership learned that Conservation Resources Inc. has received an additional grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to implement the Grassland Conservation Plan.  Over the next two years, Conservation Resources Inc. will be re-granting matching funds to non-profit organizations involved in land protection and restoration projects to protect grassland habitat in the Raritan-Piedmont area.  

For more information on the Partnership and matching funding available to non-profit conservation organizations involved in implementing the plan, as well as information on field trips to recently restored grassland habitats go to:  http://www.conservationresourcesinc.org/rpwhp.htm

The Grassland Conservation Plan is available on New Jersey Audubon Society’s website: http://www.njaudubon.org/Conservation/Regionalplanning.html#Raritan