Take it Outside!

Connecting with the natural world has been shown to positively influence both physical and mental well-being for kids.

The average child today has fewer and fewer opportunities to enjoy the experience of unstructured outdoor play that is so essential for forming those connections.

Our New York Field Office helped launch a landmark project called the Hands-on-Nature Anarchy Zone, in collaboration with Ithaca Children’s Garden.

Getting dirty digging in the mud at Ithaca Children’s Garden

Featured on the Katie Couric show and recognized on NPR, the Hands-on-Nature Anarchy Zone integrates models of nature play, adventure playgrounds, and city farms from Germany, Scandinavia, and the UK.

Ithaca Children’s Garden is the first example in the US of integrating playwork and nature-based learning into a children’s garden setting.

Ithaca Children’s Garden is where children of all ages and abilities are free to explore, experiment, and connect with the natural world. In collaboration with Ithaca Children’s Garden, The Service helped establish one of the first adventure playgrounds in the US, along with natural playscape designer Rusty Keeler and early childhood development specialist Elizabeth Stilwell.

Creating climbing structures using found objects, Ithaca Children’s Garden

At the heart of the Hands-on-Nature Anarchy Zone is the philosophy and practice of free play, meaning children get to decide what they do (and don’t) want to do.

In other words, this is one of the rare places where kids are in charge.

They get dirty, take calculated risks, build and destroy things. It also means that kids will make decisions, solve problems, generate creative ideas, and navigate social situations independently.

Kids are encouraged to take calculated risks as part of Ithaca Children’s Garden

Free play empowers kids to explore and connect with nature in ways that are most meaningful to them. These experiences are likely to stay with kids for a long time and stimulate greater respect and love for nature.

On site, a storage shed houses tools and materials to be used during programs. Locust logs, straw bales, topsoil, river clay, cardboard, sand, and boulders, invite children to play, create, destruct, work together, work alone, solve problems, and have fun.

Free play allows for new friendships to be formed at Ithaca Children’s Garden

Though the idea is straightforward—letting kids play the way that they want to play—the execution can be difficult for the uninitiated because it is so far removed from what many families are used to.

Adult Playworkers staff the Hands-on-Nature Anarchy Zone to provide a safety net without dictating how kids should play. In this way we are working to inspire the next generation of environmental stewards in a free play environment.

 

(The Real) Plovers of New York

Beaches, bagels, and ’burbs: the three B’s of Long Island. If you haven’t been to the island—like me, prior to this week—you probably associate the area with some of these trademarks. But do you know about one of the tiniest but most important ‘B’s on the island—birds?

Outreach coordinator Bret Serbin’s first trip to Long Island with Long Island field biologists, USFWS.

Long Island is a crucial habitat for many birds, including a number of terns, skimmers, and even a few bald eagles. Only if you look very closely in the right places will you see one of the most important birds on Long Island: the piping plover, a tiny shorebird unique to North America that has been considered threatened since 1986.

Atlantic Coast Piping Plovers

Piping plovers are small migratory shorebirds with white and sandy coloring that nearly camouflages them in their beach surroundings. The Atlantic Coast breeding population was listed as a federally threatened species in 1986 and are considered endangered within the state of New York. Their entire Atlantic Coast New York population is concentrated on Long Island beaches, where they make their nests for the spring and summer and fortify themselves for their long journey south. As you’re reading this, hundreds of plovers are preparing for their imminent migration to their wintering grounds in far-off tropical destinations like the Bahamas and Cuba.

Here you see an adult and chick plover blend in with their surroundings, USFWS.

Piping plovers love sandy open spaces for their summer homes and thrive on the tiny invertebrates that colonize decaying vegetation known as wrack. But due to major habitat loss and disturbance from beach recreation, plover populations have grown precarious.

Long Island is a crucial site for plover protection and recovery.

Arverne, for instance, is a community on the very western part of the island where there was once no hope for plover reproduction. Now, this site is on track to support the Service’s recovery goal of 575 breeding pairs for the New York-New Jersey area. This success comes after years of dedicated efforts by community members, legislators, and scientists to protect the birds and their environment.

A beach in Arverne, a success story for piping plover recovery, USFWS.

Piping Plovers of the Great Lakes

 And while Long Island habitats like these have become hotspots for the plovers, the Long Island gang is not alone in the state of New York.

There is a Great Lakes piping plover population (say that 5 times fast) that is listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The majority of Great Lakes birds nest in Michigan, but scattered pairs occur in other Great Lakes states including New York. This population went from a low of 12 pairs in 1990 to a high of 75 pairs in 2015, but it remains small enough to be vulnerable to shoreline development, public recreation, predators, human disturbance and extreme weather events.

In 2015, after a 30-year hiatus, Great Lakes piping plovers returned to nest in New York State on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.

Assessing the health of the piping plover chicks on Sandy Island Beach State Park, USFWS.

This year there was another documented successful breeding pair that took up residence at Sandy Island Beach State Park in Pulaski, New York. Four plover chicks were reared and fledged while being closely monitored by conservation scientists. The New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation (Parks) designated a protected bird nesting area which allowed these plovers to have a safe place to nest and forage for food. Parks hired full time staff to educate beach goers as well as protect the plovers out on Sandy Island Beach.

Ways to Protect Plovers

 Ways we can help protect all populations of piping plovers is to continue to protect and conserve habitat. If carefully and thoughtfully planned, development can occur on shorelines without affecting nesting plovers or landowner enjoyment or access to the shoreline.

Keeping our distance from the chicks by walking in the water during a health survey, USFWS.

Invasive plants such as spotted knapweed, lime grass and phragmites rapidly take over and alter habitat along the shorelines and dunes, making it less desirable for nesting plovers. Removal of invasive plants each season will help maintain plover habitat.

As a beach goer there are some simple ways we can share the beach with piping plover adults and chicks and help them survive:

• Follow the guidance on signs and respect all areas fenced or posted for protection of wildlife.
• Watch these entertaining birds from a distance.
• If pets are permitted on beaches, keep them leashed and away from birds.
• Remove trash and food scraps, which attract animals that might eat piping plovers and their eggs.
• Do not feed animals on or near the beach. Keep your cats indoors.
• Volunteer as a piping plover monitor, ambassador, or educator on your local beach. Tell your friends and family how to help.

Starting in April, sites with proper nesting habitat are surveyed to locate nesting piping plovers. Once a nest is found it is protected by placing a wire enclosure over the nest. This provides protection from predators, while allowing the adult plovers to come and go for feeding. The entire nesting site is posted to inform people to keep their distance.

You can take initiative to help keep piping plovers safe and continue to allow this amazing migratory species to not only survive, but thrive.

This blog was written in partnership with Bret Serbin from the Long Island Field Office

 

Snail Blazers! Creating a future for one of New York State’s tiniest residents

Imagine yourself in the mist zone of a waterfall.

You are surrounded by dense moss and vegetation and cascading dripping wet rocks.

Chittenango Falls, USFWS

In Chittenango Falls State Park in upstate New York lives several hundred tiny, rare animals that evolved over 2 million years ago.

The Chittenango ovate amber snails are unique to the Empire State meaning you won’t find them anywhere else in the world!

This population is the only known living wild population of these snails at the edge of this waterfall in Chittenango Falls State Park.

The snail, affectionately referred to as “the Chit” or COAS is named for its home. They have a beautiful ovate, egg-shaped shell with amber coloring. The snails thrive in the mist zone of the waterfall, and feed on leaves of plants growing on nearby rocks and vegetation.

Up-close of a COAS in captivity. USFWS

For years, biologists feared that a single, catastrophic event such as a toxic spill, could wipe out the entire population of COAS.

This potential devastating truth almost happened after a huge rockslide into their habitat in 2006. This event prompted action and a collaborative partnership emerged between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, SUNY-ESF, the New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Rosamond Gifford Zoo to breed and rear the COAS in captivity with intent to release individuals in to the wild.

COAS length assessment to document health of the population. USFWS

In the summer season biologists and dedicated volunteers make regular trips to the falls site to complete a species survey and evaluate the health of the COAS population.

On the first of survey of the 2018 season a miraculous event occurred.

Not only were 42 captive reared COAS released in to the wild, but a COAS that was bred in captivity and released last year was found.

Here is “white 14” the COAS that was captive reared and released last year. USFWS

This finding is monumental!

This means that individual not only was able to find food and support itself, but was able to overwinter successfully. This is so important as it reinforces the captive rearing techniques being refined at SUNY-ESF and the Rosamond Gifford Zoo.

Some people ask, “Why put all this effort in to protecting a snail?” “What would happen if we just let it go extinct?”

The answer to those questions is we don’t really know, but all species have a role.

In addition, as a federally listed species, the public has entrusted the Service with responsibilities towards recovering the COAS.

The COAS has many champions forging ahead to conserve and protect them. It all stems from a cooperative effort to looking to prevent extinction and maintain a successful wild population one snail at a time.

Captive reared, released, and re-captured “white 14”  with USFWS biologist Robyn Niver. USFWS