Bolton Landing, NY – The public is invited to attend a hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) field survey training on Saturday, March 11, from 10 am to noon, at Hearthstone Point Campground in Lake George.
Program leaders will give an overview of winter outing safety skills, while teaching how to identify hemlock trees, survey for hemlock woolly adelgid, and report findings using iMapInvasives.
ADIRONDACKS – Forest Pest Hunter volunteer Bill Widrig has reported more than 300 forest pest survey observations, and he isn’t done yet. Widrig was among the first to join the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program’s Forest Pest Hunters effort when it began in 2021.
“Our property on the lake has old growth hemlock, some over 200 years old, that are very special to us,” Widrig said. “As hemlock woolly adelgid is a threat to these trees and all other hemlocks in the Northeast, I felt that I could not in good conscience just stand by and do nothing to help stop the spread of this pest.”
BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE—A summit to address two invasive species that are a threat to the Adirondacks will include a discussion on new research that shows a link between hydrilla and the death of eagles in the Southeastern United States. The Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program will host a free symposium, “Invasive Species at our Door: Adirondack Invasive Species Summit,” from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 19 at Adirondack Experience, the Museum on Blue Mountain Lake. The event will cover two species that could dramatically impact Adirondack forests and freshwater ecosystems: hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), a forest pest, and hydrilla, an aquatic invasive plant.
ADIRONDACKS—Beech leaf disease is in the Adirondacks, and scientists need help gathering data on the newly emerging forest pest. To teach community scientists how to identify and report beech leaf disease, the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program will host a free webinar from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 15, called “Forest Pest Hunters: Surveying for Beech Leaf Disease.”
Beech leaf disease was first detected in Ohio in 2012 and in New York state in 2018. In 2022, the state Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed the presence of beech leaf disease in over 30 counties in New York including Herkimer County, the first documented infestation in the Adirondack region. Beech leaf disease can kill mature beech trees in six to 10 years, while young trees can be killed in as little as two to three years.
July 25, 2022 — Black Brook, NY — The Nature Conservancy’s Silver Lake Bog Preserve’s nature trail is now more safe, sustainable, and accessible after a month of work by ADK’s professional trail crew. Part of a multi-year effort to make the Silver Lake Bog Preserve more accessible to all, The Nature Conservancy in the Adirondacks contracted with ADK to rebuild a bridge, reroute unsustainable trail sections, and establish a formal trail to the bluff viewpoint, which includes wooden ladders to increase safety.
The Silver Lake Bog Preserve is a publicly accessible 98-acre property that features a boardwalk that winds through an ancient peatland bog, the unsung hero of carbon capture, hardwood forests, and spectacular views of the surrounding landscape. The improved trail travels 1.5 miles through the Preserve and features a 200-foot bluff overlooking Silver Lake and Whiteface Mountain.
ADIRONDACKS – Anyone can help prevent the spread of invasive species, even without leaving their yard. That’s the gist of the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program’s free webinar “Backyard
Invasives—Identification and Management of Terrestrial Invasive Species,” which will run from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, July 20.
“A lot of invasive species tend to grow on forest edges and roadsides, and some get planted intentionally, making people’s yards an ideal habitat,” said APPIP Terrestrial Invasive Species Coordinator Becca Bernacki.
Invasive species are plants, insects, fish and other animals that are not native to a region and cause ecological, economic or human health harm. They can reproduce quickly, outcompete native vegetation and are often spread by human activity.
Yards not only provide a welcoming habitat for invasives, they’re also heavily traveled upon, which increases the opportunity for plants and seeds to be unintentionally relocated. Mowing and landscaping are two ways unwanted plants can be spread. And while it isn’t easy to control the spread of invasive species, understanding how to identify and manage them are things anyone can do.
The Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP) is inviting volunteers to join its Lake Protectors program and is kicking off summer with its first (of three) Lake Protectors training sessions from 9-11:30 a.m. on June 28.
“Being a Lake Protector is fun, easy and a great way to help Adirondack lakes,” said Brian Greene, APIPP’s Aquatic Invasive Species Coordinator.
Since the program’s inception in 2002, hundreds of volunteer Lake Protectors have surveyed more than 460 lakes in the Adirondacks, of which more than 75-percent do not have invasive species present.
Participation in the program is simple. After taking a training course, every volunteer is encouraged to adopt a waterbody of their choice and commit to surveying that pond or lake at least once during the summer. Many Lake Protectors, like Saranac Lake author Caperton Tissot, view the program as a way to spend time on a favorite waterbody while also helping to protect it from the threat of invasive species. Tissot has been a volunteer Lake Protector since 2009. In an interview last summer, she said her favorite place to survey is Barnum Pond in Paul Smiths because there are no buildings nearby, she rarely sees another boat and the shoreline varies from rocky outcrops to forests and bogs.
New York’s Invasive Species Awareness Week (ISAW) is Monday, June 6 through Sunday, June 12, with several community events planned in Saranac Lake.
Are you ready to roll up your sleeves to help care for local trails?
The Adirondack chapter of The Nature Conservancy is doing some spring cleaning and is looking for volunteers to help us at the Boquet River Nature Preserve on Saturday, May 7, 10AM-2PM.
The Adirondack Forest Preserve is celebrated as one of the world’s best-protected wilderness reserves, but of course this is New York State, not the distant, untrodden surface of Venus; with precious few exceptions all of the lands that are now “forever wild” were once privately owned, and many parcels were developed to one degree or another before the state acquired them for the Forest Preserve. If you’ve enjoyed any of the Adirondack Park’s “blockbuster” purchases over the last quarter-century, such as Little Tupper Lake, Round Lake, the Essex Chain of Lakes, Boreas Ponds, or Madawaska Flow, you have explored land that was once populated by dozens of modest hunting camps.
I was an early visitor at all of these properties, exploring their secrets while the ink was still wet on the deeds. In 1998, just weeks after the “William C. Whitney Area” opened to the public, I found a small cabin on the north shore of Little Tupper Lake that even DEC staff didn’t seem to know about. At Madawaska Flow in 2004 and Round Lake in 2006, I ventured into recently abandoned cabins that stood on expired leases, quietly awaiting their demolition. These structures reminded me that what I had come to explore as “wilderness” had been perceived and used as something slightly different a few years earlier.
Because of these experiences, as well as my interest in Adirondack history, I have never been deluded into thinking our wilderness is a people-less place; it may be the natural landscape that attracts me and fills my daydreams, but I am also familiar with (and fascinated by) the human story that haunts the Forest Preserve.
Free, Easy-to-Use Guide Provides Resources to Build Support for Local Wind and Solar Projects to Reap Community Benefits
To help community members who want to build support for local clean energy projects, The Nature Conservancy in New York and New Yorkers for Clean Power have published a toolkit to support their efforts. Entitled Building Out a Clean Energy Future, the free, online toolkit provides background, strategies and resources for New Yorkers regardless of prior knowledge about clean energy.
Identifying common barriers and outlining actions to manage and overcome them, the toolkit shares steps that community members can take to support renewable energy projects in their city, town, or village and help bring about the many benefits of clean energy including cleaner air to breathe, a stronger economy with good-paying local jobs, and less carbon pollution, the driver of climate change.
This month, the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy (MHLC), in partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), was awarded a Mohawk Watershed grant for $88,744 through the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Mohawk Watershed Program. The grant stream is intended to protect the Mohawk Basin and help mitigate the impacts of climate change.
The Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP) is calling for Adirondack outdoor enthusiasts to join a state-wide effort to protect trails, waterways, and habitats during New York’s seventh annual Invasive Species Awareness Week (ISAW). This year, from June 7-13, APIPP is going digital by holding online trainings and awareness initiatives to help community members protect the environment while maintaining safe social distancing guidelines.
Invasive species are non-native plants, animals, and insects that can throw native ecosystems out of balance, cause harm to human health, and put economically important industries such as farming, fishing, forestry, and tourism at risk. We all have a critical role to play in preventing the spread of damaging invasive species, and with increased knowledge, we can work together to steward the Adirondacks. What can you do to help?
The Nature Conservancy’s Adirondack Chapter is pleased to announce the addition of two new team members: Amanda Dunham Ely has joined the team as communications and community engagement manager, and Emily-Bell Dinan has joined as education and communications coordinator for the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program (APIPP).
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Calling on New York State Leaders to Protect Lake Champlain from Invasive Species
Here in the Adirondack region, we know how special Lake Champlain is. It provides year-round recreational opportunities for residents and visitors alike and drives our local economies. It hosts some of the best fishing in the nation and is home to an abundance of wildlife. Lake Champlain provides so much to our communities, and now we need the state to step up and protect it.
Invasive species outcompete native wildlife and cause severe harm to our ecosystems and our economies. Their proliferation can lead to the extinction of native plants and animals and threaten our way of life.
Lake Champlain is facing that threat now, with the looming introduction of invasive round goby. Round goby is a small fish species native to southeastern Europe that arrived in the Great Lakes 31 years ago in a ship’s untreated ballast water. Round gobies aggressively outcompete native fish for habitat and feed on their eggs and young, harming native fisheries and local businesses.
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