The Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Adirondack Program has announced a call for volunteers to survey loons on Adirondack lakes as part of the 18th Annual Adirondack Loon Census.
The event will take place on Saturday, July 21, 2018, from 8 to 9 am. Participants can choose from a list of available lakes and ponds in the Adirondack region to sign up for and survey. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has announced that it is a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) 2017 Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems program award. WCS will receive about $500,000 in funding for its project, “Experimental Investigation of the Dynamic Human-Environmental Interactions Resulting from Protected Area Visitation.”
Work on the 4-year project will be managed by the WCS Adirondack Program office in Saranac Lake with research expected to begin in 2018.
The project is expected to test the common assumption that expanding access to protected lands will inspire a broader conservation ethic among park visitors. It’s hoped the study results will ultimately inform state and federal policies to increase participation in outdoor recreation and manage public access. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has announced a new model for Cycle Adirondacks 2017.
Now in its third year, the August 19th to 25th fully supported road bicycling tour will feature three primary hub communities – Schroon Lake, Keene Valley and Saranac Lake – with two consecutive nights at each. Organizers say the result will be more ride distances and options to pedal as few as three days or as many as six during the week long event.
On days the tour doesn’t move between hub communities, guests will have the ability to choose short or long ride distances. They may also choose to take a day off their bike in favor of other activities, such as hiking, canoeing, browsing shops or restaurants. The Wild Center will be a featured activity on Aug. 24 when the tour stops in nearby Saranac Lake for the third straight year. » Continue Reading.
Newly published research in the journal PLOS ONE by scientists at Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Colorado State University (CSU), and University of California-Berkeley finds that human recreation activities in protected areas are impacting wildlife, and more often than not, in negative ways.
Nature-based, outdoor recreation is the most widespread human land use in protected areas and is permitted in more than 94 percent of parks and reserves globally. Inspiring an estimated eight billion visits per year to these areas, outdoor recreation is typically assumed to be compatible with conservation. Increasingly, however, negative effects of recreation on wildlife are being reported. » Continue Reading.
A trail weaving its way through the woods to a summit takes up just a minuscule fraction of the wild lands it traverses, which may leave the impression that trails have little impact on wildlife. Research in recent years by the Wildlife Conservation Society suggests that is not the case.
“You’d be surprised by the ripples left by a day hiker’s ramble through the woods,” wrote Christopher Solomon in the New York Times in 2015. “In 2008 Sarah Reed, an associate conservation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, and her colleagues found fivefold declines in detections of bobcats, coyotes and other midsize carnivores in protected areas in California that allowed quiet recreation activities like hiking, compared with protected areas that prohibited those activities.” » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Adirondack Program has announced a call for volunteers to help census loons on Adirondack lakes as part of the 16th Annual Adirondack Loon Census taking place from 8 – 9 am on Saturday, July 16.
With the help of local Adirondack residents and visitor volunteers, the census enables WCS to collect important data on the status of the breeding loon population in and around the Adirondack Park and across New York State. The results help guide management decisions and policies affecting loons.
Census volunteers report on the number of adult and immature loons and loon chicks that they observe during the hour-long census. Similar loon censuses will be conducted in other states throughout the Northeast simultaneously, and inform a regional overview of the population’s current status. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has announced the route for Cycle Adirondacks — a week-long road bike tour through the Adirondack Park scheduled to take place August 20–27, 2016. This will be the tour’s second year; registration is now open.
The 2016 route starts and ends in Hadley-Lake Luzerne, NY, and includes overnight stops in Ticonderoga, Keeseville, Saranac Lake, Indian Lake and Northville. There will be a “layover day” in Saranac Lake where riders can pedal an optional route that tours Lake Placid or take a day off the bike to enjoy the amenities available in the Olympic Region. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), an organization dedicated to conserving wildlife and wild places worldwide, has unveiled a strategic plan to preserve the world’s largest wild places, home to more than 50 percent of the world’s biodiversity.
Among the places on WCS’s list of 15 “Global Priority Regions” are Eastern North American Forests, including the Adirondacks and Northern Ontario and their boreal forests. » Continue Reading.
In its latest Recreational Management Plan for 19,000 acres near Rainbow Lake, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation appears disinterested in biological information, much less in taking actions protective of sensitive biological resources.
The Kushaqua Conservation Easement is 19,000 acres of managed private timberland, formerly International Paper Lands, now Lyme Timber lands, located in the Towns of Brighton and Franklin. The tract lies north of Rainbow Lake and Buck Pond Campground, west of Loon Lake, east of Meacham Lake, and much of the tract is surrounded by Forest Preserve in the form of the Debar Mountain Wild Forest. Kushaqua was placed under a conservation easement acquired by the State in 2004. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society has announced the lineup of a free community concert series happening from August 22-29, as part of Cycle Adirondacks – the first fully supported road-cycling tour of the Adirondack Park and surrounding region. The concerts are open to the public.
The eight-night series will feature live music and other entertainment in the tour’s overnight towns. From bluegrass to bike stunts, the community concert series features homegrown musical acts as well as national artists. Each venue will also offer a beer and wine garden with local craft beverages, food concessions and a local vendor village. » Continue Reading.
![Julie Larsen Maher_8520_Puma_WTR_QZ_11 20 09_hr[1]](https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Julie-Larsen-Maher_8520_Puma_WTR_QZ_11-20-09_hr1.jpg)
A new paper from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) looks at the social aspects and public attitudes with regard to a potential mountain lion re-colonization in the Adirondack Park.
The paper finds that more than three-quarters of residents and visitors would support the idea should the animals return on their own. Fifteen percent of Adirondackers polled said they had personally seen a mountain lion, despite the fact they were extirpated from New York State by around 1885. Some 80% said mountain lions still live in the Adirondacks, despite the paucity of evidence for an established population. » Continue Reading.
There is really nothing common about the Adirondack Common Loon. The large aquatic birds can be found on many Adirondack lakes and ponds. We watch them dive at one end of a lake and appear at the other end in a matter of moments. This ability to quickly dive without a splash allows them to catch their fishy meals with ease. It is not often that we’ve been on a lake and heard the loon’s mournful cry.
The loons’ eerie call range from its high-pitched tremolo, yodel, hoot and yell. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times my family spies a majestic loon’s familiar black and white patterned back; we are still in awe of its beauty. » Continue Reading.
Scientist Curt Stager walks along the edge of the woods, his flashlight shining into the shallow water of a leafy, roadside pool on a dark night in Paul Smiths. It’s late April, and he’s out looking for spotted salamanders, wood frogs, and spring peepers that have migrated to shallow vernal pools to breed. After poking around for a minute, he lets out an excited shout: “There’s a salamander! There he is! He’s early!”
In the water is a dark, four-inch-long creature with bright yellow spots. In the same pool not far away, wood frogs float on the surface. In another week, pools like this will be a filled with breeding frogs and salamanders, which will leave behind egg sacks that hatch into larvae.
Spotted salamanders spend most of the year underground, so seeing them is rare except during these annual breeding migrations. Their journeys are triggered by the first rains of spring. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Adirondack Program is looking for volunteers to help with its annual Adirondack Loon Census, which takes place on Saturday, July 18.
Volunteers are asked to visit ponds and lakes on that Saturday from 8 to 9 am and count the number of adult and immature loons they see.
Loons generally arrive for the summer breeding season in May. Their young birds hatch from eggs in late June and early July during the first round of breeding. Loons can also lay eggs later in the summer during a second round. » Continue Reading.
The Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS’s) Cycle Adirondacks bicycle touring event will take place August 23-29, 2015. During the ride, cyclists will pedal amid the forests, lakes, and streams that make the Adirondack region a world-class destination. Wildlife experts will be on hand to serve as wildlife and natural history guides. This year’s tour starts and ends in Saranac Lake and includes overnight stops in Star Lake, Boonville, Camden, Old Forge and Long Lake. There will be a extra day in Old Forge where riders can pedal an optional route or take the day off the bike and visit Old Forge and Inlet.
Registration includes three catered gourmet meals daily, free beer tastings each night, nightly live entertainment, a wellness area offering free massage, local shuttle services, fully stocked rest stops, prime camping spots, hot showers, baggage service, on-course safety support, activities for traveling companions not riding, and more. » Continue Reading.
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