Archive for March 2019

Spring is here and this state we’re in is greening up. Flowers are popping, bees are in action and buds are swelling. But in the midst of this long awaited renewal, party-crashers are lurking. One uninvited guest is the spotted lanternfly, an invasive bug that feeds on a wide range of trees, plants and crops,…

For folks living in most of New Jersey, the idea of mountains in the low-lying Pine Barrens might seem farfetched. Many have never heard of the Forked River Mountains of Ocean County, located due west of Barnegat Bay and the Garden State Parkway. Although they’re called mountains, the Forked River Mountains are actually large sand…

Here’s a not-too-fun fact. Eighty-five percent of New Jersey’s rivers are considered impaired, in large part because their banks are denuded of vegetation. Without trees, river banks erode, sediments and contaminants are washed into rivers, and waters become too warm for trout and other aquatic wildlife. Bare riverbanks and floodplains cannot absorb rainfall from heavy…

If you build it, they will come. That’s the hope for new nesting boxes for American kestrels, whose populations have declined severely over the past 50 years. Kestrels are North America’s smallest and most colorful falcons, and were once common in New Jersey. They were easy to spot perching on trees, fence posts and telephone…