History, Natural History & the Arts
An ongoing New York State Museum project is returning nearly 500,000 rescued freshwater mussels to the restored ALCOA Superfund Site in the Lower Grasse River near Massena, NY.
The State Museum was awarded an $713,000 cooperative agreement from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to lead the five-year effort, which is also expected to advance research informing future freshwater restoration efforts. [Read more…] about Rescued Mussels Being Returned to Lower Grasse River
This summer the Ausable Freshwater Center (AFC) finished a stream restoration at the Moss Road crossing of the North Branch Boquet River in the Town of Lewis, in Essex County, NY, by removing two old, undersized culverts to restore a natural river channel.
The culverts that had constricted the river and blocked fish for decades are now gone, and a natural channel carries the river through the road crossing. The project reconnected some 50 miles of Adirondack river and coldwater tributary habitat. [Read more…] about Adk Stream Crossing Restored After Boquet Barrier Removed
The Gowanus Canal (originally known as Gowanus Creek) is a 1.8-mile-long waterway in Brooklyn that was once a saltwater marsh teeming with wildlife, but is now among the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.
The area’s early settlers, on the first land patents issued in Breukelen (today Brooklyn), named the waterway “Gowanes Creek” after Gouwane a sachem (chief) of the Canarsee, an indigenous Lenape tribe who exploited the waterway’s resources and farmed its shores. [Read more…] about Gowanus Canal is Getting Cleaner Every Day
The arrival of autumn has aquatic critters preparing to huddle down as water temperatures drop, and New Yorks’ 44 species of native freshwater mussels are no different.
In the colder months, freshwater mussels burrow deep into the substrate. [Read more…] about Freshwater Mussels Awaiting Winter
On an otherwise unremarkable day in 2023, Jason Love and his colleagues were gathering in a parking lot when they saw something that, as far as we know, no one had ever seen before. Love, the associate director of the Highlands Biological Station in North Carolina, and his colleagues were at a trailhead in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee when he spotted a male northern cardinal attacking its reflection in a nearby car’s side mirror. [Read more…] about Avian Tool Use: Not So Bird-Brained
Microplastic pollution is not a new problem. However, in recent years, the public has become more aware, and scientists are studying the seriousness of the situation. Have you ever stood on a riverbank after a heavy rain and noticed how much plastic waste floats by?
Gallon milk jugs, plastic bottles, food wrappers, plastic bags, rubber balls, etc., all race downstream. Plastic, plastic, and more plastic. [Read more…] about Microplastics in Our Waters, Food, Air
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Region 4 has announced the completion of three new artificial spawning reefs in Otsego Lake. DEC, in partnership with the State University of New York (SUNY) at Cobleskill and the SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station, constructed the artificial reefs in hopes of creating new, clean spawning habitat for lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis), a native coldwater species once abundant in Otsego Lake. [Read more…] about Otsego Lake Artificial Spawning Reefs Deployed
Through September, the Lake George Park Commission’s boat inspectors have surveyed more than 35,000 boaters and vessels, placing 2023 on track to become the inspection program’s busiest year since New York State established it nearly ten years ago.
According to Justin Luyk, who supervises the program, trailered motorboats are the primary vectors for the spread of aquatic invasive species and nearly 500,000 of them are registered in New York State alone. [Read more…] about Lake George Boat Inspection Program Having Busiest Year Yet
Lake Champlain Maritime Museum is dedicated to inspiring people to make personal connections to Lake Champlain through our region’s history, ecology, and archeology.
For the Museum’s archaeology team, this work of making connections includes conducting ongoing archeological research, on land and underwater; caring for our collection of artifacts and research; and managing Lake Champlain’s underwater cultural resources and the Lake Champlain Underwater Historic Preserves, a unique system of shipwrecks in the lake open for divers to explore each May–October.
The flooding and ongoing climate change are threats to our work, Lake Champlain, and the lake’s shipwrecks and other underwater cultural resources. [Read more…] about Climate Change & Lake Champlain’s Underwater History
Cladophora is a type of stringy (filamentous) algae that grows on rocks, wood, logs, and other hard underwater surfaces in freshwater ecosystems, including the Great Lakes basin. If you spot this type of stringy algae along New York’s Great Lakes beaches and shorelines, including Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the Niagara River or the St. Lawrence River, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) wants to know. [Read more…] about Report Cladophora Algae Along Great Lakes, Niagara, St. Lawrence River Shorelines
Sunlight glinted off the water as we paddled our canoe along a winding channel which led through a freshwater marsh of tall grasses and wild rice. Two white, long-legged birds – great egrets – stalked the shallow water, poised to spear fish with their pointed bills.
A bald eagle landed in a tree, squawking as it joined its mate. After four miles of canoeing down the Missisquoi River in northwestern Vermont we had reached the point where the river enters Lake Champlain. [Read more…] about Paddling Freshwater Marshes: Wildlife Mosaics
Anyone launching a boat in New York waters are reminded to clean, drain, and dry boats and trailers, and disinfect fishing gear before launching to prevent the spread of aquatic invasive species (AIS).
Starting Friday, May 27th, watercraft inspection stewards, AKA boat stewards, will be stationed at more than 225 boat launches throughout the state to educate and assist the public in cleaning their equipment. Identified by their blue vests, boat stewards can provide a refresher on how to inspect boats and gear and offer information about AIS in New York. [Read more…] about Launching Your Boat? Make Sure Its Clean, Drained, and Dry
The Alcoa Massena-West Plant is an aluminum production plant on the north shore of the lower Grasse River. In the 1950s, Alcoa began using and discharging polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Grasse River, contaminating water and sediment. [Read more…] about Update On Grasse River Superfund Site Restoration
The Lake Champlain Basin Program has completed the 2021 Lake Champlain State of the Lake and Ecosystem Indicators Report and released preliminary findings. The report, which provides an assessment of the condition of Lake Champlain using a series of ecosystem indicators, is produced every three years with input from New York, Québec and Vermont scientists and field experts. It provides a better understanding of threats to the Lake’s health, as well as opportunities to meet the challenges ahead. [Read more…] about Lake Champlain 2021 State of the Lake Report Findings
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is urging pet and aquarium stores and consumers to immediately remove and properly dispose of commercially purchased “moss balls” for aquariums after invasive zebra mussels were discovered inside and on some of these products, as reported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Consumers should be advised that moss ball products purchased from Petco and PetSmart may be subject to a voluntary product recall. [Read more…] about DEC Warns Aquarium Owners About Invasive Zebra Mussels
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released a permit application to expand seven of the State’s 12 existing artificial reef sites and create four new sites. The application is now up for public review and comment. [Read more…] about State Seeks To Expand Artificial Reef Network
Since 2018, all of New York’s 12 artificial reef sites have received recycled materials that are cleaned of contaminants and approved for use in the marine environment for reef building. Hard, durable materials such as rock, concrete, and steel are strategically placed on the seafloor for reef habitat enhancement. [Read more…] about The Largest Expansion of Artificial Reefs in State History
Last July, Rich Kelley posted a most unusual photograph to the Vermont Birding Facebook group with the caption, “Someone bit off more than he could chew.”
The photo, taken in the Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge, showed a belted kingfisher weighted down by a mussel clamped firmly onto its beak. They were locked in an embrace that, absent intervention, would have been fatal for both. Thankfully, Rich effected a rescue. [Read more…] about The Kingfisher and Mussel: How They Met In An Unusual Death Grip
The award winning book, Heartbeats in the Muck: The History, Sea Life, and Environment of New York Harbor has been updated and reissued in paperback. In Heartbeats, author John Waldman covers the arc of history of New York Harbor from its pristine origins through the ravages of the industrial era to its remarkable comeback today.
First published in 1999, the volume won a New York Society Library Award. The revision includes an epilogue that brings the story of the Harbor to 2012, the 40th Anniversary of the critically important Clean Water Act, and includes the ambitious ongoing oyster restorations; alien species such as Asian shore crabs, zebra mussels, and snakehead fish; the effects of climate change; rehabilitation of the legendarily polluted Gowanus Canal, and even a return of bald eagles to Manhattan. Waldman’s work on New York Harbor also resulted in a Norcross Wildlife Conservation Award and, in 2012, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Conservation Award. [Read more…] about The History, Sea Life, and Environment of NY Harbor
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