2017-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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passage and brook trout habitat.The Falmouth Rod and We launched a Facebook page in 2017, Gun Club has begun to lay the groundwork for highlighting current work done by the Stewards, and restoring portions of the Childs River,much of which conservation-related activities in the Town and in the runs through a series of abandoned cranberry bogs.The Refuge. goal of this project is to restore upper portions of the river for brook trout habitat and improved water HERRING RUN MANAGEMENT quality. Mashpee has three active herring runs: The Santuit, Quashnet and Mashpee Rivers. The Santuit In 2017, we provided letters of support for the River fish ladder was recently reconstructed in 2014. Mashpee Library STEM grant, and will be All three herring runs are required to be inspected by a collaborating with them in 2018 on educational events, professional engineer through the MA Office of Dam incorporating our Herring Count Program and Mashpee Safety's Phase I inspection program. Inspections vary Land Stewards Program. from every 5 to 10 years to assess structural integrity We continued to consistently patrol and monitor and hazard ratings. The Johns Pond fish ladder is Mashpee's conservation lands in 2017 for illegal currently being assessed for erosion issues on the up dumping, vandalism, and motorized vehicle use on and downstream embankments and we anticipate a conservation lands, issuing and collecting $1500 in restoration project forthcoming to deal with this fines in total.We continue to upgrade our conservation ongoing issue. With the increasing drought conditions lands as needed through trail work,new signage and over the last four years, the herring runs must be new and/or updated parking and access areas. carefully managed to ensure safe fish passage during the herring migration season, which occurs annually LAND STEWARDSHIP PROGRAM from March to November. The Town works closely with the MA Division of Marine Fisheries in managing Assistant Conservation Agent Katelyn Cadoret all of its herring runs. DPW recently secured funding continues to do a great job managing our volunteer from the Massachusett's Division of Ecological Land Stewardship Program. This program involves Restoration for permitting and planning the recruiting Mashpee residents to act as stewards on a replacement of the Sampsons Mills Road culvert.This conservation parcel of their choosing and to assist the area creates impediments for anadromous fish passage Department with various conservation land projects and the flow of the Santuit River.The Cape Cod Water ranging from trail maintenance to cleanup days. Resource Project funding has also been allocated to Volunteers can sign up online through the Land addressing the fish ladder at Johns Pond/Quashnet Stewardship Link on the Conservation Department River and at Santuit Pond/Santuit River. page of the Town's website. Volunteers are asked to walk their chosen parcel at least four times per year and The Conservation Department hosts an annual fill out the online observation form after each site visit. Herring Count Program to recruit volunteers to count This program helps to connect Town residents to our herring coming up the rivers and into the fish ladders. conservation lands and assist the Department in This program runs from April to the end of June. keeping tabs on over 1400 acres of open space lands. Counts last for 10 minutes at a time and volunteers submit count data to the Association for the We installed a new pollinator garden at Santuit Preservation of Cape Cod (APCC). There has been a Pond Preserve, which will be maintained along with moratorium on collecting river herring since 2005; the four other gardens in Town(Jehu Pond,two at the APCC uses the data to assess herring run populations Community Gardens, and Pickerel Cove) by Land and provides this data to the MA Division of Marine Stewards and Conservation staff. Americorp has Fisheries.This past year we held the annual training on worked on several projects throughout the year on March 10, 2017, at the Mashpee River Herring Run, various conservation lands, including the addition of with Dr. Jo Ann Muramoto of APCC. Anyone trail steps at Santuit Pond,re-establishing a portion of interested in signing up for this fun and important the bank of Quashnet River,removing downed trees yearly volunteer program should contact the Mashpee and general trail maintenance. Conservation Department for details. The more volunteer counters we have,the better the data will be. 101