2016-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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mechanical vegetation thinning to promote early successional shrub growth and various other projects. Most recently, the partners are working to update a refuge wide trail map and historical biography to be available to the general public. The Mashpee Conservation Department. is also working on updating our own trail maps and making them available for viewing and downloading on the Conservation page of the Town of Mashpee's website. The Conservation Department is working on drafting a Request for Proposals for consulting services to restore degraded riverfront habitat in the upper Quashnet River and to restore surrounding abandoned cranberry bogs to wetlands. This will be a substantial restoration project that we anticipate will span over the next 3 to 5 years until fully completed. We continue to upgrade our conservation lands as needed through trail work, new signage and new and/or updated parking and access areas. 2016 Land Stewardship Program: Assistant Conservation Agent Katelyn Cadoret continues to do a great job managing our volunteer Land Stewardship Program. This program involves recruiting Mashpee residents to act as stewards on a conservation parcel of their choosing and to assist the Department with various conservation land projects ranging from trail maintenance to cleanup days. Volunteers can sign up online through the Land Stewardship Link on the Conservation Department page of the Town's website. Volunteers are asked to walk their chosen parcel at least four times per year and fill out the online observation form after each site visit. This program helps to connect Town residents to our conservation lands and assist the Department in keeping tabs on over 1400 acres of open space lands. 2016 Herring Run Management: Mashpee has three active herring runs: The Santuit, Quashnet and Mashpee Rivers. The Santuit River fish ladder was recently reconstructed in 2014. All three herring runs are required to be inspected by a professional engineer through the MA Office of Dam Safety's Phase I inspection program. Inspections vary from every 5 to 10 years to assess structural integrity and hazard ratings. The Johns Pond fish ladder is currently being assessed for erosion issues on the up and downstream embankments and we anticipate a restoration project forthcoming to deal with this ongoing issue. With the increasing drought conditions over the last four years, the herring runs must be carefully managed to ensure safe fish passage during the herring migration season, which occurs annually from March to November. The Town works closely with the MA Division of Marine Fisheries in managing all of its herring runs. The Conservation Department. hosts an annual Herring Count Program to recruit volunteers to count herring coming up the rivers and into the fish ladders. This program runs from mid -April to the end of June. Counts last for 10 minutes at a time and volunteers submit count data to the Association for the Preservation of Cape Cod (APCC). APCC uses the data to assess herring run populations and provides this data to the MA Division of Marine Fisheries. Anyone interested in signing up for this fun and important yearly volunteer program should contact the Mashpee Conservation Department for details. The more volunteer counters we have, the better the data will be. Nature Tour Guide: Renee Fudala is the Conservation Department's naturalist tour guide. Renee offers tours of various conservation parcels in Town year round. Her tours focus on native flora and fauna as well as natural history. Renee has been with the Conservation Department for many years and her tours are very entertaining, informative and popular. To see Renee's tour schedule, check the Conservation Department page on the Town's website: hn://www.mashpeema. og v/Pages/MashpeeMA Cons ervation/naturetours The Mashpee Conservation Commission would like to thank the Department of Public Works, Fire, Police, Building, Health, Zoning, Assessing, GIS and Planning Departments, Waterways Commission, Environmental Oversight Committee, Shellfish Constable and Harbor Master for their continued cooperation in maintaining cross -departmental compliance, enforcement and overall assistance. The Commission thanks our Administrative Assistant, Cynthia Bartos. Cynthia keeps the Conservation Department afloat with her tireless work ethic, exceptional organizational skills and infectiously happy demeanor. We are truly lucky to have her. Thank you to our Assistant Agent, Katelyn Cadoret, 101