2019-Annual Town Report - Laserfiche WebLink

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National Wildlife Refuge. Katelyn also represents the department at as the newly appointed President of the Friends of the Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge and the newly appointed Chair of the Mashpee Environmental Oversite Committee. She has also served as a judge at the Mashpee Middle High School Science Fair and helped at the Girl Scouts Career Fair. Herring Count Program: Over the last 9 years, we have organized an annual herring count program for each of our three herring runs in town (Mashpee, Santuit and Quashnet Rivers). The purpose of the count program is to assess the health and population of river herring. Counts are conducted at a designated spot at each run for 10 minutes at a time during the herring migration season, which runs from April to June each year. In 2018, we expanded the exposure of this volunteer program by hosting information and training sessions at the Mashpee Library and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Museum at the Mashpee River herring run. Please contact the Mashpee Conservation Dept. for more information on this important volunteer program. Land Stewards Program: The Mashpee Land Stewardship Program continued to be active in 2019. Assistant Conservation Agent Cadoret continues to plan various parcel clean- up days and other events as part of the Land Stewardship Program. We are continually recruiting new volunteers and implementing citizen scientist programs including native pollinator programs, bird & butterfly count and herring run monitoring. We've also helped to organize a few Eagle Scout projects around town including construction and placement of bat boxes, bird boxes and picture posts, which serve to record changing conditions of designated wild areas over time using cell phone photos taken by volunteers at designated spots on various conservation parcels throughout town. Our Americorps IP created the 2018- 2019 Winter Land Stewards Newsletter "The Osprey". Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge: The Mashpee Conservation Department is a partner in the Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge, which is made up of roughly 5,000 acres of open space partnership lands, including lands owned by the Falmouth Rod and Gun Club, MA Division of Fish and Wildlife, MA DCR, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, Waquoit Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, the Friends Group of the Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge and Falmouth Conservation Commission. The Refuge Partners recently completed the design and distribution of all new refuge trail maps and a History of the Refuge book, which can be purchased from the Refuge Facebook page. The partners continue to work together on various projects throughout the refuge system. Two new gates were added to the Jehu Pond Conservation land to restrict vehicular access into the parcel, thus reducing the likelihood of abuses like dumping and four wheeling. A new 3 car parking lot was also installed on the corner of Great Hay Rd and Redbrook Rd to provide visitor access. An informational kiosk and sign are to be added to this area. The refuge partners have also continued to conduct prescribed burns in the South Mashpee Pine Barrens area to improve habitat conditions for the New England Cottontail rabbit, a federally threatened species. Nature Tour Guide Renee Fudala is the Department's naturalist tour guide. Renee offers tours of various conservation parcels in town year around. Her tours focus on native flora and fauna as well as natural history. Renee has been with the Conservation Dept for many years and her tours are very entertaining, informative and popular. To see Renee's tour schedule, check the Conservation Dept page on the town's website here: http://www.mashpeema.gov/Pages/MashpeeMA_Cons ervation/naturetours The Conservation Commission wishes to thank our support staff (Assistant Agent Katelyn Cadoret and Administrative Assistant Cynthia Bartos) for their continued hard work and dedication to our department's mission and goals. We also would like to thank the many volunteers of Americorp Cape Cod for their hard work and dedication each year. We thank the Natural Resources Department for their assistance with permitting, enforcement and other projects as well as Building, Zoning, Board of Health and IT Departments for their continued support Respectfully submitted on behalf of the Conservation Department Staff and Conservation Commissioners, Brad Sweet, Chairman Chad Smith, Vice Chairman Dale McKay, Clerk Thomas J. O'Neill Charles Dalton Steve Cook (alternate) Martin Bregman (alternate) Drew McManus, Agent 125