Bats can live for over 40 years, consume up to 50% of their body weight in insects each night, (while producing up to 50% of their body weight in milk), and can weigh as little as a penny! Read more about these fascinating creatures, as well as our appreciation for our beloved colleague Gretchen Stevens, in this issue.

Although glyphosate and other herbicides are very widely used in agriculture, forestry, landscaping, and in managing wild vegetation, rarely are adverse effects on nontarget organisms measured directly in the field. Controlled experiments help point the way, but lots of uncertainty exists.

“Although extinctions are a part of life on Earth, there is much evidence that Earth is now undergoing a mass extinction event—apparently driven by human activities—in which species are disappearing at 1,000 times the background extinction rate.” Local actions are important. Access some ideas on working with municipalities to ensure environmental impacts are fully assessed, and to offset ecological damage as we embark on needed infrastructure improvements. And meet some rare species who have taken to an abandoned, un-reclaimed cement quarry.

The economic costs of work now possible under H.R. 368 are hotly debated, while the ecological costs receive less attention. We can mitigate eco-impacts while reaping the many benefits, including renewable energy systems and better protection of our water supply. Here are our ideas.

Collaborative studies are the basis of management plans that reconcile desires to maintain current habitats, and prepare for inland tidal wetland mitigation. Here’s a case study focusing on the Binnen Kill that rises in Albany County and runs four miles before entering the Hudson River.

Here we celebrate our 40th birthday, and highlight the importance of a paddle on a waterway, or a walk in an urban park in a tumultuous year. “Whatever happens in Washington, at Hudsonia we believe that local action is always essential for the protection of our habitat.”

With the pandemic upon us, we highlight the importance of good science when addressing global catastrophe, and the perils of ignoring science in favor of ideology, politics, or short-term economic concerns. And we outline the young and controversial science of how human activities can degrade habitats, increasing the frequency of zoonotic disease.

Here’s a ten-year roundup of some of our most important research—non-native weeds, turtle ecology—the Hudson Valley is a “global hotspot” of turtle diversity—and fishes of the Hudson watershed, to newer studies, of urban diversity, solar facility sites, and Natural Resource Inventories of towns and counties, all true to our mission.

Many aspects of logging are unregulated in New York state: logging operations don’t even need to call in a forester to plan which tree to cut and which to leave in order to protect vulnerable species like the Pink lady’s-slipper, a forest orchid. Here are some offsets. Hint: Leave those wolf trees standing.

Hudsonia collaborated on surveys of the proposed site of a utility-scale solar farm in Greene County. The proglacial Lake Albany clay meadows and rocky wooded knolls are extraordinarily rich in plant species considered rare statewide, meadows that support our arctic visitors, graceful snow buntings, horned larks ringing from the fields, and northern shrikes, watchful on their hunting perches. A challenging project for all.

Mute swans, introduced into the US in the early 20th century to adorn estates, are now accused of a number of negative actions, some unsubstantiated. We’ve synthesized the science to inform the management debate. Research suggests we consider alien species with other stresses, like reduced water quality & hardened shorelines, directing conservation dollars to projects more likely to succeed.

We’ve greatly damaged the environment, knowingly and thoughtlessly. Erik Kiviat took this deep dive, with humility, to advance our awareness of restoration and resources. Among many issues: Projects often proceed with little understanding of underlying or prior conditions; wetland mitigation often attempts to restore a wetland to compensate for permitted destruction of another; and deep organic soils may take thousands of years to develop.

Kristin Bell Travis opens with a question: “Have you ever noticed an invasive, nonnative plant growing on your property and wondered….” If the answer is yes, pretty likely, you can use our guide for landowners and gardeners, published by the Lower Hudson PRISM on best practices. Hint: don’t be a nozzle head. (Find more suggestions on our Biodiversity Resources page.)

In this article Erik Kiviat addresses some of the complexities and pitfalls of wildlife habitat restoration, and encourages clarity of thinking about purposes, means and collateral harms. Erik recommends the DEC proceed slowly, if at all, with the YFI, managing existing oldfields and shrublands instead of cutting mature forests.

Regulators are concerned about the impacts of mining the sandy habitats of the Marcellus shale on the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly, and the Blanding’s turtle. But let’s start with the longest distance and most surprising fact: Most of the sand used to prop open the fractures is mined in Wisconsin. Trucking that sand 1000 miles by rail or truck presumably consumes a large amount of energy!on goes here

The effects of gas pipelines on biodiversity may be considered in two categories: construction impacts and operating impacts. Because pipelines are very long and narrow features, they cross many streams, wetlands, mature forests, and other sensitive habitats.

Noting that biologists have lamented the decline of the formal study of natural history, Erik opens the lead article with, “Good science requires intellectual humility and an open mind, often lacking in structured institutions where scientists and scholars compete for funding and prestige.”

Herberia have been used to solve crimes, describe soil chemistry, identify fossils, and the origins of disease. Hudsonia’s extensive herbaria will soon be available online for use by other scientists and for the public’s enjoyment.

What’s not to like in that title? Also in this issue some common sense protecting vulnerable landscapes in the coming flood, and the complex fate of sediments.

We open this issue with a note inspired by inspired by one of Gretchen Stevens’s courses: “My view of the landscape is forever changed.… As I hike through the woods, watching for springs and seeps, I hope to come across the life-breeding gem I would have previously ignored—an intermittent woodland pool.”

And a newly described leopard frog bursts onto the scene! The creature, with its Chuck, Chuck call, is now known as Rana kauffeldi, the Atlantic Coast leopard frog.

In the lead-up to this 2011 article, the impacts of high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) had received much attention but scientific study of impacts on biological resources was just beginning. This lead article looked at some potential individual and cumulative effects on habitats and species.

The rise and fall of Northeastern grasslands and the impacts on those that depend on this habitat. This lead article was written by Sacha Spector, Director of Conservation Science at Scenic Hudson at the time of publishing, and adapted from a piece originally published in Wings (publication of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation (Spector S 2009 Wings 32(2):19-23)

Even in the middle of a hot summer day, the air is cool in these twilit depths where the rocky walls rise steeply on either side. Some parts of this netherworld never see direct sunlight, and the summer air temperatures always feel like early spring. There are only a few such cool ravines in southeastern New York, but this is just one of many rare habitats in the Town of Dover where Hudsonia identified and mapped all the ecologically significant places that we could find.

…and information on non-target impacts of herbicides too! Kay Hajek warns that fens are often overlooked and even avoided by professional ecologists and nature lovers because they are small, and you are highly likely to end up sinking thigh-deep in black muck! A specific type of wetland, fens are fed by underground seepage, and home to calcium-loving plants like blue-flag iris that blooms among the striking tufted fruits of cottongrass in spring. Hajek shares ideas on protecting these unique habitats.

In this guest piece, Karin Limburg, now distinguished professor at SUNY, Syracuse, outlines the result of a collaborative study of the effects of economic development on land-use and resultant changes in “ecosystems health” in the Wappinger and Fishkill Creek watersheds. As often happens, results were not in line with the working hypothesis.

Take a walk with Hudsonia biologist and co-founder Richard E. Schmidt as he carries, with an assist from a changing cast of students, his heavy Old Town canoe down the slippery path to Tivoli Bays track changes with his sein. When he wrote this in 2008, black-backed herrings, once the most abundant species in the bay, had become a surprising find, and large and small mouth bass, which he had never seen there seven years ago, were common.

When did you last think about where your drinking water, wood flooring, pharmaceuticals, and aesthetic inspiration come from, and how your activities influence those sources? Biodiversity and ecosystem services give us what we need to live, not to mention the exquisite beauty of a mist-blanketed marsh at dawn, the startling crimson of a cardinal-flower, and the delicate translucent wing of a damselfly.

Common reed (Phragmites australis) is both an invasive pest—capable of overwhelming native plant communities in certain settings—and a valuable resource, providing ecosystem services, products for human use, and habitat for wildlife and plants. In this issue we review how people understand reed, and offer an approach to management that can optimize the benefits of this controversial plant.

Common reed is a giant grass—represented in Egyptian hieroglyph, once cut for arrowshafts by indigenous peoples, and habitat for more than 100 species of North American birds. Controversial, reed is a case study for wetland and wildlife ecology.

Ask the snail beneath the stone, ask the stone beneath the wall, are there any stars at all?” From “Waltz of the New Moon,” by Robin Williamson

What’s the largest group of land animals you’ve probably never noticed? Most people are almost unaware of their existence, yet, incredibly, they are the most diverse terrestrial invertebrates after insects and spiders. They’re land snails!

Early-blooming wildflowers of woodlands and glades are second only to birds as spring harbingers and post-winter inspiration to poets, artists, and lovers. But these plants have become increasingly scarce in the last several decades.

Imagine a countryside where a domestic well yields 100 gallons of water per minute; extensive wetlands, fields, and forests support waterfowl, wildflowers, and wood turtles, and brook trout swim in cool streams among hayfields and farms, once the predominate landscape of Dutchess County. Please read our recommendations on how to best protect outwash plains, where kettle woodlands, depressions left by the melting of stranded ice blocks, support blue-spotted salamander and swamp loosestrife among other vulnerable species.

Neither plant nor animal, fungi are in a kingdom of their own. In 2001 there were 69,000 species described with an estimated 1.5 million to go. These ubiquitous and powerful ecological agents are not immune to environmental stress, and are facing a host of assaults. Don’t be thrown by the title. Learn about “mycofiltration,” mycorrhizal networks, and myriad reasons declining fungal populations not only harm the communities that depend on them, but will undermine future restoration efforts as well.

In 2001, we worked to advance understanding of the eleven millennia before Henry Hudson’s Half Moon sailed up the Hudson. We studied both more durable stone and pottery artifacts and “ecofacts,” the remains of plants and animals from ancient campsites. An addition to the archeological record, this work also identified areas needing protection in advance of infrastructure projects, and worked to stabilize a river campsite still rich in eco- and arti-facts despite decades of looting.

What is the history of water-chestnut distribution on the Hudson? Which species of small mammals inhabit the freshwater tidal marshes? Which insects eat common reed? Where does goldenclub grow? Hudsonia receives frequent requests for information like this from ecologists and students, and from decision makers involved in the protection of this region’s environment.

In Henry D. Thoreau’s words: “If you dig a pond anywhere…you will soon not only have waterfowl, reptiles, and fishes in it, but also the usual water plants, as lilies and so on. You will no sooner have your pond dug than Nature will begin to stock it. Though you may not see how the see gets there, Nature sees to it. She directs all the energies of her Patent Office upon it, and the seeds begin to arrive.

The mountain lion once had the widest distribution of any mammal in the Western hemisphere. Laura Heady “couldn’t believe it,” when Dr. John Laundré asked, “How about coming out this weekend to chase cats?” She presents ideas she developed chasing cats in Idaho to help us formulate effective questions as we address the possibility that cougars will reclaim a niche here. (Laura wrote this when she directed biodiversity education for Hudsonia. Now she is now Conservation Coordinator at the Hudson River Estuary Program.)

In the lead article, Erik Kiviat notes that probably as much has been written about purple loosestrife as any invasive plant in America, that management of invasive plants is expensive and can have significant side effects. We need to understand the ecology of invasives before killing them, and select sites carefully to achieve the best economic and ecological outcomes.

When this issue was published in 1999, we wrote that ravens were appearing in the forests and on rocky cliffs in the Hudson Valley for the first time during the then-current century. Now you often hear their raucous, varied calls and catch a glimpse of their acrobatic flight. Also, please review a note on Conservation Advisory Councils, and perhaps consider getting involved. It’s important—cumulative impacts of development projects are often ignored.

The life histories, behavior, and movements of “herps” make them highly vulnerable and many herps are missing from, or rare in, the Hudson River fauna. This “part 2” article contains a revised checklist from readers & Hudsonia personnel, a discussion of selected species, and questions for amateur and professional biologists.

A guest piece by Robert Dirig, Curator of Lichens at Cornell: “Lichens, though humble plants, engage like other humble of this world, in mighty tasks,” as G. G. Nearing put it in 1947.

Hudsonia is pleased to present the Barbours’ article on utility rights-of-way. Although conservation biologists generally find that corridors cleared through forest are deleterious to biological diversity, there are certain rare animals and plants that benefit from corridors. Therefore, rights-of-way must be planned, designed, and managed on a case-by-case basis with full knowledge of the local biota.

Many amphibians and reptiles are believed to be sensitive indicators of general environmental quality, so differences in the faunas of tidal and nontidal habitats could provide insight into the sufficiency of estuarine ecosystems to support use by other animals and people.

Since the late 1930s, pioneers in ecological restoration have restored thousands of hectares of midwestern prairie and oak savannah. The current interest in ecological restoration has been spurred by the growing alarm over the degradation of natural habitats with intrinsic as well as cultural value. Successes illustrate the potential of habitat restoration as a tool for ecosystem enhancement; Failures warrant caution and even skepticism among ecologists.

The intensive study of the Hudson River, underway since the 1960s, has focused on deep waters. There is relatively little information about shallows and wetlands, where, for example, our scientists were then documenting use of the waters, like the drift of fish eggs in tributary mouths. We suggest current knowledge on how species travel in our nearshore habitats is just the “tip of the iceberg,” and outline important areas of ongoing study.

The biological diversity and ecological integrity of a region are closely tied to the vitality of the freshwater streams embedded in the landscape. The well-being of each stream, moreover, is inextricably linked to the condition of its watershed. Because streams and other waterbodies are down-gradient of most human activities, they receive a disproportionate burden of pollution and disturbance in developed regions.

From Erik Kiviat’s field notes: On a pleasant June day, as I rested by a muddy stream, I was astonished to see a bunch of blue forget-me-nots and other small wild flowers seem to swim across a pool in front of me. Soon a muskrat appeared, swimming behind the flowers, a muskrat with a bouquet in its mouth! The muskrat dove into its burrow to eat its pretty lunch in underground seclusion.

Off in the haze and muddy waters of the tidal Hudson River are large, rare mammals, many endangered or declining, documented over the centuries. We compiled historical records of seals, porpoises, dolphins, and great whales, including oft-cited reports of unidentified whales as far north as Albany or Cahoes Falls in the mid 1600s, and outline constructive action we can take to protect these charismatic species.

Mosquitos occur almost throughout the biosphere, absent only from the open seas, polar regions and the driest of deserts. Many of our management techniques are ecologically crude: grid ditching, excavations across an entire marsh, had affected 90% of tidal marshes from Virginia to Maine by 1938, many of which are not even larval mosquito habitats. We offer some less invasive possibilities.

A great challenge of the next century is the conservation of the multitudinous animals and plants that are in decline worldwide. The bog turtle and the Blanding’s turtle of North America are listed as endangered or threatened in many of the states and provinces where they occur, and many turtle researchers believe these species are under severe stress. This article discusses how conservation biology research can provide tools for environmental planning.

“And look—a thousand Blossoms with the Day Woke—and a thousand scatter’d into Clay.” Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

New York regulations encourage siting landfills on clay deposits, which tend to be calcareous making them critical for many rare plants and animals. Here we outline effective strategies to reduce ecological harms, and protect our natural gene banks, rich with possibilities: for example, five of the six plant genera we highlight in the report have potential use as natural pest controls.

Mineral resources are often mined in areas that support our rare species. For example, sand and gravel are mined from glacial outwash areas, which may include kettle holes, and seeps, critical habitats for threatened Blanding’s and endangered bog turtles. However, it is possible to protect the needs of the species sharing our region while meeting our own needs. Here’s a broad look at the ecology of mining, and recommendations on mitigating adverse effects.

Wetlands being, arguably, more valuable and vulnerable than many other habitats, they are the focus of government regulation, and public controversy. Here’s our roundup of regulations covering the Hudson River’s nontidal wetlands, weaknesses in the programs, and effects on flora and fauna. We close with suggestions that could produce better outcomes.

We were brought in to study Eve’s Point, an abandoned brickyard on the Hudson River, now home of Bristol Beach State Park. Our report walks you through how biologists assess special resources, emphasizes the importance of considering extant biodiversity and potential habitats in our wild “gene banks” as public spaces are planned, and outlines the many resources available to facilitate the important goal.

The Shawangunk Kill has great value as a relatively healthy Hudson River tributary with a unique and apparently natural assemblage of several aquatic plants and animals that are individually rare in New York.

This newsletter provides examples of rare or newly discovered "elements" of diversity along the tidal Hudson River, and shows that we know a great deal and yet very little about our biological backyard. The efforts to study and conserve diversity in the world's vanishing tropical forests are urgent, and so is "acting locally" to discover and manage the organisms of the Hudson Valley. They - and we - deserve no less.

The shores of the tidal Hudson are a palimpsest: railroads, docks, brickyards, roads, dredge spoil deposits, homes, factories, and farms of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries have been continually superimposed on each other and on the landscape rich in rare plants, rare animals, and archeologic sites.

In The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame beautifully describes the purple loosestrife of his native England. In North America, purple loosestrife is an introduced species, and Grahame’s image of its “luxuriant tangled” growth suggests the many complex relationships it now has with our native biota. In Hamlet, Ophelia floats to her death, carrying a bouquet of “long purples,” and other stream bank flowers.

“You cannot step into the same river twice.” More than 2500 years ago, the philosopher Heraclitus offered these seemingly simple words, betraying a keen understanding of the dynamics of river systems. Rivers are always in flux, changing with time and space.

1989 was the year Hudsonia turned the lucky age of seven! This issue looks back at some of the projects Hudsonia took on during those early years.

On mild days in spring, adult Blanding’s turtles bask and feed in the sun-warmed floating carpet of the marsh surface. They stick their heads out of the water and peer about, their lemon-yellow throats reptilian beacons that blaze against the brown, green and red ooze. I—that’s Erik Kiviat—think the turtles can see each other’s yellow throats, but I can only imagine what they see beyond the margins of the wetland. A turtle alive today could have hatched at the end of World War II.

Many of us enjoy the bounty of the Hudson River - the myriad of plants, birds, and mammals of its marshes, or the fish we coax from its teeming depths. But how many of us are aware that the top layer of the mud and creatures inhabiting it, the “epibenthos”, are responsible for much of this productivity?

The ten-square miles of this watershed, a land area that drains into a single body of water, comprise an old growth forest, and large wetlands, including a tree and shrub swamp, a purple-loosestrife-sedge-cattail marsh, and wet meadows. Many rare species make their homes there: the vesper sparrow, the red-bellied snake, and fringed gentian. Great blue herons are rare breeders in Dutchess County: one of the three nesting colonies lies in the watershed.

A ledge is a delightful place to spend a sunny spring day. Abruptly elevated above the adjacent lowlands, a high ledge affords a broad vista that both pleases the eye and educates the inquiring mind. Landforms seen before only as isolatated features coalesce into a whole landscape.

The animals and plants of a pond are often the first concerted acquaintance with nature made by a child, a teacher, or a budding naturalist. A Pond is still intimate, conceptually convenient, with obvious boundaries. Its organisms are adapted to a life at least partly in the water and often have specialized ways of moving, breather, and reproducing.

Spring flowers that can be found in the Hudson River wetlands include: shrub willow (most flower in April, followed by fluffy seeds); red maple (April, then red fruits), and marsh marigold (early May). You may also see Pennsylvania sedge, a small grass-like plant of dry oak woods, which flowers in April.

Season’s are nature’s way of redecorating with the greens of spring, summer’s rainbow of wildflowers, and autumn’s reds and golds. On the Winter Solstice the sun will appear farthest to the south (lowest in the noon sky). At this turning point, subtle internal changes take place in many plants and animals as nature begins the long process of awakening in the spring. Birds will soon begin to sing.

For most of us, events in nature inspire wonder and expectation. They mark the progress of the season more accurately than any calendar or weather forecast. Here are some organisms and phenomena of summer we are studying. Help us find some “jumping bristletails.”