Regional News

You may see some new faces on your next visit to a Mass Audubon South East sanctuary! We're thrilled to welcome these new members to our amazing team of staff.

In December, the Westport High School Environmental Club volunteered at Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary to help collect native seed from important pollinator plants. The seed collected was from two native goldenrod species that are important nectar sources for monarch butterflies.

Over the past few months, educators from the South East region have been working within the Fall River community to provide adaptive programming for individuals with a variety of needs.

Our SE-based Coastal Waterbird Team monitored the efforts of 73 pairs of Piping Plovers at 17 beaches on the South Coast and South Shore.

Bring a brown bag lunch and engage in conversation and build community with Allens Pond supporters and Mass Audubon staff at the Stone Barn!

Throughout the month of September, we held 8 Monarch Tagging Events with the public and school groups. The Monarchs that we tagged are on their fall migration to Mexico, where other scientists will report the tags they recover during the monarch’s overwintering period. 

Over the past couple months, our Coastal Waterbird Program crew has worked extremely hard to keep the piping plovers of Westport Town Beach safe. 

This year marked the fourth year of Mass Audubon’s partnership with the University of Illinois at Springfield and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources to help restore an osprey breeding population in Illinois. 

Mass Audubon educators have been spending time exploring the amazing wildlife and wild places of New Bedford with the Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.) campers as part of the Explore Your Environment Summer Program.

Visitors to Mass Audubon’s Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary in South Dartmouth and Westport may be curious if they spot groups of individuals digging on the sanctuary’s salt marsh. 

Allens Pond and Great Neck have been awarded $150,000 through an EPA program to restore saltmarsh habitats and make them more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

With the help of  property staff and our Regional Conservation Ecologist, this garden bed was created to focus on enhancing bird and pollinator habitat by establishing native perennials, shrubs, and flowering herbs that provide or attract resources used by birds, butterflies, and other pollinators on an area formally covered with lawn.

All sections of Great Neck Wildlife Sanctuary finally re-opened to visitors in May 2021—including the expanded area that encompasses the former Sacred Hearts property!

Allens Pond and Great Neck have been awarded $150,000 through an EPA program to restore saltmarsh habitats and make them more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

A lot has happened since Mass Audubon acquired the former Sacred Hearts property in summer 2019! We've made great progress in restoring these 110 acres to their natural, wild state.

We are thrilled to announce that the $2.6 million goal was met to protect the Sacred Hearts property! Our offer was officially accepted on February 14, and we're excited to be on our way to purchasing 110 acres to expand Great Neck Wildlife Sanctuary.

Mass Audubon recently honored educators from New Bedford and Attleboro as 2022 Conservation Teachers of the Year. The awards, which come with $1,000 gifts to be used to support the teachers’ programs, were presented at Mass Audubon’s Annual Meeting, which took place at the Museum of Science in Boston on Wednesday, November 2.

The mission is to create a long-range, strategic, and ambitious Environmental Master Plan (EMP) for the City of Attleboro and to encourage extensive, equitable, and inclusive community participation in its future evolution and execution.

Oak Knoll Naturalists and groups of Homeschool students Each class is 2.5 hours in length and meets in small groups, with other students of similar age, all while learning science outside in nature at the Wildlife Sanctuary.

This past June was packed with celebrations of pride. Mass Audubon was able to take part in this celebration through tabling at New Bedford’s AHA pride night and Plymouth Pride, as well as host a Pride Hike at Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary (in partnership with Plymouth Pride), and a Pride get-together at Oak Knoll Wildlife Sanctuary.

Mass Audubon’s Oak Knoll Wildlife Sanctuary annually partners with U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s Blanding’s Turtle Rearing program. This program is a head start program to give hatchlings, of this endangered species, a better chance of surviving their first winter.

We had two hugely successful volunteer planting events at Tidmarsh and The Town of Plymouth's Foothills Preserve for our Endangered Species Candidate Conservation Action Funds Grant.

The NestWatch program is a volunteer-based project focused on collecting breeding bird data for nest-box nesting bird species. Through this volunteer program, over 170 nest boxes were monitored this year at 6 of the South East sanctuaries.

This past April and May, a dedicated group of 34 volunteers have been trekking out to two streams that run through Tidmarsh Wildlife Sanctuary in order to watch the water for ten-minute intervals for signs of herring.

There's a brand-new pollinator garden at Tidmarsh! Designed to span all seasons, this garden provides a variety of flowers to support local pollinators in their search for nectar and pollen.

Our property staff has been working hard on a 0.3-mile All Persons Trail that—once finished—will enable visitors of all abilities to pass through our meadow, access our overlook platform, and get close to our restored marsh areas. 

Mass Audubon has partnered with the Town of Plymouth to restore the town-owned Foothills Preserve as well as the West Beaver Dam Brook. We're committed to restoring, enhancing, and improving the ecosystem and natural landscape at Tidmarsh to provide quality habitat for vulnerable species.