An alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus)

During the last week of March, American Littoral Society restoration staff recorded the first recapture of a returning alewife to Wreck Pond in Spring Lake, NJ.

Fish 576 (aka Samantha) was first caught in our fyke net on April 23 of last year. She was subsequently measured, weighed, and fit with a PIT (Passive Integrated Transponder) tag. Her location was last recorded on May 24, 2016, passing by our tag antenna at the outfall pipe as she left the Wreck Pond watershed for the Atlantic Ocean where she spent the past 10 months.

On Saturday, March 25, 2017, Samantha sauntered past the tag antenna located near the Rt. 71 Bridge. It was heartening to see that Samantha survived the past year in the ocean and has once again returned to Wreck Pond to spawn. After all, the Society led the multi-million restoration project at Wreck Pond to ensure fish such as Samantha have a home to which they can return each year.

With spring finally upon us, those of us at Conserve Wildlife Foundation and the American Littoral Society are getting ready for a busy season at Delaware Bay. Over the next few weeks we’ll be highlighting our New Jersey’s Hidden Coast series that we recently released to highlight the importance of conserving this unique ecosystem.

Our first episode of New Jersey’s Hidden Coast discusses the significance of the Delaware Bayshore to a variety of species and introduces us to the grassroots efforts of a community to preserve it. Specifically, this episode focuses on the importance of the relationship between Delaware Bay, horseshoe crabs and a migratory shorebird known as the red knot.

​Find more videos from the Littoral Society and Conserve Wildlife Foundation on our video page.

An annual rite of spring on Sandy Hook is the return of Ospreys. Late last week reports came in of the first arrival taking up residence in a nest atop a chimney on the old officer’s club in the Fort Hancock section of Gateway National Recreation Unit. Only one bird was visible during a visit on Friday.

The osprey, also known as the “fish hawk,” is one of New Jersey’s largest raptors. They are well known and highly visible along coastal marshes.

Ospreys return here each year to mate and raise young, returning from wintering areas in northern South America and the Caribbean. Older more experienced birds arrive first, especially males.

On Saturday, April 1st, the American Littoral Society will be hosting a beach grass planting on Sandy Hook. Everyone is invited to help plant American beach grass on dunes in need of restoration from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The planting will take place at the South Maintenance Area. The entrance to the maintenance area is the first right after passing the Ranger Station in the middle of Hartshorne Drive (see map). Turn into the chain-link fenced area on the right, across from the missile. There will be signs marking the location.

The “skinny budget” outlined by President Trump last week is clearly light on one thing: full funding for the nation’s premiere ocean management and protection agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The 2018 budget proposal slashes funding for NOAA by 17 percent and includes a $126 million reduction for  NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and a $513 million cut in its satellite data division. Both are crucial to gathering data for global warming research.

Do the proposed cuts specifically target NOAA’s work on climate change impacts or are they just a casualty of the war against what the current administration insists is a bloated federal government? We might never know exactly why the President wants to shave close to a billion dollars off NOAA’s budget, but what we do know is there is already a concerted resistance coming from ocean conservationists, ocean-friendly businesses, ocean users, ocean lovers, ocean scientists and even members of Congress.

On Tuesday, Congress received a letter signed by 371 organizations and leaders opposing the drastic cuts that have been proposed for NOAA's budget. According to our partner, Ocean Conservancy, the signatories include:

Today at 2 p.m. in Trenton, the Environment and Solid Waste Committee of New Jersey's General Assembly will consider bill (A4092), which would firmly establish that waterfront areas must be accessible to the general public.

The American Littoral Society is urging committee members and the state legislature as a whole to vote yes on this important legislation.