 Monmouth County has a goal of preserving 20,000 acres of undeveloped land. Voters will decide in November whether to fund the next step of the county plan.
The last question on the ballot for the Nov. 7 election will ask voters to support the Monmouth County Open Space Trust Fund with an additional 1.25 cents per $100 of equalized assessed property value. The money will go toward preserving open space in the county and maintaining the existing county park system. The increase will cost the average homeowner in the county little more than a cup of coffee per week. The American Littoral Society supports efforts to preserve and increase open space in New Jersey because of the many benefits open space brings, both to the environment and people.  Bring yourself and bring your boat to Ocean Gate, NJ on Thursday, July 27. On that day at 11 a.m. we will be holding a parade of boats to ferry our oyster babies to their new home in the Barnegat Bay. Participants should gather at the Wildwood Avenue Pier for this event.
There will be microscopes and marine scientists available to help you see and understand the life cycle of oysters, their history in New Jersey waters, and why our bays and estuaries would benefit from their restoration. But the guests of honor will be the oyster babies that have been growing in our spat tank on the Wildwood Avenue pier since July 10.  On Tuesday, June 21, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt announced that the Trump administration has begun the formal process to end the Clean Water Rule.
We need your help to stand against this change, which favors polluters over the people of the United States.  This spring the American Littoral Society will be conducting school field trips at the Wreck Pond restoration site. The field trips are part of the pond restoration project and are intended to continue educational programs begun at some area schools over the winter.
Field trips will involve students from St. Catherine School in Spring Lake, NJ, Wall High School in Wall Township, NJ, and Communication High School, which is part of the Monmouth County Vocational School District. Field trips will run through May and into the beginning of June.  The task seemed imposing at the start of the day: Turn 50 tons of whelk shell into a reef off a remote beach on the Delaware Bay using little more than manual labor.
But thanks to 70 volunteers, aided by staff from the American Littoral Society, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, that mountain of shells turned into something worth shell-a-brating. The work was done as part of the Third Annual Shell-A-Bration, an event which has brought together people from nearby communities to help protect and restore beaches damaged during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. This year's event was held on Saturday, April 8 at Thompsons Beach in Maurice River Township, NJ. It took awhile, but the TV program involving the Littoral Society's horseshoe crab tagging events is finally available for anyone to watch.
Last year, a crew from Xploration: Awesome Planet covered horseshoe crab tagging on the Delaware bayshore. The show, hosted by Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of the legendary Jacques Cousteau, explores the most spectacular places – on the earth, inside the earth, and above the earth. The tagging event became part of an Awesome Planet episode on animal migrations. In the linked video you'll see Habitat Restoration Coordinator Shane Goodshall and Habitat Restoration Technician Quinn Whitesall as they lead a tagging event.  The American Littoral Society Rumson St. Patrick’s Day parade experience was a big hit on March 12, thanks in no small part to Doug Douty of the Lusty Lobster and his walking oyster bar.
Our float highlighted the Society’s "Shuck It, Don't Chuck It!" oyster shell recycling program and the “Bags in the Bay” pilot project being expanded to the Two Rivers Area as part of ongoing Society efforts to help clean up New Jersey’s bays and estuaries. The Bags on the Bay restoration research project has been underway in Barnegat Bay since 2016. The project involves hanging bags of recycled shells off docks. The bags are periodically pulled out of the water to catalog the species inhabiting the bag with a heavy emphasis on searching for natural oyster spat on the shells. Once analyzed, the shells are re-bagged and rehung.  Looking for a great way to cap spring break or raise your spirits for Easter? Maybe you're just looking for something to whet your appetite for Earth Day or a sumptuous brunch with the family.
You can do all of that AND help the American Littoral Society care for the coast by participating in the 2nd Annual Lobster Run on Saturday, April 15 at 9 a.m. in Asbury Park, NJ. Once again the Society will partner with Langosta Lounge and Split Second Racing for this fun and fulfilling event. It took us long into the night to reach our next port. We went from the relatively populated area of Braganza to the dark heart of this coastal region of Viseu. In three trucks, we caravanned through a maze of remnant tropical rainforests, cattle pasture an impenetrable second-growth woodland. Along the rain-slicked red clay road, small and desperate looking towns popped out of nowhere always looking like the past was a better day. The road cut through countless mangrove forests that define this region. We reached Viseu too late to do anything but find a place to stay the night.  A bridge across the many rivers from Braganca to Visiu, Brazil. Photo by Christophe Buiden
It’s hard to imagine the difficulties of people living at latitude 37 degrees north when coming to the equator in northern Brazil. It challenges even the hardiest of biologists. But after three days our team has not only acclimated but accomplished surveys in two separate estuaries.  Ruddy turnstone multiyear flight recorded by a geolocator caught in Maranhoa Brazil.
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