Category Archives: Flora & Fauna

Rare or noteworthy wildlife spotted in New York State Parks

Flora & Fauna, Stewardship

Celebrating Beavers this International Beaver Day

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*SLAP* *SLAP* *SLAP* What’s that!? Oh, is it the tail slapping that beavers use to tell each other to watch out for something nearby? That must mean it’s almost International Beaver Day! Every April 7th,  we get a chance to reflect on what these hard-working mammals mean to us! 

The American Beaver (Castor canadensis) is a key player in NY State Parks— so key, in fact, that it is considered a keystone species of its wetland ecosystems, playing a major role in keeping ecosystems healthy. This is because beavers are one of the few animals that truly modify their habitats to better suit their needs, which has given them the title of “ecosystem engineers!”  

Most people associate beavers with their dams, which are certainly their most influential construction projects, but they build other structures too. Beavers don’t hibernate, instead opting to spend the winter in a cozy, dome-like lodge in the middle of their pond with a passageway that provides easy access to water below the ice. A lodge houses a family (colony) of beavers, including a pair of parent beavers and their young (kits). Beavers mate for life and have 3-6 kits a year. Those lodges must get quite snug! 

Beavers also store food caches near the entrance to their lodges, which helps get them through long, cold New York winters. In these caches, the herbivorous beaver stores things like branches, leaves, and green stems that are crucial food sources in winter months.

Diagram of beaver structures. Photo credit: Jennifer Rees, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife

Their big, watertight dams—made of logs, sticks, mud, and sometimes stone— block running water, creating their own beaver ponds with rich, surrounding wetlands. Beavers constantly work to maintain their dams and build new ones where they hear running water. Beaver colonies can maintain several dams at once, sourcing wood from the forest around their pond. They use their sharp, orange teeth to cut down trees, leaving chewed stumps that can be seen up to 165 feet from bodies of water. Have you ever seen one of these stumps in a State Park? Beavers live in and modify almost any forested body of freshwater from Canada to Northern Mexico, so that’s quite a few waterbodies they may impact.

Beavers chew on trees across North America! Some of their favorites are aspens, willows, and maples. Photo Credits: NYS Parks; Range Map, New Hampshire PBS

Living with Beavers

State Parks can be centers of beaver activity, which comes with its own set of challenges between beaver habitation and park infrastructure. Damage to property caused by flooding, plugging culverts, and damage to trees are of particular concern. For instance, Seneca Lake State Park recently wrapped the bases of important trees with chicken wire to prevent beavers from gnawing on them, which worked well.

Other efforts in parks across the state include using devices such as beaver deceivers, culvert protection fencing, and pond levelling devices. Beaver deceivers are a very handy way to keep beavers in our parks while also reducing the risk of flooding for trails, roads, and other amenities we enjoy.

Interpretive programs also play an important role in promoting education and public knowledge of beavers and good beaver stewardship. Trail cameras can allow State Park Biologists to monitor beaver populations and observe their behaviors – and the photos can be used in educational programs too. The Beaver Walk and Talk at Moreau Lake State Park is a very popular educational program that shows off the major beaver lodge at the park. The Bear Mountain Trailside Museum and Zoo is also a wonderful place to brush up on beaver knowledge. Environmental stewardship in NY State Parks is vital to balancing the work of two major ecosystem engineers: beavers and humans. Good stewardship allows for the many environmental benefits of beaver-created wetlands, while also minimizing impacts to park infrastructure. 

A beaver deceiver at Glimmerglass State Park (left) and a deceived beaver, caught on a wildlife trail camera at Allegany State Park (right). Photo Credits: NYS Parks

Beaver Wetlands

Prime wetland habitat is incredibly beneficial to all sorts of organisms and even the land itself. In terms of why beavers make dams, the resulting pond and wetlands foster growth of aquatic plants like water lilies—some of the beaver’s favorite summertime snacks. Wetlands also protect beaver colonies from predators such as coyotes and fishers. For other animals, beaver-created wetlands are highly productive environments. Amphibians, fish, invertebrates, large herbivores, and waterfowl flourish in these wetlands, supporting predator populations higher up the food chain like raptors, bears, other semi-aquatic mammals like otters, and more.

Beaver-created wetlands in Verona Beach (left), Wellesley Island (middle), and Allegany (right) State Parks. Photo Credit: Left and Middle, NYS Parks; Right, Michael Head (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

As for the landscape, wetlands act like a sponge. Wetlands store water in wet periods and release water as the landscape dries, helping to regulate the water table. They also work to filter sediment and more harmful chemicals, which benefits any animal or person using the water downstream. From the wealth of biodiversity to the maintenance of healthy landscapes, beavers can help make the environment strong and resilient, which is necessary to adapt to climate change now more than ever.

Beaver History

Beavers and their wetlands were once much more abundant than they are today, seeing a massive decline in numbers due to the colonial and post-colonial fur trade. Over the course of the fur trade in New York, beavers were sadly on the brink of extirpation (regional extinction) across the Northeast United States and beyond. Beaver populations dropped so low due to unregulated, commercialized trapping for their fur, which was often made into fancy hats. New York was a center of the fur trade as trapping flourished with widespread and abundant beaver populations upstate, coupled with the easy access to navigable waterways, including the Hudson River, Lake Champlain, and the Great Lakes. At the height of the North American fur trade between 1860 and 1870, trading companies reported buying 150,000 beaver pelts per year.

An old, whimsical illustration of beavers hard at work near Niagara Falls from the early 1700s. Photo Credit: Nicolas De Fer, from L’Amerique Divisee Selon Letendue de ses Principales Parties, 1713

From the 1600s to late 1800s, the fur trade grew together with cities like Albany and New York City at the expense of beaver populations. Beavers are displayed on the seals of both of those cities as symbols honoring their fur trading past and allude to values such as diligence and hard work. Likewise, the history of the beaver is tightly linked with the entire state of New York, as shown by the beaver’s status as state mammal. We’re lucky today that beaver populations persist and are not just symbols of fur trade history, unregulated trapping, and all that caused their decline.

Rebounding beaver populations are, fortunately, a great conservation success story. Trapping regulations in the United States and Canada around the turn of the 20th century started the end of the decline. Reintroduction programs (moving animals back to habitats where they once lived) along with perseverant beavers hidden away in high mountains, like the Adirondacks, provided seeds for the growth of new beaver populations across New York and elsewhere. In the 1920s, the Palisades Interstate Park Commission even reintroduced three breeding pairs of beavers back to Harriman State Park!  

Beavers Today

Across their range, beavers number between 10 and 15 million, which is an incredible recovery! But that is only a conservatively estimated 10% of their pre-colonial population. There is much to celebrate about the beaver, but there is still much work to be done. There have been and will continue to be growing pains between beaver populations and people, but if we keep supporting the beaver, then they will help safeguard the natural places we cherish. 

This International Beaver Day, let’s reframe our understanding of the beaver. Beavers may be seen as ignoble rodents, pelts for hats, mere symbols on city seals, or unredeemable nuisances, but let’s try seeing them as wetland restorationists— stewards working toward resilient wetland networks and precolonial environments. There is a lot of work to be done to foster harmony between people and beavers, which will require continual human stewardship, but their own current recovery is a testament to how much good conservation work can be achieved over time. So be eager to get out there and explore your local State Park for dams, lodges, and the beavers that built them! 

A beaver dragging twigs at Allegany State Park. Photo Credit: Michael Head (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

More Beaver Facts!

  • Beavers are very large rodents. They can grow anywhere from 26 to 65 pounds and be almost 3 feet long with almost another foot of length from their broad tail.
  • Beavers communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Adults will grunt and young beavers will use high pitched whines. Beavers will even use their big, flat tails to make a loud, slapping noise to warn other beavers in the colony of nearby danger.
  • Beavers have orange teeth. Their teeth are very hard and contain high amounts of iron, which looks orange to us. It’s not just because they forgot to brush!
  • Like other rodents, a beaver’s front teeth (incisors) never stop growing. The length of their teeth is kept in check by being worn down when gnawing wood and are adapted to always stay sharp.
  • Beavers have very special, flat tails. They use their scaly tails to help them swim, communicate, and pat down their dams. A beaver’s tail also helps to store fat and steady their body temperature (thermoregulation).
  • Beavers have webbed back paws that help them swim better, and the second back toes have split nails they use to comb waterproofing oils into their fur.
  • So water doesn’t get into awkward places, a beaver’s nose and ears can close completely underwater.
  • Beavers also have a special membrane for their eyes that they can close to keep the water out called a nictitating membrane, almost like a clear second eyelid.
  • A beaver’s lips close behind their front teeth so they can chew sticks and other plant material underwater.
  • Beavers are also known for what’s called a castor sac (hence their genus name Castor), which holds oil that has a strong smell and is used to make a substance called castoreum. Castoreum has been used as a perfume ingredient, food flavoring with a taste like vanilla, and a traditional medicine. Beavers also groom themselves with the castor oil to keep their fur waterproof. The strong scent of the castor oil makes it great for marking beaver territories, too.
  • Beavers don’t hibernate in the winter and their lodges stay quite a bit warmer than the cold temperatures outside.
  • Beavers are most active at dawn and dusk (crepuscular) and at night (nocturnal), so keep an ear out for tail slaps after the sun goes down.
  • Beaver lodges are so well-built and cozy that other semi-aquatic mammals, like otters or muskrat, might adopt them if the beavers ever move out.
  • Beavers are pregnant with kits from the middle of winter to late spring, so be on the lookout around then for furry, little beaver babies on your adventures in State Parks.

Post by Daniel Fleischman, NYS Parks and Student Conservation Association

Cool Science, Flora & Fauna, Park Projects

What Makes Jones Beach a Classroom

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Jones Beach has always had a special relationship to energy. Located on Long Island’s South Shore just 20 miles from New York City, Jones Beach State Park is on a barrier island shaped over hundreds of thousands of years by the energy of advancing and receding glaciers, and later by the energy of the sun currents of ocean water and wind carrying sand along the coast.

Originally called Short Beach, this barrier island was inaccessible to the public. To create the state park almost a century ago, planners and engineers harnessed the energy of machines and human labor, moving sand and plants to expand the island, and building roads, amenities, and the Art Deco tower and buildings so recognizable today.

Today, energy is everywhere on Jones Beach. It’s in the dramatic dive of a predator like the Common Tern, and in the bright sun that drives photosynthesis of the Seaside Goldenrod, Beach Grass or Beach Pea. It’s in water that brings migratory species and the winds that distribute seeds and carry pollinators from plant to plant. But energy is also present in the engines of the cars that bring visitors to the Park, and in the historical construction of the parkways that they follow to get here.

In an era of climate change, and in the context of New York’s growing commitment to developing renewable energy systems, the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center aims to help New Yorkers understand the fundamental ways human energy consumption and energy infrastructure continue to shape our natural environment.

To further this mission, the Center recently released Energy & Us, a 300-plus page curriculum for high school students that is available to view or download for teachers and school districts at no cost through jonesbeachenc.org/curriculum.

The goal of the program is to inspire young people to think critically about how energy shapes their landscapes and their lives, as well as their own roles in energy systems and ecosystems that surround them. With the beach itself as a classroom, Jones Beach State Park is the perfect place to learn about energy from sunlight, sand, wind, and water.

NATURAL ENERGY AT JONES BEACH

Let’s start by considering the very essence of Jones Beach – a simple grain of sand. A crystal structure composed of millions of molecules, typically of the compound silicate (SiO2), sand is held together with very strong bonds. By comparison, bonds in a drop of spray from the ocean are much weaker. Much less energy needs to be added to water than to sand to trigger what is known as phase shift: A puddle of water will quickly evaporate in the sun, while a similarly sized patch of sand won’t melt. Sand will melt with enough heat, as in done in glass-making, but does sand melt in nature?

Close-up images of grains of sand. (Photo credit – Wikipedia Commons)

Consider when lightning strikes a beach, it creates melted and recrystallized sand formations called fulgurites, also known as “fossil lightning.” Lightning possesses tremendous energy — the core of a lightning strike can reach 53,500 F — but only makes contact with a relatively small surface. The strike quickly heats the sand to a high enough temperature that its chemical bonds are broken. Fulgurite then forms as the energy transfers out of the melted sand into the surrounding ground and air, and the melted matter becomes solid again, forming this unusual form of fused sand.

Have you ever gone swimming in the late summer or early fall, and found the water to be warmer than the air? Solar energy that is absorbed over the course of the summer dissipates in the fall more easily from land and air than from water. This is because water is a relatively poor conductor; energy moves through it with difficulty, so water is slow to heat and slow to cool.

Air is a good insulator and a poor conductor, which is why fur and down help keep animals warm. It’s not the quantity of hairs or feathers that matters, but rather the layer of air trapped within that stops energy from being conducted out of the body into the surrounding air. Birds fluff up during the winter to trap more insulating air in their feathers.

A snowy owl sits among the sand dunes and beach grass at Jones Beach. (Photo credit – Sean Hanley and G. Anthony Svatek/Kulturfolger Productions)

When sunlight hits the beach, radiant energy transforms into the kinetic energy of excited electrons in the sand, which vibrate, producing what we experience as warmth. Maybe even too much warmth on a sunny day, as anyone who has walked barefoot knows! The excited electrons also release new photons, wave particles that carry energy away from the sand and produce what we perceive as glare.

A Monarch butterfly among the seaside Goldenrod in the maritime dunes at Jones Beach, harvesting the energy found in the flowers’ nectar. (Photo Credit – Julie Lundgren/NY Natural Heritage Program)

ENERGY DRIVES ECOSYSTEM CONDITIONS

At Jones Beach, dominant winds flow from the west and the north, pushing sand dunes gradually towards the sea. Meanwhile, ocean currents flow parallel to the mainland, pushing sand from east to west and moving the shoreline westward. A jetty constructed in the 1950s at the West End interrupts these currents, causing sand to accumulate on the eastern side while the western channel remains open.

Winter and storm-season waves typically contain more energy, pulling more sediment off the beach and into the water in a process called erosion. When large waves wash over dunes during high tides and storms — a phenomenon called “overtopping” — dunes can flatten and shift. In summer, ocean currents, waves, and winds typically bring sands back onto the beach and dunes in a everchanging cycle.

Jones Beach shoreline change map. (Photo credit – Ruth Nervig/JBENC)
Fresh sands are deposited by summer waves, wind and storms creating open habitat for piping plovers, terns and some rare plants like Seabeach Knotweed and Seabeach Amaranth. (Photo credit – Julie Lundgren/NYNatural Heritage Program)

Water and winds can also influence how species move through Jones Beach. Birds, winged insects, fish, phytoplankton, and various other organisms travel on currents in the air and water, and currents also distribute seeds, eggs, and nutrients that organisms need to survive. Local examples of this include plankton that float on ocean currents, providing food for larger marine animals; shorebirds that depend on the strong sea breeze; and grass seeds spread by water and wind. Although major storms can decimate local populations of some species, most of the plants and animals of this ecosystem are adapted to these natural processes.

Seabeach knotweed (Polygonum glaucum) is a plant that needs open and untrampled beach and dune areas. (Photo credit – Julie Lundgren/NY Natural Heritage Program)
In the aftermath of a hurricane at Jones Beach, the massive energy of the storm washed up this massive uprooted tree trunk. (Photo credit – Julie Lundgren/NY Natural Heritage Program)

ENERGY SHAPES PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRIVATE LIFE

When planner Robert Moses envisioned Jones Beach State Park in the 1920s, he recognized that the automobile would have an increasing role in daily American life.

The rise of cars was coupled with another innovation by automaker Henry Ford – the assembly line that allowed for costs to be reduced, creating a new class of workers with enough disposable income to purchase the goods they produced, and with more leisure time to allow travel.

Jones Beach State Park was one of the first and most prominent parks to connect this growing urban middle class to the environment.

Automobiles entering Jones Beach on its opening day on Aug. 24, 1929. (Photo credit – New York State Archives)
A map showing the Parks and Parkway envisioned by Robert Moses. (Photo Credit – Long Island State Parks Commission)

In 1924, as the new chairman of the State Parks Commission and President of the Long Island State Parks Commission, Moses began planning a system of “Parks and Parkways” to connect car-owning city residents to beaches and parklands across Long Island. Moses envisioned parkways as an extension of the parks themselves: green spaces that transported urban dwellers to a beautiful natural landscape.

Jones Beach opened in 1929 as a triumph of 20th century engineering. Forty million cubic yards of sand were dredged from the bay to widen the beach and raise its elevation up to 12 feet. Workers hand-planted a million native Beach Grass plants to prevent the taller dunes from blowing away in the wind.

Workers planting Beach Grass during construction at Jones Beach State Park (Photo credit – NYS Parks)
Beach Grass (Ammophila breviligulata), native to Long Island, has long roots which help create and stabilize the maritime dunes at Jones Beach. (Photo credit – Julie Lundgren/NY Natural Heritage Program)

Moses’s plan for parks and roads across Long Island reflected a new approach to “nature,” one of landscapes constructed intentionally for public enjoyment. The parkways also helped spark a new era of Long Island suburbanization, which greatly increased consumption and the demand for energy.

Many different types of energy come together at the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center. As climate change impacts the globe with rising seas and stronger storms, Jones Beach will model the positive possibilities for access and use of energy. Solar panels that power the Center represent New York’s commitment to expand renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change. Resilient design modeled by the building itself will be key as New York’s communities adapt to rising sea levels and changing weather patterns.

There has never been a more important time for New Yorkers to understand the connections between energy, nature, and society. With the Energy & Us curriculum, young people throughout the state can begin to reconsider about how those forces shape their own lives, and how they can engage with them to transform the future.

Cover shot – Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, Michael Moran/nArchitects

Post by Olivia Schwob, a writer, researcher, and editor interested in human geography, political economy, and public things. Olivia was Developer of the Energy & Us curriculum from 2020-2021, Curatorial Team Writer for the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center from 2019 – 2020, and Managing Editor of Urban Omnibus, a publication of the Architectural League of New York, from 2016 – 2019. She lives in Brooklyn.

Family Fun, Flora & Fauna

Winter Sowers Bring May Flowers

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Native plant gardening is one of the most important ways to take sustainable action, creating habitat for indigenous wildlife while preventing the spread of invasive species. Growing plants from seed has the benefit of higher genetic diversity than planting nursery stock, which is often cloned.

Better yet, locally sourced seeds are part of the local ecotype, or the genetic variety adapted to your area. The more locally your seed was harvested, the better your garden will help preserve your ecosystem in the face of climate change, invasive species, and other threats to our landscape.

That’s why Rockefeller State Park Preserve held a series of gardening workshops this winter. Yes, you read that right—the gardening season starts in winter! Native wildflowers are adapted to the climate of this region, so they’ve evolved to need the cold of winter to break through the outer coating of their seeds. This is called cold stratification. Sowing by mid-February ensures that your seeds have enough time in the cold to germinate by mid-April when the weather warms up.

While the preserve’s Native Wildflower Seed Sowing Workshops are over, here’s a handy guide to follow along at home.

Sourcing native seeds

The best way to get seeds of your local ecotype is through a local seed collecting organization that already has the licenses and permissions to legally and ethically source seed. It’s important not to attempt harvesting seeds yourself without appropriate licensing and training, as this can threaten the natural population of the plant. Healthy Yards is a coalition of public and private landowners in Westchester County working together to provide locally-sourced seed to home gardeners. If you don’t know of such an organization near you, I’ve added some resources at the bottom of this article. Planting the seeds of a New York native plant is better than planting nonnative nursery stock, even if it’s from a different ecotype.

Preparing your materials

You will need a container and soil. Reuse a plastic salad container or milk jug with a lid to maintain humidity, and punch drain holes in the bottom. Label it with the name of the plant, the date sown, and the expected germination date. For soil, sterile seed starting mix can be bought from nurseries and gardening stores. In a shallow plastic container, moisten the soil by mixing it with hot water with your hands. Hot water and steam will penetrate the soil more quickly than cold water, so you won’t need as much to get your soil just slightly moist. Too much water could lead to seed rot.

Scoop the soil into the container until it’s two-thirds full and gently smooth the surface, without compressing it.

Materials needed: soil, a plastic container with a lid and drainage holes, masking tape and marker for labeling, seeds, and spice shaker with sand. (Photo Credit – D. Mishra)

Sow the seeds

Sow seeds at a depth equal to the size of the seed itself. A larger seed should go in a depression in the soil with a light layer of soil on top, while tiny seeds may be sprinkled on the surface. An easy way to surface sow tiny seeds is to mix them with sand in a salt or spice shaker. The sand will show you how much you’ve sown, and is easier for light to penetrate than soil, sometimes a requirement for native seeds.

Seeds sown with sand, with pencil for scale. These seeds have already germinated, but sand helps with visibility before they have emerged. (Photo credit – P. Butter)

Wait

Seal the container and place it outdoors or in an unheated room. Mark your calendar for the expected germination date. Check the moisture level periodically, giving a spritz of water if they’re drying out.

Germination and Beyond

When the weather starts warming and your germination date approaches, check on your seeds every day to see if they sprout. When you see cotyledons, or the first leaves, remove the lids and place them in the sun. These leaves were contained in the embryo and will not look like the representative leaves of the plant.

Now that the lid is off, you’ll have to monitor the moisture more often. You can place a tray under the container to hold some water to prevent drying out. Once the first set of true leaves emerge, transplant each seedling into its own pot with potting soil and compost. At this point, care for each plant according to its individual moisture, soil, and light requirements.

When they’re big enough, plant them in your garden by mid-June and water daily until they begin to put on new growth. If they aren’t ready to be planted by June, then keep them in pots until fall as they are less likely to establish in the heat of summer.  Continue to water and remove any surrounding weeds or competing plants. Don’t worry if all your seedlings don’t survive or if the plants don’t flower the first year. Some plants take a year or two to get established.

Enjoy watching your seedlings grow to attract bees, beetles, butterflies and other interesting insects. In the winter, leave foliage and seed heads to provide shelter and food for overwintering insects and birds. Your native plant garden will help bridge the gap between nature and your neighborhood.

A native sedge showing its true leaves, ready to be potted. (Photo credit – P. Butter)
Native sedge after being potted in 4-inch plug pots, in a tray of water to maintain moisture. (Photo credit – P. Butter)

Cover Shot – Bluets (Houstonia caerulea), a native spring wildflower that can form delicate carpets of pale blue on dry sunny sites. A classic rock garden plant and groundcover. Photo Credit – State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Post by Devyani Mishra, Flora Steward, Rockefeller State Park Preserve

Resources

Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy is a call to action for planting native plants in your garden that describes how your yard can help your ecosystem.

This website from the state Department of Environmental Conservation lists native flowers for gardening and landscaping.

The following websites can help you find plants native to your area:

Native Plant Finder (By Zip Code) , Xerces Society Pollinator Conservation Resource Center, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center New York Special Collection

Here are some responsibly sourced seeds that serve the Northeast and the Great Lakes regions. These sources include plants that aren’t native to New York, so be sure to double check with the New York Flora Atlas that the plant you want is native to your area:

Prairie Moon Nursery, Ernst Conservation Seeds, Eco59, WildSeedProject.net, OPN Seeds, Hudson Valley Seed Company

Here are some native plant societies around New York that may know more about locally sourced seed in your area:

Finger Lakes Native Plant Society, Adirondacks Garden Club, Long Island Native Plants Initiative, Torrey Botanical Society, Niagara Frontier Botanical Society

Cool Science, Flora & Fauna, Research, Stewardship

What to do with a Thousand Acres of Swallow-wort?

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With 80-foot cliffs overlooking eastern Lake Ontario, 14 miles of hiking trails, a dog park, a state-of-the-art playground, a residential cottage that sleeps eight, and a globally rare ecosystem, Robert G. Wehle State Park is a gem.

This striking landscape also has a military history of helping to defend the country. Between 1895 and 1947 before it was a park, the U.S. military used this property as training grounds. The park includes remnants of the Stony Point Rifle Range, where soldiers trained for combat, as well as shoreline concrete observer posts where spotters oversaw aerial gunnery target practice.

In 1963, the U.S. Army sold this land to Louis Wehle, founder of the post-Prohibition Genesee brewery, and Thomas Nagle, a Rochester car dealer. In succeeding years, Wehle and his son, Robert, maintained the property as a cattle farm, game preserve, and rural retreat for raising of internationally-renowned hunting dogs . After Robert Wehle’s death in 2002, the state Department of Environmental Conservation acquired the land, later passing it State Parks to establish as Robert G. Wehle State Park in 2003.

Click on this slideshow below for scenery at the park:

But visitors to this park may notice something else beyond its beauty _ large areas overrun by a strange, twining vine that seems to grow everywhere that is not mowed lawn, leaving few if any other plants surviving. Before his death, Robert Wehle was trying, with limited success, to control this invasive plant, known as pale swallow-wort (Vincetoxicum rossicum).

Now, decades after it was used to help train soldiers, this park is again on the front lines of a new mission: To be part of a campaign to learn whether a small moth found in Europe and Asia can help fight this invading perennial plant, which has spread throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada.

Pale swallow-wort at the entrance to Robert G. Wehle State Park in Jefferson County. The plant has begun to turn yellow at the end of the summer.

But first, what is this aggressive interloper that drives out other plants wherever it spreads?

Also given the ominous name of “dog-strangling vine,” pale swallow-wort is a native of Ukraine that was introduced to North America in the mid- to late-1800s as an ornamental vine in herbariums and greenhouses. Once here, it began expanding into old fields, pastures, and woodland understories. Pale swallow-wort wipes out native plants in its path due to its vast root system, immense seed production and seed dispersal method (seeds look similar to milkweed seeds and can float far away in the wind), and the production of allelochemicals that inhibit growth of other nearby plants and protect it from grazing animals. Whitetail deer, which will eat most plants, avoid it.

Pale swallow-wort also poses a threat to New York’s population of native Monarch butterflies, which require milkweed to reproduce. Monarchs are known to confuse swallow-wort with milkweed and lay their eggs on it. Due to the chemical composition of swallow-wort, Monarch larvae that feed on the plant usually don’t survive.

All of these traits combine to create the ‘perfect’ invasive species and a land manager’s worst nightmare. So, what has been done and what is still being done to control this tenacious weed?

Robert Wehle noticed this plant on his property, according to anecdotal accounts. The cattle herds that he kept could have suppressed the plant’s invasion in pastures through grazing and trampling.  Wehle also utilized fire management to maintain some fields, which could have held swallow-wort at bay temporarily. Records also indicate he tried chemical herbicides to control swallow-wort infestation. This suggests that, like subsequent scientific studies conducted have shown, that Wehle found grazing and burning were not effective control techniques. 

After the land became a State Park, grazing, burning, and chemicals were no longer done.  Instead, staff began mowing areas around the entrance, maintenance shop, parking lots, rental compound, and trails frequently, which cuts back swallow-wort before it matures enough to produce seeds. But only so much mowing could be done on a 1,100-acre property.

Where mowing stops at Robert G. Wehle State Park, pale swalow-wort often begins.
Pale swallow-wort along trails in the park, above and below. The plant turns yellow in the fall.
The flowers of pale swallow-wort.
Signs at the park inform visitors about pale swallow-wort and steps being taken to address it.

A plan to address this issue was adopted in 2010 by State Parks, in cooperation with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The first step was to raise public awareness of the problem. Interpretive signage was installed at most trailheads throughout the park to inform visitors. Boot brush stations were placed at the entrance/exit to the park for patrons to clean off their footwear to limit the spread of swallow-wort and its seeds off the property . The feathery seeds can easily stick to shoes, clothing and even the fur of dogs being walked.

That same year, State Parks hired an excavation company to carry out an experiment that may show promise for restoring degraded portions of Wehle’s globally rare Alvar ecosystem. Alvar is a grass- and sedge-dominated community, with scattered shrubs and sometimes trees. The community occurs on broad, flat expanses of calcareous bedrock, like limestone or dolostone, covered by a thin veneer of mineral soil.

Using a skid steer in selected areas, crews scraped away soil containing swallow-wort roots from limestone bedrock. Once most of the soil was gone, swallow-wort could not take root on bare rock. The areaa was then reseeded with native species. Other native plants showed up on their own, freed from the smothering competition from the swallow-wort. But these efforts could not be used everywhere in the park.

An area of the park reclaimed from pale swallow-wort by scraping off soil and later reseeding it with native plants.
In addition to the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence regions, pale swallow-wort is found in other areas of the state, including the Finger Lakes and Hudson Valley. (Photo credit – New York State Invasive Species Information, http://nyis.info/)

Where does the moth come into this ongoing effort? For the last two years, Parks and its partners at Cornell University, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF), Wells College, SUNY Cortland, and the University of Rhode Island have been using Robert G. Wehle State Park to study the viability of Hypena opulenta moths to suppress this invader.

This approach – the use of a natural enemy to deal with an invasive species – is known as biocontrol. In order to ensure that a new introduced species will not negatively impact other plants and animals, the effects must be extensively studied before any widespread use or release can be permitted. It cannot be overstated how extensively biocontrols are scrutinized before potential approval for release. Study can continue for years or even decades. Only after research confirms there will be little or little to no impacts to native species will federal regulators approve the biocontrol to be released.

In this case, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2017 approved the release of the moths for field testing as biocontrol for pale swallow-wort. After the moths lay eggs on the swallow-wort, the larvae that later emerge eat the plant’s leaves.

For the last two seasons, Hypena moths were placed in cages in areas of swallow-wort at Robert G. Wehle State Park, as well on as nearby Grenadier Island in Lake Ontario off Cape Vincent. The cages ensured that the moths would be confined to the test areas.

Results from 2020 showed promise as one cage showed 100 percent defoliation of swallow-wort within four weeks by the caterpillars. Preliminary results from this year were not as successful. However, this is all part of the scientific process as the battle against the invasive continues with Robert G. Wehle State Park playing its part.

A Hypena opulenta moth inside the mesh cage over a patch of pale swallow-wort. The moth will lay its eggs on the plants.
After eggs hatch, the emerging caterpillars begin eating the plant leaves.
After four weeks, the caterpillars have eaten all the leaves in this cage. (All photos above credited to the St. Lawrence Eastern Lake Ontario Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management.)

Hopefully one day we can say the tide is turning. Eradication is likely not possible, but containment could give native plants a better chance at a peaceful co-existence. If you visit the park, remember: Use the bootbrushes and check your clothes! Don’t inadvertently spread the ‘perfect invasive.’

Cover Shot – A pale swallow-wort infestation at Robert G. Wehle State Park. All photos NYS Parks unless otherwise credited.

Post by Pete Zimmer, Stewardship Specialist, Mid-State Capital District/Thousand Islands Region, NYS Parks

Resources

Learn more about the biocontrol project from the report below by the St. Lawrence Eastern Lake Ontario Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management:

Click to access hypena-opulenta-adult-emergence-2020_pdf-embed.pdf

More information is also available from the New York State Invasive Species Research Institute.


The 2013 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture also describes early efforts to contain pale swallow-wort.

Flora & Fauna, Nature Centers, Research, Stewardship

The Life and Times of Gonzo the Black Vulture

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On July 22, 1997, Gonzo the Black Vulture stepped timidly onto northern soil for the first time at the Trailside Museums and Zoo at Bear Mountain State Park in the Hudson Valley. Born five years earlier at the Memphis Zoo, and later transferred to the Nashville Zoo, where he served as and education ambassador, Gonzo had made a northbound journey many members of his species would later take.

Early on in his career, Gonzo had developed a significant droop in his left wing, prompting surgery for a partial amputation to aid in his mobility. During his surgery, veterinarians discovered that Gonzo also suffered an irregular heartbeat.  While it would be an early retirement from commercial zoo life, Gonzo would not be arriving alone in New York’s strange and unfamiliar landscape.

Gonzo in his enclosure at the Trailside Museums and Zoo at Bear Mountain State Park.

Like Gonzo himself, black vultures are historically southerners. They are a neotropical species ranging from South America to Virginia, which remained the case up to the mid-20th century. However, beginning in the 1980’s and increasingly ever since, black vultures have been engaging in a northward expansion.

Sixteen years prior to Gonzo’s arrival at Trailside, the first ever black vulture was recorded in New York state at Minnewaska State Park Preserve on November 1, 1981 by Dan Smiley, a resident naturalist at the nearby Mohonk Preserve.  In 1997, the same year as Gonzo’s arrival, the first black vulture “nest” was recorded nearby on the eastern side of Bonticou Crag in Ulster County by Joe Bridges, a research associate with the Mohonk Preserve. The term “nest” is to be taken lightly, as black vultures aren’t much for creature comforts.  Like all new world vulture species, black vultures forego building nests instead opting for hard-to-reach rocky crags and recesses in caves, hollow logs, brush piles, thickets, and abandoned buildings to lay their clutch of eggs.

For Gonzo’s first years at Trailside, his neighbors outside his enclosure would consist primarily of his slightly larger and keen-smelling counterpart, the turkey vulture, which was the dominant vulture species in the Hudson Highlands at the time. Black vultures such as Gonzo lack the turkey vulture’s sense of smell, instead relying their sharp eyesight while coasting thermals to forage for meals.  Unable to smell carrion, black vultures have adapted a new strategy, relying instead on turkey vultures to do the work for them.  To find food, all black vultures need to do is keep an eye on the lower-soaring turkey vultures. Once the turkey vulture descends, the black vulture follows close behind.

How to tell a black vulture from a turkey vulture

Since his early days at Trailside, Gonzo bore witness to a population boom in New York of his species, a black vulture golden age. The latest large-scale survey of New York birds was performed during 2000 to 2005, splitting the state into 5,000 geographic blocks.  It confirmed black vulture nests in five blocks and reported suspected nests in 100; a significant increase since the last survey, performed during 1980 to 1985, which reported no found or suspected nests. Since then, its safe to say that the population has continued to increase as evidenced on local Christmas Bird Counts and the community science site eBird.org.

As to why the black vultures have taken up this avian manifest destiny to spread into New York, we are left only to speculate. Climate change may be a driving factor, turning New York’s colder climate into something milder and more habitable for black vultures.  However, the black vulture’s range has shifted northward only along the eastern seaboard from Virginia, and along the Hudson River north to the St. Lawrence, with little change in the Midwest.

 Other possible causes include an increase in deer and other mammal populations, and vehicle traffic, leading to increased food availability from roadkill, and greater tolerance of the species and increased protection under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

The range of the black vulture in North America is extending northward. The darker purple regions is where the birds are common, while the lighter regions are where the vultures are spreading, but less commonly found. (Photo credit – Audubon Society)

Despite being called “vultures”, black vultures and other new world species bear little similarity to old world species. Their common characteristics are a result of convergent evolution, or traits selected for a similar lifestyle.  Both share bald featherless heads, perfect for rooting around in carcasses without ruffling any feathers. Both share similar circular flight patterns, utilizing the energy saving tactic of coasting on thermals. And both share the same highly corrosive digestive system; the PH of a black vulture’s stomach acid rests just above 0, akin to car battery acid and nearly 100 times as concentrated as human stomach acid.

Black vultures are instead more closely related to storks with whom they share an interesting, yet effective means of thermoregulation[1]. If a warming climate is the culprit behind the black vulture’s expansion, they will, without a doubt, continue to thrive in warmer climates thanks to urohidrosis; or the habit in some birds of defecating onto the scaly portion of the legs as a cooling method, using evaporative cooling of the fluids.

[1] Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperatures is very different

Additionally, keeping in mind that a black vulture’s stomach acid is highly acidic, they produce a sterile excrement which cleanses their feet of bacteria and parasites, which may accumulate due to their scavenger lifestyle. Two birds with one stone, if you will

 Black vultures will also simultaneously thermoregulate and sanitize through the process of sunbathing.  Often observed with wings out and backs to the sun, these birds are warming their bodies while utilizing the UV radiation from sunlight to kill bacteria and parasites on their feathers.

As adults, black vultures experience few predators. Their main threat comes in the form of nest predation either by raccoons or foxes.  Despite their relative safety, vultures still maintain a gruesome defense mechanism against predation; defensive vomiting. Utilizing their stomach acid once more, black vultures are able to produce a foul smelling and corrosive vomit that acts as a deterrent and mace for predators.

In addition to clever adaptations, black vultures themselves are undoubtedly intelligent birds, this trait being readily observable in Gonzo and other captive black vultures. Gonzo observed and interacted with the world around him with great curiosity.  Behind his soulful brown eyes, there was a spectacular presence, a timid and gentle personality with an almost irrefutable perception and understanding.

The social intelligence hypothesis posits that human “intelligence” has evolved in order to adapt to complex interpersonal relations and is generally accepted in the current theory of evolution. It is believed that as the size of the group increases, it becomes necessary to adapt to more complex social relationships within the group, driving the selective pressures for increased neocortex size.  Black vultures are not exempt from this theory, belonging to flocks largely composed of family units and roosting in large masses in the evening.

At Trailside, where the black vultures seemed to have designated the bear exhibit as their daytime roost, their community engagements can be observed through mutual preening, playful chasing, food sharing, and the occasional scuffle. But perhaps the best example of their sociality was seen with Gonzo.

 Confined to his exhibit, Gonzo began receiving vulture visitors, and over the years they grew in number to the point which on any given day a sizeable flock of wild black vultures could be seen mingling with Gonzo. Perhaps they were assessing the mystery as to why this member of their species was captive, putting their bald little heads together in a sort of vulture think-tank, or perhaps, lacking his own flock, the wild vultures assimilated him into their own.

Keepers at Trailside have observed on numerous occasions, the passing of food between cage bars to the flock; perhaps, an altruistic sharing of of a captive bird’s bounty. Food sharing in wild vultures is typically only observed within members of the same family.  Perhaps Gonzo viewed this flock as a sort of family. Between shared mice and fish, did the vultures swap tales of harsh winters, open skies, and a northbound journey? Voiceless secrets told hushed through throats lacking a syrinx[2]

[2] The syrinx is the lower larynx or voice organ in birds, situated at or near the junction of the trachea and bronchi and well developed in songbirds

Because Black vultures lack the organ responsible for birdsong in many species, their vocal repertoire consists mainly of huffs, grunts, and hisses. Click here to hear a recording of a black vulture from the The Cornell Lab of Ornithology Macaulay Library.

On the black vulture’s sociability, Charles Darwin wrote:

 “These vultures certainly may be called gregarious, for they seem to have pleasure in society, and are not solely brought together by the attraction of a common prey. On a fine day a flock may often be observed at a great height, each bird wheeling round and round without closing its wings, in the most graceful evolutions. This is clearly performed for the mere pleasure of the exercise, or perhaps is connected with their matrimonial alliances.”

It certainly does appear that black vultures perform many activities through the sheer pleasure the action brings.  Play is widely regarded as a hallmark of intelligence in birds, observable in both crows and ravens.  It is an activity which helps an individual gain information regarding its environment; and play in many forms can be observed in the vultures of Bear Mountain.  In the bear den and along the zoo trail, black vultures can be seen taking turns chasing each other, tossing about hay, playing with sticks and feathers, ripping apart paper bags, tugging on the mesh of exhibits.

Trailside’s resident black bear, Sadie, shares her exhibit with a wild black vulture.

Play is also one of the reasons many Hudson Valley residents are at odds with vultures. In their exploration of this world, it turns out black vultures can be quite destructive. Their favorite pastimes including tearing rubber from windshield wipers, and shingles from roofs.

Several years ago the Bear Mountain Inn experienced nearly $10,000 in roofing damage by black vultures and, as of 2017, black vultures are estimated to have cause nearly $75,000 in damages statewide. Much like teenagers, if you have enough black vultures in one place without enough to do, they’re bound to get up to trouble. As a consequence, many Hudson Valley businesses and residents are now flying in face of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and federal law, taking up arms against the vultures. Several methods of deterrence include lasers, sprinklers, pyrotechnics, trapping and effigies; but with a population on the rise, conflict with humans is only more likely to increase.

On the other side of the coin, black vultures are a necessary asset to our ecosystem, serving as “nature’s cleanup crew” feeding on the dead and diseased other carnivores wouldn’t dare venture near, their stomach acid allowing them to safely digest putrid carcasses infected with rabies, botulinum toxin, hog cholera bacteria, and anthrax bacteria that would be lethal to other scavengers. Their work halts the further transmission of these diseases between humans and other wildlife, a role which, in the age of a zoonotic pandemic like COVID-19, is paramount.

For all those still at odds with the black vulture, Gonzo served as a shining exemplar of his species positive qualities, and magnificent beauty, connecting the black vulture in the minds of many to a handsome bird, with a quiet, yet inquisitive personality.

Gonzo passed away at Trailside on Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 29 ½ years old. While longevity records for black vultures are scarce, Gonzo may have well been one of the oldest specimens in captivity.  He leaves behind the legacy of being one of New York’s pioneer black vultures, who instilled a passion and understanding for his species in many visitors.

Gonzo is survived by his flock, a family he made all his own, the wild vultures of Trailside. Months later, the occasional solemn vulture could still be seen idling outside what was once his aviary, wearing all black feathers, dressed as if for mourning.

Gonzo gives himself a health sunbath.

Post and photographs by Malerie Muratori, Student Conservation Association intern at Trailside Zoo.