|
[Signup Here] [Add This To Your Site]
http://pawild.net/home/feeds/news.php 
<< Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next >>
Posted
Subject: |
Description: |
Posted: 03/04/06
Subject: March 3, 2006 |
Let me make this perfectly clear to all who come to this site.
I do NOT lead or organize Herping trips. The herping photos you see are private friends and family looking for animals to research IN THE WILD (habits, Habitats, behavior, etc) and photo ops. for these reasons.
I will not be a party to herping for sport or collection-so do NOT ask. I will not give any exact locations on specimens in photographs.
I will help you ID animals from Photographs or descriptions. I will even come your house to ID animals (within reasonable distances), but I will NOT take you out to find herps. There are far too many people involved in poaching and commercialization of herps-which is against PA Law, as are "organized" hunts without a permit.
See the PA FABC website for laws and info:
http://sites.state.pa.us/PA_Exec/Fish_Boat/amp_rep.htm |
Posted: 03/14/06
Subject: March 14, 2006 |
News
Falling rocks, migrating frogs forcing park to close roadways
March 14, 2006
The national park is closing one road to protect drivers from falling rocks � and another to protect animals from drivers.
At night, plan to avoid Route 615 in Flatbrookville on the New Jersey side of Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.
Erosion has destabilized a hillside and left large rocks poised to tumble to the road below. The road is now closed indefinitely at night when drivers can't see the impending danger.
Also closed is part of storm-damaged Old Mine Road, the only alternative route to 615. The closings bar any north-south passage through the New Jersey section of the park at night.
On the Pennsylvania side, River Road will be closed temporarily on two or three mild, rainy nights this week. That's to protect spring-breeding amphibians as they hop, crawl or skitter to mating grounds.
In the past, cars took a massive toll, squashing many wood frogs, spotted salamanders, spring peepers and others.
The road will be closed from about 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. based on weather � likely over the next few nights. The trigger is a forecast calling for rain with temperatures in the 50s.
Gates at the Hialeah picnic area on the southern end of River Road within the park and at park headquarters near the intersection of Hidden Lake Road and River Road to the north will be closed and locked. Skirting these gates will result in fines of $50 to $150, at a minimum.
The park instituted similar closures over the last three years.
The first closure last year occurred in mid-March and was followed by two or three others. These were highly successful, protecting thousands of mating amphibians from motor vehicles, officials said. Closing the road also gives nature lovers on foot a rare opportunity to observe an annual sign that spring is almost here.
Roads closed
River Road, Middle Smithfield Twp.
When: A few nights this week, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., when rain and temperatures in the 50s are expected.
Why: Protect amphibians as they travel to spring mating grounds
Route 615, Flatbrookville, N.J.
When: Nights, effectively immediately and indefinitely
Why: Danger of falling rocks
Source: Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
News Source
This was also featured on local TV news. Yay!! |
Posted: 03/14/06
Subject: Feb 15, 2006 |
02/15/2006
Norco prepares for amphibian road detour
Laura Catalano , Special to The Mercury
NORTH COVENTRY -- It�s not exactly a crime to run over a frog.
Nevertheless, North Coventry Police Chief Robert Schurr is doing his best to help the Amphibian Preservation Alliance stop it from happening.
Advertisement
At a meeting Monday, Schurr told the township supervisors that he was working with the APA to create a detour for St. Peters Road on warm, wet spring nights when wood frogs and spotted salamanders are migrating.
But a road closure might be difficult to accomplish.
A detour would necessarily take traffic either directly onto Hill Camp Road, or first onto the gravel Wells Road, and then onto Hill Camp Road, and back to St. Peters Road.
Neither Wells nor Hill Camp roads can support tractor-trailers, which may be forced to use the detour, Schurr said. What�s more, since Hill Camp Road crosses into Warwick Township, that municipality would also have to approve the detour plan.
"There�s going to be some issues as to what is going to be allowed on our local roadways," said Schurr.
The road would not need to be closed every night, only sporadically, on rainy evenings usually in March, when the temperature rises above 50 degrees.
That�s when amphibians cross St. Peters Road in droves in order to mate in a vernal pond on Wells Road. Since the breeding season for wood frogs and spotted salamanders is short, the detour would be short-lived.
For the past several years, the APA has requested assistance from the township and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to prevent the frogs from being run over by the dozens. In the past, the organization has posted signs and volunteers have been on site to slow traffic. This year, as in years past, they have asked the police department to close the road altogether.
According to Schurr, PennDOT has agreed to allow a detour, as long as the township agrees that traffic can be fed onto township-owned roads.
Schurr said his department is working with APA member Jay Erb, who is also the township�s parks and recreation committee chairman, to coordinate a traffic control plan for the area.
"The police department and the township are very supportive of this," Schurr said. "We want to make sure that not only the amphibians are safe, but the volunteers are safe as well."
Last year, the township provided volunteers with reflective vests and stop signs to assist them in slowing traffic, according to Township Manager Kevin Hennessey.
"The biggest concern for all of us is that there�s going to be a very bad automobile accident out there involving a pedestrian," Hennessey said.
Schurr agreed. "You can�t just have people standing out there with a couple of flashlights. That�s not safe for anybody," he stressed.
Nevertheless, he warned that time may not allow the police department to work out a detour. Migrations usually begin in March.
He faulted the APA for failing to begin the process of seeking a detour earlier. "These things take time," he said. "This should have been started last year."
The APA was founded in 2003 by Elverson resident Nadine Bergeron, formerly of St. Peters Road, after she realized that hundreds of frogs were being routinely run over every spring, often by drivers who can never see the frogs on the dark road.
In past years, Bergeron and other volunteers have estimated that as many as 2,000 wood frogs and 200 spotted salamanders complete the annual migration to the pond on Wells Road.
Source of story
|
Posted: 03/14/06
Subject: 1 March 14, 2006 |
Western Pennsylvania Conservancey
http://www.paconserve.org/rc/sp/
see article below:
LancasterOnline.com
You're drafted, now go find a vernal pool
By Ad Crable
Lancaster New Era
Published: Mar 14, 2006 2:07 PM EST
LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - Are you a fan of seasonal pools?Haven't the faintest idea what I�m talking about, you say?
If you've ever heard the deafening trilling of spring peepers or wood frogs in the spring, or peered into shallow water at tadpoles, you�ve been exposed to these small but vital bodies of temporary water.
Because they dry up at some point, usually every year, they don�t harbor fish. And thus they are a crucial cradle for a rich plethora of life, from several kinds of frogs and salamanders, to dragonflies and fairy shrimp.
And now, you're being asked to spread out across Lancaster County and find these ephemeral pools, which often exist solely on the vagaries of snowmelt and spring rains.
The Pennsylvania Seasonal Pools Project is trying to drum up an army of �citizen scientists� to head afield and pinpoint and map, for the first time, the locations of the tens of thousands of seasonal pools across the state.
�We just don�t know how many are out there. That�s what�s holding us back,� says Ephraim Zimmerman, an ecologist with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, one of the partners in the effort to map, study and save Pennsylvania�s seasonal pools.
�They�re just an incredible mass of biodiversity.�
Adds Betsy Leppo, who studies seasonal pools for The Nature Conservancy in the group�s Middletown office, �People have really been interested in them for a long time, but there�s been no effort to get them all together and get a layer of locations we can look at.�
Seasonal, or vernal, ponds exist in remote wooded settings and open fields, often several near each other.
They can be fashioned from dips in floodplains or in the little hole caused by a tree�s root ball when a tree falls over.
In short, they�re pretty nondescript. For much of the year, they may even be bone dry and undetectable to someone trudging by.
But when they fill in spring, all manner of amphibians trudge like zombies to them to continue their existence.
Scientists know a lot about the creatures that depend on them: Jefferson, spotted and marbled salamanders, which emerge from crevices where they survived the winter and march to the pools.
Also red-spotted newts, wood frogs and green frogs, damselflies and dragonflies, diving beetles and tiny crustaceans such as fairy shrimp, which lay eggs months earlier in the abiding faith that the water will again materialize.
Zimmerman uses the word �charismatic� to describe these unique natural habitats.
But there is still much we don�t know, such as regional differences in seasonal ponds. Do the creatures prefer seasonal pools fed by groundwater or purely rainfall? Can artificial pools humans build work well? What role does surrounding flora play?
Because of their diminutive and temporary nature, seasonal pools don�t show up on satellite surveys that map the nation�s wetlands. And they aren�t as well protected as permanent wetlands.
Thus, they often get filled in for development, or honestly overlooked.
The Pennsylvania Seasonal Pools Project, which began last year and concludes in the summer of 2007, hopes to change that. This spring and summer�s mass canvassing by volunteers like you is key.
A Web site will make it easier to post locations of seasonal pools. The site is up now (www.paconserve.org/rc/sp) but is not complete. Within two weeks, the site also will include directions on how to participate in the survey, field guides for plants and fauna characteristic of seasonal pools and, eventually, a running data base of all seasonal pools reported, to avoid duplication.
In the meantime, if you know of a seasonal pool, no matter how small, dispatch an e-mail to Sarah Schager of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy at sschager@paconserve.org.
News Source |
Posted: 03/22/06
Subject: March 22, 2006 |
The visitors gallery has been modified to with new catagories-please check to see if your photo goes in the right catagory.
Take a look before you post-I rearranged the entire thing and moved photos to the correct new catagories.
This should be less confusing to people coming to see the site to know what is and isn't native to PA.
If you took a photo of an animal that is native to PA but you found in another state-it can still go into the Native to PA catagories. But Non-Native to PA animals must go into the Non-Native catagories. Please check the lists on the right side of the main page for those lists. (I will be checking from time to time and rearranging them-if I have to)
Thanks all!! ^_^ |
<< Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next >>
http://pawild.net/home/feeds/news.php
|
