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MANY NEW WONDERFUL MEMBERSHIPS ARE BEING MADE
THROUGH THE WEBSITE!
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We've updated our Membership and Renewal Process!
It's easy to join using the Online Membership Application.
Existing Members can also Renew Membership Online.
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"Gerry smiled regularly, he laughed easily, and had a considerable sense of humor...I will endeavor to relate to you a sense of Gerry the person, including his background and training, his professional accomplishments, and the enormous breadth of his contributions to the community in Western New York and beyond. To this I will add my personal experiences with Gerry over the past 40 years."
At our fall membership meeting on October 20th, Judi Geer delivered a fascinating presentation on the life and accomplishments of Theodore Roosevelt (“TR”), the 26th and “greenest” president of the United States. Judi, a longtime NSSWNY member with interests in nature and history, finds these two themes
interwoven in TR’s unique persona.
Read MORE in NATURE PRESERVES
President Theodore Roosevelt and Sierra Club Founder and President John Muir visited Yosemite together in 1903
NSSWNY’s NEWEST PRESERVE in the Allegheny River Watershed
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The acquisition of 7.6 acres in Cattaraugus County targeted an identified need for biodiversity preservation by seeking protection for the Eastern Hellbender salamander (Cryptobranchus a. alleganiensis).
This is one of the priority vertebrate species we are seeking to protect through acquisition
and protection of habitat.
Check out a highlight of NSSWNY done by 2 the Outdoors!!
<click image below to watch>
On a recent trip to the Society's crown jewel, the Clifford Furman Preserve, Orchids bloomed, birds sang, and the forest danced with light that was alive with Mother Nature's abundant gifts.Landau describes the experience. " The light is different, the temperature changes, it's cool , you're out of the heat and the sun. There are multiple sensory changes that go on, on the way into them, while you're out on them, and as you come back out into, quote, reality . "
READ in NATURE PRESERVES:
The Seven Sleepers
By Gerry Rising
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"All of these an-imals that hibernate have the same problem: how to make it through the winter months faced with the reduced amount of available food to provide their body warmth, the low temperatures that drain what little warmth they do have, and the deep snows that make getting around so difficult and that further de-plete their energy.
When you think about it, hibernation, if you can pull it off, is a wonderful response to winter. You simply batten things down, just as you do your summer cot-tage, and wait for better times. I suspect that at vari-ous times each winter most of us wish that we had such an alternative to cabin fever."
Dave Bauer, a local children’s book author gave an insightful presentation on the importance of children connecting with nature.
In his presentation, Dave talked about ways in which adults and children can work together to address and reverse this unhealthy trend.
A key aspect of nature discovery for children is through unstructured “creative nature play.” Here, children utilize their rich capacity through the use of their senses, curiosity, and wonder to catalyze their nature experiences. These types of moments can occur in any outdoor space, even right in your own backyard!
Stream Corridor Conservation and the Buffalo Creek Oxbow
Dr. Margaret Wooster, NSSWNY’s 2014 Stewardship Award honoree, was the speaker at this year’s banquet. In her presentation, she described her work on stream corridor conservation and the Buffalo Creek oxbow, specifically. She has summarized her presentation for: Saving the Planet, One Stream at a Time
The Big Impact Of A Tiny Product:
Sam Mason's Work Against Micro-beads
Our speaker at 2015 NSSWNY banquet was Dr. Sherri “Sam” Mason from the Dept. of Chemistry & Environmental Sciences at SUNY Fredonia,
speaking on “The Great Plasticized Lakes.” While other researchers have been investigating plastic pollution in the world’s oceans, Sam’s work has shown that the Great Lakes face a similar problem. Pieces of plastic, ranging from tiny pellets, beads, and fibers to larger pieces, are found throughout the Great Lakes. Some of the pieces are small enough to be ingested and are present in the digestive tracts of fish.
Hellbender FLASHBACK!
retired NYSDEC Senior Wildlife Biologist, Ken Roblee showed a number of slides and talked about the rare herptiles (amphibians and reptiles) of our region and their associated habitats and restoration activities. The eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus a. alleganiensis), read more in the November 2014 Issue of Nature Preserve.