• Field Trip to Inlands Barrens at the Albany Pine Bush and Montague Plains

    on April 4, 2023

    The Sandplain Grassland Network (SGN) Steering Committee made a trip on June 3, 2022 to the Albany Pine Bush at a time when the sundial lupines (Lupinus perennis) were blooming and the Karner blue butterflies (Lycaeides melissa samuelis) were flying. Pine Bush Conservation Director Neil Gifford and his staff hosted the visit. Gifford explained the successes the team has had with using repeated fire to create and maintain a mosaic of barrens habitat from closed woodlands to very open mixed scrub oak (Quercus ilicifolia) and forb and graminoid dominated mixed shrub-grasslands. The day before, Mass Wildlife Habitat Program Manager Brian…

    Albany Pine Bush, Field Notes, Prescribed Burn

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  • A wide open landscape of grasslands with sandy soils in the foreground with blue skies and puffy, white cumulus clouds.

    MassWildlife Doubles Down on Grassland Restoration

    on December 5, 2022

    The Baker-Polito Administration, through the MassWildlife Habitat Management Grant Program, overseen by the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, recently awarded nearly $500,000 in financial assistance to private and municipal landowners of conserved lands to improve and manage habitat for wildlife deemed in greatest conservation need. Heralded as “The Climate Change Resilience Grant Opportunity”, the grant supports projects that improve resiliency in ecological communities that are susceptible to climate change. Funds will support habitat improvement…

    Ecological Restoration, Field Notes, Prescribed Burn, Sandplain Grassland

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