Click here to view the Osprey Cam!
Live streaming video from the osprey nesting platform at the Ayers Island Dam
in New Hampton, NH, courtesy of Project Osprey partner Public Service of New
Hampshire.
Fish and Game's Nongame and Endangered Wildlife
Program joined forces with Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH)
and New Hampshire Audubon to work toward a full
recovery of the state-threatened bird of prey by the end of 2005.
An adult osprey lands on its giant
sticks-and-debris nest.
"Project Osprey" expands ongoing
recovery efforts with the added benefit of a corporate partner,
PSNH. Project Osprey is a major investment from a corporation
to complete a recovery plan for a state-listed species. Project
Osprey is a perfect example of taking corporate resources, people,
equipment, locations, and applying them to the continuous improvement
of the communities they live and operate in.
The project has three goals: foster a self-sustaining
osprey population; develop a comprehensive educational program;
and promote the partnership as a model for more collaboration
among the business community, government agencies
and environmental organizations. This project is an example of
how businesses can get involved in conservation
Biologists and volunteers monitor osprey breeding
sites and behaviors -- see the Project Osprey Stewards/Great Bay
& Coastal New Hampshire Osprey Monitoring site at ourworld-top.cs.com/projosprstewards
for more information.
Workers prepare to raise an osprey
platform at Fort Hill Wildlife Management Area in Stratford
as a Wildlife Journal cameraman looks on. If all
goes well, the platform will soon be home to nesting osprey.
Photo courtesy PSNH.
A recovery plan has been written to provide
guidance in location of nest structures. Habitat considerations
and how likely the birds are to use an area based upon certain
features were taken into account. The plan calls for PSNH to provide
crews and equipment to erect man-made nesting platforms with a
target goal of 15 new platforms in the time frame of the project.
Nesting platforms are critical for attracting osprey into new
areas to spread out the distribution so they're not all concentrated
in one part of the state.
Osprey return to New Hampshire from southern
wintering grounds each spring to breed near rivers, lakes and
estuaries where they hunt for fish. Roughly two dozen pairs of
osprey have nested in New Hampshire in the past few years. Most
of those nests were north of the White Mountains. In recent years,
however, recovery efforts have expanded their breeding range.
Osprey raised young in four different watersheds -- Androscoggin,
Merrimack, Connecticut and Great Bay -- signaling an impressive
expansion of their range. In order for the state's population
to be considered recovered, additional breeding territories need
to be established in the Merrimack and Connecticut watersheds
and continued expansion in the seacoast area.
The educational component to Project Osprey
includes developing a teacher's curriculum on ecological concepts,
training volunteers to help monitor ospreys and even providing
live video images of osprey.
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