The next member’s meeting will be at the Museum of Natural History, downstairs auditorium and via Zoom on Monday Nov 27, 7:30pm.
Nina Newington and other citizen scientists are playing a key role in the effort to protect the proposed Goldsmith Lake Wilderness Area in Annapolis County. To date they have identified 27 Species At Risk occurrences (principally lichens), halting logging operations for now. They recently discovered an area of old-growth forest where DNRR maps showed only forest under 80 years old. Nina will present an overview of their explorations and the Save Our Old Forests campaign which recently expanded to include Halifax County.
The Museum is at 1747 Summer Street. Access is through the downstairs door facing the parking lot. Members will be sent a Zoom link prior to the event.
Every fall for the past many years the Sea Turtle Beach Patrol runs a beach patrol program from November 1 to January 31 where they ask volunteers to walk a beach of their choosing once a week looking for cold-stunned hard-shelled sea turtles. “Cold-stunning” is basically hypothermia for sea turtles, which occurs when the water they are in drops to and below 10degrees. Most years they find one or two either dead or almost dead juvenile Green or Kemp Ridley’s sea turtles. By consider the warming oceans and the experiences of our neighbours to the south, they are expecting these stranding events to become more common. Massachusetts for example, has gone from 0 to over 800 cold-stunned turtles in the past 20 years. These turtles, when found alive, require professional warming and monitoring, and sometimes transportation to a rehabilitation Centre. They can’t be put back into the cold ocean.
At 7:30pm on Monday Sep 25, we will have our first member’s meeting of the fall season at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History’s downstairs auditorium. Entry is via the downstairs south door by the parking lot. There will also be a concurrent Zoom session for those unable to attend.