SOUTHWICK – Several people gathered at the Wildlife Management Area on South Longyard Rd. in Southwick on Thursday afternoon.
Town officials including Conservation Commission member Dennis Clark, Planning Board member Marcus Phelps, as well as a number of other interested individuals were present. Alain Peteroy of Franklin Land Trust, who assists in preserving private lands, was also there.
The Department of Fish and Game Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Mass., George Peterson, made the trip to make his announcement that funding for private and municipal efforts to help take care of conservation lands is now available to towns of the Commonwealth.
“This is targeted money for specifically habitat management and maintenance,” said Peterson.
Department of Fish and Game Commissioner George Peterson (far left) announces that funding is available for wildlife management areas throughout the Commonwealth. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
Peterson’s remarks doesn’t mean that the Southwick wildlife management area is receiving funds, but it does infer that funds are now available for Southwick to apply for the Mass Wildlife Habitat Management Grant program.
As last year was the program’s first year of existence, Peterson pointed out that his department was able to have $300,000 of grants for 18 private or municipal wildlife areas. There is currently over 200,000 acres of private land that is preserved by Mass Wildlife throughout the state.
“It will continue to grow as we continue to grow our capital funds,” said Peterson.
After Peterson’s thoughts on having funding available for respective wildlife areas, members of Peterson’s department took a group of people on walk of the site.
Being that the Southwick Wildlife Management Area is 210 acres of grass land, the tour included the many aspects that the area has to offer.
This particular wildlife area is unique in the way that it is one of the biggest continuous grasslands in the state of Mass., outside of Airforce bases.
Throughout the grasslands are several species that Mass Wildlife regularly monitors. According to Jacob Kubel, who is a Conservation Scientist for Mass Wildlife, grasshopper sparrows and upland sandpipers are two of the main birds in the wildlife area because they are state listed.
“For this particular site, the grassland birds are the biggest target,” said Kubel. “That’s what made the most sense for this site.”
Despite the fact that habitats are continuing to be limited in wildlife management areas for certain species, Kubel believes that one specific species has a chance to find a home in this area.
Department of Fish and Game Conservation Scientist, Jacob Kubel, discusses the habitat behind him where Eastern Spadefoot toads are beginning to live. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
The Eastern spadefoot toad is another species that could develop its way into finding a habitat.
The Department of Mass Wildlife will have grassland species remain as their main priority in this particular wildlife preservation.
“That is essentially our legislative mandate, to simply preserve the biological diversity,” said John Scanlon, who is the Habitat Program Supervisor for Mass Wildlife.
The Department’s drive towards the grasslands habitats for the Southwick Wildlife Management area was directly shown from Commissioner Peterson’s announcement.
“We demonstrated it by the Commissioner (Peterson) and the Secretary (Matthew Beaton) stepping up and getting that public funding available for private lands,” said Scanlon.
As there has been no grant money given out to any wildlife areas in the Commonwealth yet, the application process is expected to begin soon.
