Watershed scientist Timothy Randhir, UMass environmental conservation and research wildlife biologist David King of the U.S. Forest Service and environmental conservation, are on a mission. They are engaged in an interdisciplinary research program that will refine and validate conservation practices viewed by Honduran conservationists as the last best hope for conserving this area’s dwindling forests, which are critically threatened by expansion of unsustainable coffee cultivation. (UMass News Office 12/9/15)
News from the Media
Environmental conservationists studying Honduran practices
December 16, 2015
UMass Amherst wildlife biologist wins national conservation award
December 16, 2015
AMHERST, Mass. – Katherine Zeller, a doctoral candidate in environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently won a Switzer Environmental Fellowship from the Robert and Patricia Switzer Foundation of Belfast, Maine, for her research on developing effective corridors for wildlife between protected areas and wildlife populations. (UMass News Office 12/15/15)
UMass Amherst landscape architecture students use art for tourism in downtown Springfield
December 15, 2015
SPRINGFIELD - UMass Amherst landscape architecture students used paper lanterns and spray-chalk sidewalk designs to bring attention, and foot traffic, to the Market Place pedestrian walk in downtown Springfield. (MassLive 12/14/15)
Forty years of data on furthest-migrating warbler reveals new insights, UMass researcher leads study
December 10, 2015
Tiny Blackpoll Warblers have the longest migratory route of any New World warbler, making a nonstop flight over the Atlantic Ocean each fall from New England to northern South America each year, but a study forthcoming in The Auk: Ornithological Advances shows that individuals that breed in western North America migrate east first to fatten up before migrating across the water. (PhysOrg 12/10/15)
UMass Amherst food scientist to study pesticides in and on fresh produce
December 7, 2015
AMHERST, Mass. - Food scientist and analytical chemist Lili He at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently received a three-year, $473,628 grant from the USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture to study mechanisms of how chemical pesticides, applied both systemically and to the surface, penetrate fresh produce and move into plant tissues, and how this may affect food safety for consumers. (Recorder 12/8/15, Quality and Assurance Food Safety 12/7/15, EurekAlert 12/4/15)
Ballot dispute brewing over cage-free eggs and ban on calf confinement
December 3, 2015
Where do your eggs come from?
A fresh dispute is brewing between animal rights and agriculture over a ballot initiative that would prohibit the confinement of pigs, calves and chickens, and prohibit the sale of meat and eggs in Massachusetts from animals that have been confined. UMass Extension educator, Carrie Chickering-Sears, comments. (Masslive 12/2/15)
Winter moths make appearance for mating season
December 3, 2015
It’s that time of year again — the winter moths have arrived. And for some areas, researchers say the swarms will probably be thicker than last year’s.
The winter moth is in the midst of its mating season of late fall and early winter. Many of the insects appearing now are the same ones who chewed through the leaves of New England’s trees in the spring as caterpillars and then burrowed into the soil to wait out the summer. (Globe 11/30/15)
UMass Cranberry Station in East Wareham is scheduled for upgrades
December 3, 2015
The UMass Cranberry Station, in East Wareham, is scheduled for a face lift. The plan is to update the research facility, constructed in the 1960s, with modern laboratories and equipment. And Dr. Carolyn DeMoranville, director of the UMASS Cranberry Station, couldn’t be happier. (Kingston Wicked Local 12/1/15)
Massachusetts Launches Wildlife Climate Action Tool to Help With Response to Climate Change
November 24, 2015
AMHERST, Mass.— A coalition of research institutions and fish and wildlife agencies this week unveiled a new online tool for use by local decision-makers, conservation managers, land trusts, regional planners, landowners and community leaders in Massachusetts who are interested in taking action in response to climate change. Users of the Massachusetts Wildlife Climate Action Tool can look up different species and habitat types to see what beneficial climate actions they can take. (USGS 11/23/15; UMass New Release 11/23/15
Cranberries are her life year-round
November 23, 2015
Cranberries in a variety of culinary creations are everywhere this time of year, a staple of the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner table.
But for Carolyn DeMoranville, the tiny, tart fruit is her life year round. She is director of the Cranberry Experiment Station in Wareham, part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where all-things cranberry are studied, and she said this year’s harvest in Massachusetts -- where the cranberry is the state’s largest food crop -- will be robust, at more than 2 million barrels. (Boston Globe 11/23/15)
