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
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Environmental conservationists studying Honduran practices
December 16, 2015 -
UMass Amherst wildlife biologist wins national conservation award
December 16, 2015AMHERST, 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)
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UMass Amherst landscape architecture students use art for tourism in downtown Springfield
December 15, 2015SPRINGFIELD - 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)
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Forty years of data on furthest-migrating warbler reveals new insights, UMass researcher leads study
December 10, 2015Tiny 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)
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UMass Amherst food scientist to study pesticides in and on fresh produce
December 7, 2015AMHERST, 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)
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Ballot dispute brewing over cage-free eggs and ban on calf confinement
December 3, 2015Where 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)
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Winter moths make appearance for mating season
December 3, 2015It’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)
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UMass Cranberry Station in East Wareham is scheduled for upgrades
December 3, 2015The 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)
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Massachusetts Launches Wildlife Climate Action Tool to Help With Response to Climate Change
November 24, 2015AMHERST, 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
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Cranberries are her life year-round
November 23, 2015Cranberries 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)
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Food Deserts of Springfield: Lack of Access to Healthy Food
November 19, 2015Frank Mangan, Professor in UMass Amherst’s Stockbridge School of Agriculture, works with Food Zone on a project to encourage Latinos to make their own sofrito versus buying it in cans from corner stores where contents are high in sugar, sodium and fat. (Valley Advocate 11/09/15)
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Water-mold blight killing crops in Conn. River Valley
November 12, 2015The Recorder (Greenfield) reports on outbreaks of Phtopthera capsici (a water-borne mold) on farms in Sunderland and Deerfield. Quotes UMass Extension vegetable specialists Katie Campbell-Nelson and UMass diagnostician Angela Madeiras. The Recorder, 11/12/15.
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Should Massachusetts moose roam free? UMass adjunct prfoessor comments
November 12, 2015Stephen DeStefano, adjunct professor, environmental conservation, says there are between 1,000 and 2,000 moose in Massachusetts and they can be dangerous if involved with car accidents because they are such large, heavy animals. (Republican, 11/11/15)
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Massachusetts Towns Support UMass Amherst Tick Testing Program
November 5, 2015AMHERST, Mass. – The recent popular success and high demand for a tick testing service provided to Massachusetts residents by the Laboratory of Medical Zoology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has led LMZ director Stephen Rich to extend the program, despite loss of state funding, by offering towns a co-pay model. (11/4/15 UMass News Office)
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Building Privacy Into Smart Buildings
November 5, 2015AMHERST, Mass. – As more smart grids and buildings are fitted with digital electric meters, Web-enabled appliances and lighting, programmable outlets and switches, and intelligent HVAC systems that rely on Internet-connected sensors, experts increasingly worry that smart sensors and other Internet-connected devices may leak sensitive private information, or hackers might take such data for malicious purposes. David Irwin, electrical and computer engineering, and Prashant Shenoy of the College of Information and Computer Sciences direct this project. (10/30/15 UMass News Office)
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Oysters, aquaculture, slowly gaining some love on SouthCoast
October 28, 2015With 75 percent of global fisheries overfished, there is a renewed interest in boosting aquaculture as well as great demand. Moreover, cultured seafood is safer to eat as the industry is heavily regulated at this time, experts said. The Department of Agricultural Resources (DAR) funds three aquaculture centers at Salem State University, the Barnstable County Cooperative Extension, and the Center for Sustainable Aquaculture at UMass Amherst. (SouthCoast Today 10/28/15)
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Climate change: Heat may drive cranberry industry north
October 26, 2015University of Massachusetts Cranberry Station director Carolyn DeMoranville said there hasn’t been much change in annual rainfall totals in the past 20 years, but the station has noted one significant change in the past six or seven years: The rain comes in big rain events with long dry periods in between. Those torrential rains tend to run off the land instead of soaking in and replenishing diminished groundwater supplies, making irrigation costly. (Cape Cod Times 10/26/15)
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Massachusetts Writes Plan to Boost Local Food and Farmers
October 26, 2015Massachusetts state officials released a plan for boosting locally grown food – the first such plan since 1974.
"We have brought together an incredibly diverse and broad range of people involved in the food system, everyone from anti-hunger advocates to farmers to truckers to policy advocates, to try to figure out how we can build on the strength of the state's food system and collaborate in ways we haven't collaborated before," said Winton Pitcoff, the project manager overseeing the plan and a Plainfield resident. (Masslive 10/25/15)
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Physical Activity Has Greater Impact on Body Composition in Postmenopausal Women
October 20, 2015CLEVELAND, Ohio--Everyone knows that exercise is good for you, regardless of your age. But a new study coming out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows that some types of physical activity have a greater impact on body composition in postmenopausal compared to premenopausal women. (Science Newsline, 10/20/15; Science Codex, 10/19/15)
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New England Foliage Season Delayed, but Spectacular, UMass professor comments
October 19, 2015BOSTON (AP) — New England residents and visitors to the six-state region hoping to catch a glimpse of its celebrated fall foliage may have been a little disappointed so far in seeing more green than blazing orange, scarlet and gold. This year's foliage season was delayed slightly because of weather conditions but is likely to end up being just as spectacular. Paul Catanzaro, an extension assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts explains. (Hawaii Tribune 10/18/15; New York Times, ABC News, Houston Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Daily Mail [U.K.], Yahoo Singapore [all from AP], 10/14/15)