Natural History Survey Annual Meeting, Sunday, March 30, 3:30 p.m. (Reception at 3). URI Kingston Campus, Avedisian Hall (Pharmacy Building) Room 170. Theme: Biodiversity Conservation. Speakers: David Gregg on Survey 2024 and new biodiversity data projects, Lou Perrotti talking about his species conservation projects including beetles and bunnies, and ornithologist Dan Berard previewing RI BioBlitz 2025 based on his years of observations at Steere Hill Farm, Glocester.
Rhode Island BioBlitz 2025 will be June 6 & 7 at Steere Hill and Phillips Farm Conservation Area in Glocester. Learn details here. Registration isn't open yet, look for it in mid-April, and it will close May 16. There will be orientations on April 24 and 29. Sign up for our e-news so you don't miss any action!
Last Wednesday Tea, 4 p.m. on the last Wednesday of every month. All are welcome, free, in-person at the office or online via zoom, your choice. Contact the office for zoom link.
We were heartbroken to learn of the sudden passing, in early March of Raul Ferreira, whom many of us knew as "the beetle guy" from BioBlitz, one of the nicest, most interesting people we've ever had the pleasure to meet. In addition to advancing his many beetle research projects, he had been energetically making plans to boost the insect teams (especially the beetle team) at the RI BioBlitz. You can read his obituary here. We have worked with his family to establish the Rosa and Raul Ferreira Young Entomologists Fellowship Fund at the Survey that will annually provide a fellowship to a 6th-12th grader to boost the insect team at BioBlitz and further their progress toward a career in entomology. Read more about the Ferreira fund here. You can contribute to the Ferreira Fellowship Fund now using the DONATE button and indicating your purpose in the notes or by sending us a check with "Ferreira Fund" in the memo.
To celebrate our 30th birthday and start our 4th decade strong, the Survey's new Strategic Plan 2025-2030 is now ready. You can download it here.
Do you love what the Survey does for community based environmental science for Rhode Island? You're not a "big donor" but you wish you could chip in a few bucks to keep it going? Give "Buy Me A Coffee" a try. Help us work out the bugs...ha, ha, get it? bugs? and support resilience and biodiversity at the same time. Thanks!
Back issues of the Rhode Island Naturalist, the Survey's bulletin, is available here.
The Survey has accomplished many remarkable things in its first 30 years; we need a strong vision to reach new heights in our 4th decade. With input from members, friends, board and staff, and peer organizations, we created a new strategic plan that restates the… Continue reading
by Robert D. Kenney Three of the previous installments in this Marine Mammals of Rhode Island series have been about seals that occur in our region—harbor seals, harp seals, and gray seals. Gray seals were also the subject of an article in the Fall 2022… Continue reading