eWing

Find out what's
going on at Audubon,
Sign up for eWing

Click Here to See a Sample 
 

What's Going On?

Nature Tour Guide

fall08naturetours.jpg

 

Download our new
Nature Tour Guide

 

 

Shop with Audubon

images.jpg

Check out new and
unique ideas at the
Audubon Gift Shops
 

Audubon Search

Home arrow Advocacy
Advocacy
International Coastal Cleanup PDF  | Print |  E-mail

 

osprey_final.jpgInternational Coastal Cleanup Gets The Drift

More than 2000 volunteers, wearing ospreys on their International Coastal Cleanup T-shirts, combed the state's shoreline for trash and tallied every piece of it.

Plastics and other trash in the aquatic environments may entangle or cause digestive disorders for wildlife.  Marine turtles mistake plastic bags as jellyfish, their predominant food.  Whales become entangled in derelict line and netting, and baleen whales often swallow floating plastics with food items strained through the baleen.  Birds eat cigarette filters and become entangled in various plastics.  Two young ospreys and several cormorants died this year as a result of entanglement with monofilament fishing line which left them dangling from their nests.
Several fish, birds, and a seal were found dead during the cleanup, but none showed evidence of entanglement.  A 3-foot shark found along the shore in Providence appeared to have been struck by a propeller.  

Oddities picked up were a mailbox still containing mail which the Boy Scouts in charge of the Bristol Narrows Beach returned to the nearby house to which the mail was addressed; a 5-gallon drum of guar gum on Common Fence Point; a used pregnancy-test kit in Warren.

Read more... [International Coastal Cleanup]
 
A Warmer Rhode Island is a Moral Issue PDF  | Print |  E-mail

earthmatchstick.jpgOur grandchildren will see a different shoreline, a different forest, and a different array of birds than we see.  We are familiar with cardinals, titmice, red-bellied woodpeckers and opossums that were not here in our grandparents' era.

When I first moved to Rhode Island in the early 1970s, seniors commented that outdoor skating, formerly possible by Thanksgiving, was often not safe in January. We haven't seen winter irruptions of redpolls and evening grosbeaks since the 1980s. Last year, cherry trees in Providence bloomed in late December.  Yes, the climate in Rhode Island is changing.

Early blooming is becoming more common.  Among the plants studied in Boston's Arnold Arboretum, flowering times have moved forward over the decades, with the plants flowering eight days earlier on average from 1980 to 2002 than they did from 1900 to 1920. What has influenced this early flowering? Primarily temperature, says Richard Primack, a Boston University biology professor and head of the research team.  According to Bio-Medicine, Boston's mean annual temperature has increased since 1985 by 1.5 degrees Celsius or nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit, and those temperatures are correlated with earlier blooming.

Read more... [A Warmer Rhode Island is a Moral Issue]
 
Chipuxet River in Danger PDF  | Print |  E-mail

The Chipuxet River in South Kingstown is in crisis. The river is "stressed" in its streamflow.  This means that its low flows are getting lower and becoming more frequent. Research from URI has shown that water supply and irrigation demands are sufficient to dry up the Chipuxet River at times.

Audubon is continuing to monitor this situation while advocating that all Rhode Islanders adopt sound water conservation practices.

Read more... [Chipuxet River in Danger]
 

Audubon monitors all bills proposed by the RI General Assembly to ensure laws and regulations meet strigent environmental safeguards.
Audubon is working with other environmental organizations as part of the Water Coalition.
The Rhode Island Butterfly Survey is part of a larger effort, coordinated by more...
Are you looking to save money and conserve water resources? Here are a few tips that are easy to incorporate in your daily routine.

 

osprey_final.jpgInternational Coastal Cleanup Gets The Drift

More than 2000 volunteers, wearing ospreys on their International Coastal Cleanup T-shirts, combed the state's shoreline for trash and tallied every piece of it.

Plastics and other trash in the aquatic environments may entangle or cause digestive disorders for wildlife.  Marine turtles mistake plastic bags as jellyfish, their predominant food.  Whales become entangled in derelict line and netting, and baleen whales often swallow floating plastics with food items strained through the baleen.  Birds eat cigarette filters and become entangled in various plastics.  Two young ospreys and several cormorants died this year as a result of entanglement with monofilament fishing line which left them dangling from their nests.
Several fish, birds, and a seal were found dead during the cleanup, but none showed evidence of entanglement.  A 3-foot shark found along the shore in Providence appeared to have been struck by a propeller.  

Oddities picked up were a mailbox still containing mail which the Boy Scouts in charge of the Bristol Narrows Beach returned to the nearby house to which the mail was addressed; a 5-gallon drum of guar gum on Common Fence Point; a used pregnancy-test kit in Warren.

Advertisers are not afiliated with the Audubon Society of Rhode Island

© 2008 Audubon Society of Rhode Island
12 Sanderson Road, Smithfield, RI 02917 ~ 401-949-5454
Powered by Joomla Designed, developed and hosted by LeftBrain LLC