The Fight to Save
our Native Species

Not just a crisis in Amazonian rainforests, species rarity is a worldwide and local conservation crisis.  Here in Rhode Island, there are many rare, endangered and threatened species that are vulnerable for a multitude of reasons.  (Anne - pull and put in italics, larger?)

Some species are naturally rare. The keen observer and naturalist Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859) concluded, "Rarity is the attribute of a vast number of species in all classes, in all countries." And two and a half centuries later, few species tend to be overwhelmingly common. Many will never carpet the state or be seen on every foray into the field.

In nature, rarity may be a product of restricted geography or very specific habitat requirements, small population sizes or a combination of these factors.  Habitat destruction and invasive species, the top two threats to biological diversity worldwide, exacerbate the dilemma of rarity. Some species are just more vulnerable. Giant pandas with their dietary and habitat specificity will always be rare. Birds of declining coastal grasslands are likely to be rare in the Northeast.

Conservation land owned by Audubonis monitored, and managed when necessary, to ensure that the features thatfirst made the land environmentally special are perpetuated. Rather than acreagebeing preserved as museum pieces, vulnerable to "benign neglect," we recognizethat Audubon land is dynamic. New challenges arise every year such as invasivespecies -- a worldwide threat to native biological diversity. We are currentlyaddressing and restoring the land surrounding our Kingston Wildlife ResearchStation.

Ongoing Orchard and Hayfield Restoration

Goals: Onegoal of restoring approximately 6-acres of orchard and hayfield at the KingstonWildlife Research Station (KWRS) in South Kingstown, is to increase mist netcapture rates of birds migrating through Rhode Island in the fall.  Declining representation of certain birdspecies may be correlated with increasing invasive woody species (e.g.,honeysuckle, multiflora rose, autumn olive) at KWRS. An overarching goal at KWRSis to bring back a small part of what the property looked like during activemanagement.