Vineyard Habitat Network
Introduction to the Vineyard Habitat Network
In a recent analysis of the environmental threats facing Martha’s Vineyard, The Nature Conservancy concluded, unsurprisingly, that development – the conversion of natural areas into places used mainly by humans – remains the Island’s biggest ecological threat. It isn’t just that development results in loss of habitat: houses and businesses, however necessary they are to the Vineyard’s human community, make most other ecological threats even worse. Roads associated with development exposes small animals to the risk of being run over (while other critters, like salamanders, avoid crossing pavement at all and so can be cut off by roads from resources they need). Subdivisions can introduce invasive plants into formerly pristine natural habitat.
For a shrub that works perfectly as a landscaping plant while also offering benefits for wildlife, consider the blueberry. Familiar to almost...
Walk along the edge of a meadow, the perimeter of a farm, or into a clearing in a deciduous forest on Martha’s Vineyard, and one plant you can almost...
Over the next few months Vineyarders can be on the lookout for some familiar seasonal residents: the monarch butterflies. The annual odyssey of the...
Most Vineyarders already know some basic information about invasive species and why they’re a problem. Basically, invasives are plants or animals,...
If there is a more widely recognizable on the Vineyard than the American robin, we’ve yet to hear of it. The combination of a gray back and an orange...
Interested in a way to celebrate spring while helping conserve the Vineyard’s native plants? Consider volunteering on Saturday, April 6, from 10 a.m...
Some of the Vineyard’s wild species deal with winter by leaving – many of our nesting birds, for example, head south, as far as South America in some...
How do birds survive the winter? It’s amazing, when you think about it, that such tiny animals can successfully survive in our region, with snow...
For a homeowner, especially one with a fondness for gardening and landscaping, winter is the season for making plans and thinking about the...
Educational essays provided by The Nature Conservancy
