BIDDEFORD — Noah Perlut, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of New England, recently received a grant of approximately $36,000.
He will use the money to carry out a project in the summer of 2015 to engage Vermont land owners and managers in ways that will balance farming practices with the needs of bobolinks, a species of grassland bird.
This project is supported by Audubon Toyota TogetherGreen, an Audubon program with funding from Toyota.
Perlut’s previous research regarding the impact of agricultural grassland management on the reproduction of grassland birds led to the identification of alternative land management practices for hay lands and pastures that enable farmers to meet their management objectives while facilitating reproductive success among the birds living in their fields.
However Perlut’s partner in this work, the Natural Resource Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, has not been able to enroll new landowners due to a lack funds for education and outreach.
Perlut’s grant will fund address this.
He and some UNE will start a new project partnering with volunteer members of the Green Mountain Audubon Society to search for bobolinks that were previously banded with devices that track their annual migration. They will scour a 10 kilometer landscape that includes the plots of more than 40 private grassland owners in Vermont. The goal is to learn more about the birds’ life histories and then to communicate these histories to the landowners in whose fields the birds live.
“The best way to increase awareness and conservation is by telling the stories of individual birds ”“ where they were born, where they migrated, and their breeding success ”“ to the landowners,” said Perlut. “These are the people that can most directly affect the future of this species in Vermont.”
In addition to funding the project, the grant will provide Perlut the opportunity to attend a professional development workshop at the Arbor Day Foundation’s Lied Lodge.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less