An Ulster County man shared an image of what appears to be a mountain lion he said he caught on a game camera last week. The DEC agrees that it looks like a mountain lion, but would like to know more to establish it really was photographed locally.
Topics include: Bouldering and Biology; Forest Bathing; Fishers Past & Present; and Enhancing Visitor Experience Through Wayfinding. All lectures are free.
The Open Space Institute has announced a new partnership with the Shawangunk Nordic Ski Association, to maintain cross country skiing paths at its River-to-Ridge Trail. The grooming will provide consistent trail conditions and improve the public’s access to the land during winter months, conditions permitting.
Once in while, an opportunity arises to reverse environmental damage wrought by humankind. Such appears to be the case with SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry’s three-decades-long endeavor to restore to the landscape the majestic, near-extinct American chestnut tree.
This land, to be kept forever wild by the volunteer not-for-profit group Mill Brook Preserve, Inc., is like a magical world within the heart of town. There are pine groves and streams, multiple ponds and beaver dams and lodges as well as wild mushrooms and old-growth trees split in half by lightning that somehow came back to life.
Kindergartners gathered last Saturday in New Paltz to say one final goodbye to their monarch butterfly friends, and to wish them well on their long journey to Mexico. The insects had hatched on milkweed saved from mowing along the River-to-Ridge trail, collected as caterpillars and allowed to pupate under the watchful eye of Duzine students.
The Mohonk Preserve Foothills Loop Trail is now open, expanding the Mohonk Preserve Foothills trail network and extending the River-to-Ridge Trail in New Paltz. The 2.2-mile loop trail, which is free and open to the public, begins near the intersection of Pine and Butterville Roads, follows the newly established Ridgeview Road to Lenape Lane and continues around the White Oak Bend Path to Pine Road.
In 2018, the state DEC listed the Wallkill River and several of its tributaries on a draft version of its “impaired waters” list.
A New York City-based reporter is suing to stop construction on carriage roads and to create a new visitor’s center at Minnewaska State Park, saying that the land should instead be part of the State Forest Preserve where preservation is the priority over recreation. It’s instead part of the Palisades Interstate Parks Commission, created by an interstate company one attorney for the State says doesn’t need to comply with the New York constitution.
On Earth Day, April 22, you may have seen a plastic bag mummy, Plady, picking up trash while riding a mini plastic car, Toxicar, down Main Street in New Paltz. This was not an early celebration of Halloween, but performance art. Plady and Toxicar were created by the Taiwanese artist Maxine Leu, an MFA sculpture student at SUNY New Paltz, and enacted by performer Sanford Fels, a BFA sculpture student also at SUNY New Paltz.