by Dr. Lenore Tedesco, Executive Director
Tick tock, where did summer go? It happens every year. We wait patiently for its arrival and then wonder where the time went. The interns have come and gone, but once again enriched us with their energy, curiosity, and discoveries. Summer Nature Program participants filled every space of the Institute with their delight and excitement. Our staff and hundreds of volunteers once again rescued close to another 100,000 horseshoe crabs on Delaware Bay, reTURNing the Favor and helping to strengthen the fabric of the migration marvel and spawning spectacle. The research team and stewards are out documenting nesting and tracking banded birds on our beaches. We are finishing out another terrapin nesting season and with it the wonders of second-chance orphaned hatchlings. They will make their way to schools around the state for head-starting, returning next spring to be released back into the wild to help bolster their declining populations. The education teams are gearing up for school programs, field trips, and homeschool programs, rolling right into the next season of program offerings.
It’s always busy here and all the staff work every day to make a difference for the marshes, their special inhabitants, and for all of you that explore, discover, and connect with this special place. We also work to benefit everyone that lives, vacations, or visits our coastal community to experience the richness of this lifestyle. As fall is upon us, we will be working with our project partners at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and NJDEP and bringing a marsh rehabilitation project home to the marshes adjacent to TWI. This project will be highly visible and will afford us wonderful opportunities to share our work directly with you, and also with natural resource managers and municipalities that are striving to benefit from the coastal resilience marsh restoration affords us all. Check out the cover story, and visit wetlandsinstitute.org/scotchbonnet for more information.
It is through the generosity of each of you that The Wetlands Institute flourishes. Your membership, program support, and donations are foundational to the work we do. More than half of our annual revenue is derived through private philanthropy. It comes in gifts of all sizes; from tiny philanthropists that sell lemonade to help the terrapins, to gifts underwriting specific programs, to the many donors who make multi-year pledges to help us build capacity. Whatever the size, each gift allows us to work to ensure these marshes are here for generations to come and our programs remain strong and vibrant for the next generations as well.
If you are a supporter, thank you. If you haven’t supported us recently, please consider helping us make a difference.
