Audubon Society of New Hampshire

NH Audubon operates three nature centers: McLane (Concord), Massabesic (Auburn), and Paradise Point (Hebron). These centers serve as the focal points for the majority of our environmental education and outreach programming. Visitors can experience a variety of interactive nature displays along with live animal exhibits. These experiences are aimed at increasing awareness and understanding about New Hampshire's flora and fauna while highlighting the role humans play in protecting them. Surrounding the Centers are walking trails for the public to enjoy.(Continued in detail on Schedule O)Our Nature Centers host a wide variety of onsite educational programming that includes preschool classes, home school classes, both guided and self-guided nature walks, professional development opportunities for K-through-12 teachers, and educational lectures. Our programming annually reaches over 40,000 adults and children.As part of NH Audubon's outreach, each Center offers offsite programming to schools, camps, and other organizations throughout the state, often which use live animals including raptors, amphibians, and reptiles. Our naturalists deliver over 650 school programs each year, facilitating over 21,000 student experiences.Our school program are aligned with the current New Hampshire state science frameworks, which augment traditional classroom instruction by providing hands-on experimental and experiential learning opportunities. Additionally, the MacLane and Massabesic Centers operate nature-based school vacation and summer camps, which annually host over 300 children ranging from 4 to 15 years of age.

NH Audubon is active in conservation science and environmental policy issues. Our conservation science work includes research, monitoring, and management of New Hampshire's wildlife, with a particular focus species of concern. While many of our projects do focus on birds, our work goes well beyond avian species. For example, recent studies performed or supported by NH Audubon have included bats, dragonflies, butterflies, and turtles. We are active in helping to implement the exciting MOTUS tracking system, with our partners in the northeast, which provides a system to monitor migration patterns for a variety of aerial wildlife, ranging from birds to bats to butterflies along with other wildlife species.(Continued in detail on Schedule O)We also engage a large cadre of citizen scientists in our work. Approximately 1,783 volunteers contribute over 11,600 hours annually.NH Audubon's advocacy work promotes science-based public policy at national, state, and local levels. An environmental policy and advocacy team composed of both staff and volunteers determines our positions on proposed legislation and delivers testimony at hearings. Staff members represent the organization in various state policy working groups and technical committees, and they also participate in state and regional coalitions. NH Audubon collaborates with other nonprofit organizations, state and local agencies, academic institutions, municipalities, and businesses to advance conservation causes. We respect our collaborators' perspectives while advocating the best possible environmental outcomes.

NH Audubon owns and manages a variety of properties that help preserve and protect the natural beauty, health, and habitat of its community. The Organization's sanctuaries protect several unique natural communities that include rare plants, birds, mammals, pollinators and other threatened natural wildlife. NH Audubon's land stewardship covers every county in New Hampshire, with habitats ranging from northern peat bogs to coastal salt marshes, and from high elevation spruce forests to Appalachian oak-hickory forests, with much more in between.(Continued in detail on Schedule O)For example, the Organization works to protect:- 39 separate wildlife sanctuaries, which amount to nearly 7,500 acres of protected land; - 4 properties that are maintained under a Memoranda of Understanding which dictates that, of these lands, at least 1,250 acres is to be monitored and managed for their conservation and environmental values-An additional 27 land easements across nearly 2,500 acres. In 31 of these properties, there are trail systems totaling 75 miles of maintained trails. Many sanctuaries are heavily visited for environmental education and low impact recreational uses. In particular, Pondicherry, Ponemah Bog, Massbesic, Silk Farm, Paradis Point, and Willard Pond Wildlife Sanctuaries are visited annually by more than 20,000 individuals.