Massachusetts Audubon Society

Environmental education and wildlife sanctuary stewardship: mass Audubon maintains 25 field offices and staffed wildlife sanctuaries (including 20 sanctuaries with nature centers) and an additional 35 unstaffed wildlife sanctuaries which are prepared for public visitation. Mass Audubon sanctuaries serve as the base for nature and environmental education courses and programs, scientific research, ecological management and other conservation-related activities. As of june 30, 2019, mass Audubon protected 38,211 acres of open space in Massachusetts, owning 32,221 acres in fee and protecting the remainder with conservation easements. These diverse protected habitats range from the berkshires to cape cod and the islands and help preserve the biodiversity of Massachusetts. Mass Audubon actively pursues donations and purchases of additional conservation land and is one of the largest conservation landowners in the commonwealth. An estimated 510,000 visitors came to enjoy mass Audubon properties in fy 2019.mass Audubon is the largest non-governmental provider of nature education ...

Conservation science: mass Audubon utilizes and develops scientific knowledge to support its longstanding tradition as an organization which uses science as the underpinning for its education, land protection, advocacy and stewardship activities. Current research and/or ecological management work focuses on the protection and stewardship of selected Massachusetts habitats such as grasslands, coastal heathlands and salt marshes. In addition, statewide monitoring of key groups of organisms such as birds, amphibians, invertebrates and plants continues across the state in order to provide an important baseline to evaluate changing environmental conditions associated with climate change and land development. Mass Audubon has also developed and implements an invasive species management strategy to protect the integrity of its lands as well as to provide guidance for other landowners throughout the state.mass Audubon lands play a critical role in the delivery of its mission and its land protection efforts focus on conserving ecologically significant tracts of ...

Member services: in addition to the member services provided by the network of sanctuaries and education programming referenced in 4a above, mass Audubon produces a newsletter four times per year for members (explore), a comprehensive annual report, and publications to increase public awareness of wildlife, nature, and environmental issues. For example, in fy 2019 mass Audubon started work on the sixth edition of its definitive report entitled losing ground which calculates and analyzes the causes associated with the loss of open space in Massachusetts. This report is scheduled for release in the winter of 2020 and will focus on the impact of climate change on water resource lands. In addition, the mass Audubon website (www.massaudubon.org) offers a wide variety of information on mass Audubon's sanctuaries, conservation efforts, land protection projects, advocacy issues, climate change work and the natural world. Currently, mass Audubon has 22 sanctuary e-newsletters and 11 other e-newsletters ...