To the Editor:
Earth Day is a wonderful time to celebrate the partnerships that improve the natural environment, enhance habitats, and help raise a new generation of environmental stewards. On Earth Day 2015, I participated in an event at Bayonne High School (BHS) that hit all three marks – and provided students with practical conservation experience.
That day BHS students, in partnership with the Woodrow Wilson School and volunteers from PSEG’s Functional Environmental Achievement Team (F.E.A.T), built an impressive 20 nest boxes for barn owls and wood ducks. The boxes, built by the students from kits constructed by the PSEG volunteers, will be installed at appropriate regional locations so the species can continue to nest and breed in our region.
In the past, wetlands loss and deforestation for highway construction, commercial and residential developments destroyed or otherwise permanently altered habitats for both the barn owl and wood duck (the latter regarded as one of the most beautiful birds in the world). Although both species nest in tree cavities, they are equally at home in human-built nest boxes.
The way I see it, it’s especially important to nurture environmental leadership in students from urban communities so they don’t fall into accepting a standard of polluted water and contaminated land just because that is the way it has been for decades. Like the visionary people who founded Ducks Unlimited (DU) in 1937 they, too, can make a real difference.
Congratulations to the Bayonne Board of Education for supporting this initiative, the teachers who encouraged student participation, the young people who used their carpentry skills to build new homes for native species, and to the PSEG volunteers who have been supporting hands-on environmental projects and environmental partnerships for nearly two decades.
MICHAEL PANOS
Chairman, Hudson River Chapter, Ducks Unlimited