Talk NERRdy to Me: Kevin O’Brien and Jamie Vaudrey
This month, NERRA’s roving reporter Nik Charov spoke with Kevin O’Brien, supervising environmental analyst, and Jamie Vaudrey, the first research coordinator at the newly designated Connecticut Reserve.
DC Download: March 2023
With 84 new members in Congress, education is key. We thank the NERRA Board and all friends for continuing to share what happens at Reserves with members of Congress.
Heroes of Old Woman Creek
Every estuary needs heroes—not only to help protect these special places, but to inspire the rest of us. Congratulations to Rudy and Joli Reising and Bill Pifer, the 2023 Heroes of the Friends of Old Woman Creek!
The Great Octopus Rescue of 2023
Here’s one for the feel good file: A Giant Pacific octopus stranded on a Washington state beach was saved by a little girl, park staff, and personnel from the Padilla Bay Reserve.
Shaping Tomorrow’s Coastlines
Olivia Won is working to shape a more equitable future for the Bay Area by integrating principles of social and environmental justice into shoreline adaptation planning.
NERRA Board Members Talk Plastics in Mexico City
NERRA president Jace Tunnell and vice president Kristen Goodrich presented at a workshop in Mexico City about their efforts to expand plastics and debris clean up in the country.
Some Like it Cold
The conventional wisdom around harmful algal blooms is that they like it hot, ostensibly explaining why big blooms tend to show up in warmer months. However, a new study led by Wisconsin’s Lake Superior Reserve’s has shown …
DC Download: February 2023
Thank you to all the Reserve friends and partners around the country who came together to make the #IHeartEstuaries social media campaign such a success.
Balancing sustainability and profit in Texas
In 1991, the late Brien O’Connor Dunn made an unusual decision. A sixth generation Texan and descendant of the state’s largest land owner, Dunn chose Fennessey Ranch as his inheritance.
Advancing wetland restoration science
A recent paper in Estuaries and Coasts sheds light on the practice of adding sediment onto marsh surfaces as a strategy to help them keep pace with rising seas.
Data for a Healthy Chesapeake Bay
While others might cheer the spring return of warmer temperatures to Virginia’s Lower Potomac, A.J. Erskine eyes the related runoff with a bit of concern.
Connect to Protect
An acre a day. That’s how quickly natural lands are being lost in New Hampshire’s coastal watershed due to development. To help protect these places for the future, the Great Bay Reserve …
Talk NERRdy to Me: Julie Binz
This month, NERRA’s roving reporter Nik Charov spoke with Julie Binz, manager at the ACE Basin Reserve in South Carolina. They talked about confounding geography, environmental education, human dimensions, and a certain graduate program every wannabe-NERRd should know.
DC Download: January 2023
The Reserve System, and the thousands who support it, is a constant force for positive change—and it’s growing. In support of this, NERRA’s request for the NERRS FY 2024 budget is $47M for operations (ORF) and $10M for PAC.
Nurdle Patrol is Growing
When Wyvette Robinson heard about the Mission-Aransas Reserve’s Nurdle Patrol on Facebook, she was intrigued. Not only is plastic pollution a big deal for her organization, any opportunity to share new education tools and resources with Mississippi teachers and students gets her “pumped.”
Building Resilience Through Community on Deal Island
As sea levels rise and the lands of the Chesapeake region sink, the residents of Deal Island are working with Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Reserve to use natural infrastructure to defend their communities.
Keeping Wetland Carbon in the Bank
Wetlands are custodians of a greenhouse gas heavyweight—methane. Understanding which types of wetlands emit methane, where they are, and whether these emissions are natural or caused by people is critical information …
Reading the Tea Leaves
Tea leaves aren’t just good for predicting our future, they also can help us predict the future condition of marshes. Exhibit A: researchers at Reserves across the System are using tea bags as part of an international experiment …
DC Download: December 2022
A budget is a statement of what you value, and we appreciate that the 117th Congress is ending its session with a budget that is poised to increase the NERRS Operation by 9% and PAC funds by 31%.
Next Gen Scientist Spotlight: Yvette Onyango
The Old Woman Creek Reserve is focused on being a place where the next generation of scientists can thrive. Case in point: the Reserve’s 2021 graduate fellow Yvette Onyango.
Talk NERRdy to Me: Kyle Derby
Talk NERRdy to Me is a monthly column about leaders and luminaries from across our Reserves. This month, NERRA’s roving reporter Nik Charov spoke with Kyle Derby, Research Coordinator at the Chesapeake Bay Reserve in Maryland. They talked duck seasoning and tea bags, selfies and SETs, and how field work is where the real work is.
Students Carry On Cultural and Economic Touchstone Through Oyster Aquaculture
The oyster fishery, once the economic and cultural backbone of the Apalachicola Bay community, collapsed in 2013. A new generation of young residents, however, are learning about oyster aquaculture in the bay.
Eel Monitoring Slips Over NJ Border
Young American eels travel more than 1,000 miles from the Sargasso Sea to coastal estuaries along the United States. When they reach the Hudson River, community members are waiting to count them.
Stay Current With NERRS News
At 30 sites in 25 coastal states and territories, National Estuarine Research Reserves work with partners like you to protect people and places of our nation’s coasts.
Together again, at last!
NERRds from 25 states and territories gathered in Seattle, Washington for our first in person annual meeting in three years! Although we persevered (and sometimes thrived) in the Zoom world, there’s nothing like the real thing.