What is making this group of NWF staff so happy? Leading and participating in climate vulnerability assessment training of course! (From left to right, Austin Kane, Kara Reeve, Chris Hilke, Naomi Edelson, Patty Glick & Celia Haven)

NWF and the US Fish and Wildlife Service organized the training. Fifty-two resource managers joined me from across the country representing numerous federal agencies including the Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, US Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the US Fish & Wildlife Service among others.

The three-day training focused on providing methods for conducting species and/or habitat climate change vulnerability assessments. These assessments have become an important tool for natural resource managers for informing project implementation and on-the-ground decision-making. Having a sense of how vulnerable a species or habitat is to the impacts of climate change is an increasingly important consideration.

The training was lead by an amazing team of instructors, which included Hector Galbraith from Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences.

Senior Manager of NWF's Northeast Climate Change Adaptation Program, George Gay (left) talks with Hector Galbraith (center) and Chris Hilke about climate change.

Hector is one of the premier climate change scientists in the northeast and a frequent partner with NWF’s Northeast office on climate adaptation projects across the region.

The Northeast Regional Center is currently working with Hector and Manomet on a number of vulnerability assessment initiatives.

* A first of it’s kind regional assessment focused on the vulnerability of habitats across the northeast to the impacts of climate change

* A habitat vulnerability assessment for New York, which will be used by state agencies to inform the revision of their Wildlife Action Plan.

* Manomet and NWF are helping the NH Department of Fish & Game in their efforts to conduct a species and habitat VA that will inform both the Wildlife Action Plan and the NH State Climate Adaptation Plan.

* The Northeast Regional Center has played a primary role in facilitating the development of a vulnerability assessment in New Jersey that is just getting underway.

American Marten depend on Spruce-Fir habitat for shelter and food.

Our work is yielding critical information. We are learning that spruce-fir habitat across much of southern New England is under threat from climate change. This will have a significant impact on the Canadian lynx, American marten, Bicknell’s Thrush and Boreal Chickadee that require spruce-fir habitat to survive. Further, we are learning that warmer winter temperatures are changing the composition of our forests by allowing a number of invasive exotic pests to spread northward including the Asian Longhorn Beetle and the Woolly Adelgid.

The Northeast Regional Center is working hard to put this science into practical applications for resource managers of today and tomorrow. There is no greater evidence of this than our partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society to provide system-specific climate-smart guidelines to resource managers to help inform wildlife and natural resource management.

* We are working with northeast experts to develop a suite of climate-smart guidelines for projects in upland forest systems. These guidelines will first be implemented at Shingle Shanty Research Station & Preserve in New York.

* Our panel of marine experts is developing strategies to protect coastal habitats from the impacts of sea level rise in Delaware.

* We are working with a broad coalition of experts to devise climate strategies to protect sea-run Brook Trout at the Century Bog complex in Red Brook, Massachusetts.

As the Northeast recovered from the destruction of almost all of its forests some 100 years ago, this generation can make significant steps to protect our wildlife and special places from the impacts of climate change as we work to create clean energy to reduce carbon pollution.

NWF Program Coordinator, Chris Hilke, inspects fish canal at Red Brook-Century Bog complex, MA

NWF’s Northeast Regional Center is working with a broad coalition of partners to help sea run brook trout or “salters” at Massachusetts Red Brook-Century Bog complex adapt to the impacts of climate change. Red Brook is a unique spring-fed, cold water, coastal stream that flows roughly 4.5 miles through several former cranberry bogs from its headwaters in Plymouth, MA to the ocean.

“Red Brook is one of the few coastal streams in Massachusetts that supports anadromous fish (migratory fish which hatch in freshwater, make their way to sea to grow, and return as adults to spawn), and is home to one of the last remaining native sea-run brook trout fisheries in the eastern United States”. (Trustees of Reservations)

This one-of-a-kind fishery is under serious threat from climate change. Warming water temperatures and a degraded habitat threaten the long-term survival of these salters. Without a concerted conservation effort it is likely that this unique coastal plain fishery would disappear like so many others along the Massachusetts coastline and beyond.

Fortunately, fifteen state, federal and non-governmental organizations are working together to implement strategies that will help these salters adapt to a changing climate. The efforts include restoring old cranberry bogs to wetlands, stabilizing water flow to prevent thermal “hot spots”, improving water quality, removing several levees, berms, small dams, and dikes, and planting native riparian species along the restored stream channel.

The coalition of partners includes; DFG’s Division of Ecological Restoration (DER) and Trout Unlimited, MassWildlife, A.D. Makepeace, The Trustees of Reservations, the National Wildlife Federation, Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the USGS, American Rivers, the Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership, University of Massachusetts Boston, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, the towns of Wareham, Plymouth, and Bourne, and DFG’s Division of Marine Fisheries.

The Red Brook-Century Bog initiative has moved beyond partner outreach and into an intensive monitoring phase that will inform which suite of future adaptation strategies will be most effective. The Northeast Regional Center is involved in this process of helping to identify which restoration strategies would be most appropriate.

The exercise of identifying a suite of “climate-smart” strategies is extremely useful at Red Brook and elsewhere as resource managers struggle to implement their projects under the threat of climate change. In many ways, determining these climate-smart recommendations serves to elevate Red Brook as a “showcase” demonstration site for on-the-ground climate adaptation in riverine systems.

To learn more about the development of climate-smart adaptation strategies in the northeast contact me at hilkec@nwf.org.