Search Results for: Hunting Rd

The Politics of Hunting – Ward Stone Mothers a Bear

The Politics of Hunting – Ward Stone Mothers a Bear   The Politics of Hunting Ward Stone Mothers a Bear by Daniel W. Van Riper Officials in the State Dept. of Environmental Conservation are mainly concerned with promoting the sport of hunting, and give little thought to wildlife management. The only wildlife management policy is hunting, said NYS Wildlife Pathologist Ward Stone, speaking to a capacity crowd at the Dec. 16 SPB dinner at First Presbyterian Church in Albany. "Deer…

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Ward Stone — NYS Wildlife Pathologist Worked for the People

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Editor’s Note: Ward Stone died on February 8, 2023 at the age of 84. Ward Stone was a friend of Save the Pine Bush and often spoke at SPB vegetarian lasagna dinners. Here are two letters which describe Ward. The first letter was written by long-time friend, Lewis Oliver and sent to many media outlets, but, never published. The second letter from Tom Ellis was published in the Altamont Enterprise. Dear Mr. Seiler: The front-page article about the death of…

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Environmental crusader Ward Stone is dead at 84

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Longtime state wildlife pathologist fought many battles against pollution — and his bosses at the Department of Environmental Conservation https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/environmental-crusader-former-radio-host-ward-17776032.php Updated: Feb. 10, 2023 11:22 a.m. HUDSON —Ward Stone, the longtime state wildlife pathologist whose name became synonymous with environmental activism as he helped uncover and publicize the threat of PCBs, died Wednesday in Columbia Memorial Hospital after a battle with cancer. He was 84. Mercurial in his personal life and media-savvy in his professional endeavors, Stone cut a wide…

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The Pine Bush & the Pandemic – April 2021 Save the Pine Bush Lecture by Long time Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission (APBPC) Conservation Director Neil Gifford

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By Tom Ellis, June/July 2021 Save the Pine Bush Newsletter ON THE INTERNET: Long time Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission (APBPC) Conservation Director Neil Gifford began his April 17, 2021 SPB meeting comments saying, “Thirty years of managing the world’s best scrub oak pitch pine barrens has taught us a lot.” His topic was “The Pine Bush and the Pandemic: Update on the Preserve.” He offered an update on land protection, management and monitoring. His comments focused on paleoecology. He…

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Ward Stone Speaks about the Most Important Environmental Problems of Our Time

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by Lynne Jackson ALBANY, NY: Ward Stone, NYS Wildlife Pathologist, ate lasagna with Save the Pine Bush at the First Presbyterian Church this past March and spoke about changes in the environment over the past few years. He noted that in the past 30 years, there is some good news. We have shut-down the source of PCBs. We have banned a lot of pesticides such as dialdrin and chlordane. We have recognized the problems of lead, and taken steps to…

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Man charged in bird-killing Albany

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by DINA CAPPIELLO, Staff writer A 26-year-old Fulton County man was arrested Monday for allegedly shooting 159 crows in a restricted area of the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, according to state Department of Environmental Conservation officials. Burton Frasier of Mayfield allegedly killed the crows with a shotgun in a part of the Pine Bush north of the city’s Rapp Road landfill known as Karner Barrens East. Hikers on Pine Bush trails noticed the crows littering the ground, said Rick Georgeson,…

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Save the Pine Bush Lost Good Friends – Jim Travers, Save the Pine Bush Volunteer

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ALBANY, NY: Lynne Jackson was asked to speak at Jim’s memorial service. Here are her edited comments. Jim was a passionate advocate for the environment. With Save the Pine Bush, he worked tirelessly opposing the expansion of the Albany Landfill in the Pine Bush. But, he especially worked to stop the City of Albany from operating a landfill on 361 acres of beautiful woodland in the Town of Coeymans, where he lived. Jim read and researched landfills extensively. He knew…

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Proposed Executive Budget

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The State Executive Budget for the next fiscal year would boost the Environmental Protection Fund to a permanent level of $150 million, up $25 million from this year. Of this, $55 million would go to land acquisition and open space protection, up from $31.5 million this year. The Executive Budget would also allocate $219.6 million from the $1.75 billion Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act to restore brownfields, clean up air and water pollution, provide funds to safe drinking water projects…

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Researcher: Coyote is Part Wolf

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by Stephen Williams, The Daily Gazette It’s one of the great animal kingdom migrations of the last century — the arrival and flourishing of the coyote in the eastern United States. The thick-furred canine and its high-pitched, ethereal yips and howls have become commonplace across the Capital Region over the last 30 years. Even suburbanites hear them. The eastern coyote is a bigger and more aggressive beast than its western counterpart — capable of taking down deer, rather than living…

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Ecology and history can walk side-by-side on Pine Bush roads

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Reprinted from the Altamont Enterprisel Thursday, May 17, 2018 Before there were cars and trucks, before there were carriages and wagons, before there were wheels, people have always made pathways. The routes they traveled linked hunting grounds with dwelling places, became a means of trade and commerce, linked one community to another or allowed one to fight another. Few of us give much thought to ancient roads in our midst. We didn’t until we got a letter from Steven Rider,…

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Storm Over the Mountains

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by John Wolcott This will be but the latest of several Overview Hikes SPB has sponsored over the years, to points around the rim of the Albany Inner Lowland Basin. We will view the Pine Bush from various points in and near Thacher Park. The hike is free and the public is cordially invited Most of them have been to High Point, Thacher Park and Pinnacle Mountain. We see no reason to discontinue these events now in spite of State…

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The Deer Crisis – No Easy Answers

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The Deer Crisis – No Easy Answers   The Deer Crisis No Easy Answers By Daniel Van Riper The Pine Bush ecosystem is in great danger from many enemies, particularly greedy developers and ignorant politicians. Invasive plant species, pesticides, runoff from the dump and highways, fire suppression and general abuse by humans have all hurt the Pine Bush. There is one more enemy, white-tailed deer, which may in the end completely destroy the Pine Bush and make all of our…

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Furry Pine Bush Residents

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Furry Pine Bush Residents Furry Pine Bush Residents The butterfly is not the only resident of the Pine Bush. Little furry animals also reside in the Pine Bush. I had no idea how many different types of moles, voles, mice and other tiny creatures there are-or how important they are to the ecosystem of a forest. Rezsin and I saw an article about voles in the Pine Bush in the paper, and just had to find out about these small…

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New York State’s Most Successful Predators – Coyotes & Fishers

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ALBANY: Roland Kays, PhD., Curator of Mammals of the New York State Museum, spoke at the May Save the Pine Bush vegetarian/vegan lasagna dinner at the First Presbyterian Church about coyotes and fishers. He began with a photo of the snout from one of the last wolves captured in the northeast. Dr. Kays remarked on the incredible snarl still visible on the snout and how he was the “Last wolf left in the northeast of the United States, and he…

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The Karner Blue vs Crossgates Mall – Secret Meetings and SEQRA Violations

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The Karner Blue vs Crossgates Mall – Secret Meetings and SEQRA Violations The Karner Blue vs Crossgates Mall Secret Meetings and SEQRA Violations by Lynne Jackson Save the Pine Bush is pleased to announce that we joined with our famous Pine Bush resident, the Karner Blue Butterfly, and sued Pyramid Crossgates and the Zoning Board of Appeals of the Town of Guilderland over the theater expansion at the Crossgates Maul. This is the first time we have ever filed a…

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Save the Pine Bush

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by John Wolcott The next piece in the puzzle of “Where is Trader’s Hill?” is an amazing very old parchment map in the Albany City Engineer’s collection. It is the only map known to show Margriets Bergh, and was drawn in January 1773 by Jeremiah Van Rensselaer from a survey done by himself in 1772. This survey and map were ordered by the City in an effort to correct a series of mistakes in a former survey of it’s bounds….

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Save the Pine Bush

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  All that sand was left by a glacial lake. The Pine Bush ecosystem sitting on that sand, however, may have been created by Native Americans practicing fire management techniques. At least, that’s what some people believe. One of those people is Dr. Harvey Alexander, professor at the College of St. Rose, who spoke at the Dec. 10 SPB dinner at the Unitarian Church in Albany. Doing some fast talking, he laid out the story of the formation of the…

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Roads in the Pine Bush – John Poorman Speaks about the CDTC

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by Rezsin Adams ALBANY: According to Daniel Bogan, who spoke at the Save the Pine Bush dinner on November 10, the challenge today to wildlife is urban sprawl, which results in habitat loss and increased interaction between animals and humans. New York State was originally covered with forests but in the 1800’s the forests were cut down. Although regeneration has occurred, wolves and mountain lions were a threat to farming and were driven out of the state. Coyotes exploited this…

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Archaeology in the Pine Bush

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by Tom Ellis   ALBANY: Derrick Marcucci of Landmark Archeology was the featured speaker at the November 16 SPB dinner at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. He said most of his firm’s Pine Bush work involves development proposals, the number of which have dropped off quite a bit in the past three years. The Pine Bush he said, has been a natural corridor between the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, was once 40 square miles, and is a unique ecosystem. Developers,…

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Fishers in the Pine Bush! May 2011 Pine Bush Dinner with Scott LaPoint

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Albany, NY: Recently, a friend out in Rensselaer County grabbed my arm and said “don’t you dare release your rehabilitated (orphan) rabbits out here—The Fisher will get them!” She went on to describe an animal so mean and vicious that no other mammal would be safe around them. And so, though I haven’t ever met a fisher, I got an idea of the reputation that precedes them. It turns out that fishers are a member of the weasel family. They…

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What’s afoot at the Preserve?!

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By Grace Nichols November 2010 was notable in that folks in the community kept contacting us about the Albany Pine Bush Preserve. First it was the neighbors over on Lincoln Ave, wondering why the “forever wild” patch next door was being clearcut, as a new road was being put in connecting Lincoln Ave and Fox Run. Now that the people who had asked for that road for a decade were evicted, the City has put in a good one. Fox…

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Earth Day Update

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by Lynne Jackson ALBANY, NY: The First Presbyterian Church was the location of the April Save the Pine Bush vegetarian dinner which featured representatives of five environmental groups telling us about the state of the environment. Bobbi Chase, of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CEC), gave us an update about toxics. The state superfund has run out of money and has not been re-funded by the state. There are 770 toxic waste dumps around the state that have no…

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Famous Lasagna Dinners

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Famous Lasagna Dinners Famous Lasagna Dinners Nearly every month for the past eighteen years, Save the Pine Bush has hosted a vegetarian lasagna dinner. That’s "All of the Vegetarian Lasagna You Can Eat with Garden Salad, Garlic Bread and Homemade Pies for Dessert Only $10 for Adults, $5 for Students, and $2 for Children." Save the Pine Bush began its fund-raising career with these dinners and now they have become a monthly "must do" event. Rezsin Adams makes the lasagna…

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Space Saver

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by Gary S. Kleppel The state Department of Environmental Conservation recently released the 2001 draft Open Space Conservation Plan for public comment, a near-final step toward its adoption. Hailed by environmentalists, business leaders and academics as a benchmark in environmental policy, the plan demonstrates that conservation can serve both economy and ecology. There is but one significant glitch. There is no state funding for implementation. At a time when New Yorkers clearly need the economic, recreational, environmental and spiritual values…

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Archaeology in the Pine Bush

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by Tom Ellis ALBANY: Derrick Marcucci of Landmark Archeology was the featured speaker at the November 16 SPB dinner at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. He said most of his firm’s Pine Bush work involves development proposals, the number of which have dropped off quite a bit in the past three years. The Pine Bush he said, has been a natural corridor between the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, was once 40 square miles, and is a unique ecosystem. Developers, he…

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Bats in the Unprotected Pine Bush of Guilderland

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By Grace Nichols Albany County is home to many bats, from the rare Myotis genus species, so vulnerable to White-nose syndrome for which we were a ground zero, to the more common Large Brown Bat, Hoary Bats, Red bats, Silver-haired Bats and Tri-colored bats. They come in a variety of sizes and colors and they are agile flyers, plucking insects from the air, hunting with both eyesight and special echolocation, using calls far above the frequency of sounds audible to…

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Save the Pine Bush Comments on the Rapp Road Residential/Western Avenue Mixed used DEIS

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Christopher M. Walker, Legal Intern for the The Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic wrote comments for the proposed project. Here is an excerpt from his comments sent to the Guilderland Planning Board. You can view the complete comments and the appendicies online at: http://www.savethepinebush.org/Cases/Crossgates_Expansion/index.html The Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic submits the following comments on behalf of our client, Save the Pine Bush, in response to the proposed Draft Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”) on the Rapp Road Residential/Western Avenue Mixed Use Redevelopment…

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