Mass Audubon is delighted to announce that Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary has received a $22,000 grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust to support the oyster reef restoration project.
The Trust’s funds come from the sale of their “Preserve the Trust” specialty license plates. Half the Registry fee is donated to the Trust to fund water-focused environmental education and protection programs and it is the only specialty plate that exclusively funds environmental initiatives.
We have a long history of receiving grants from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust over the past ten years, and their funding has supported many important Mass Audubon initiatives. Examples include reducing pollution in the Blackstone River, working to reduce water withdrawals from Massachusetts rivers, conducting an inventory of odonates at our sanctuaries, providing environmental education programs for hundreds of schoolchildren on the importance of protecting our water resources, horseshoe crab research, and coastal waterbird protection.
The current grant will support an intern for 12 weeks. The intern will be responsible for assisting with many aspects of the project, including deploying and maintaining the reef structures, measuring oysters on the growing reef, conducting the various biodiversity surveys, monitoring sand movement on the site, and helping with lab work. This grant also helps to support a tidal flats sand survey, the creation of related educational materials for our school programs, and costs of a model reef ball exhibit and interpretive panels which will be displayed at the Nature Center.
The Massachusetts Environmental Trust received 85 pre-proposals, invited 37 applicants to submit full proposals, and funded 19. This is clearly an exciting and important project, and thanks go to everyone who contributed to the success of our proposal!
Sylvia Charman Guthrie
Director of Foundation and Government Support
Mass Audubon
Comments