The Wellfleet Conservation Trust will have its first in person annual meeting in three years. Please join our Trustees Wednesday, August 17, 2022, 4-6 pm, for informal discussion, hors d’oeuvres, and a cash bar on the deck of the Chequessett Club (680 Chequessett Neck Rd, Wellfleet).
The reception will be followed by our Annual Meeting, which will include a presentation by Denny O’Connell – President of the Wellfleet Conservation Trust (WCT), who will speak about the history of the WCT. Denny will also review recent WCT activities and land acquisitions followed by Q&A.
The Wellfleet Conservation Trust’s Fourteenth Annual Walk will take place on Saturday morning, September 17, 2022. The walk is free and is 2.4 miles in length. The terrain will mostly be on dirt roads and paths in the woods. Topics will include Spectacle Pond, Kinnacum Pond, ice houses, the Gross sisters, and Dr Belding.
Parking is going to be a concern. Consequently it is important that all participants register by sending an email no later than August 31 to wct.annual.walk@gmail.com
Please include in your email the names of all participants who will be arriving in your car.
Final information, including the start time and parking locations, will be sent to you the first week in September. In case of rain on the 17th, the walk will be held the next day Sunday, September 18.
Over the past several months, I’ve introduced several of our friends to an extraordinary property recently acquired by the Wellfleet Conservation Trust. I don’t usually talk about “official” conservation areas on this program, because I don’t want to imply that “nature” is only to be found in formally protected areas. But this one is special. The property in question is called the Herring River Overlook.
You can listen to his podcast about the Herring River Overlook on A Cape Cod Notebook on WCAI.
The Herring River in Wellfleet runs through, adjacent to, or very close by many WCT properties. Most notably it forms the small valley beneath the new Herring River Overlook . It’s appropriate to honor the river together with this World Fish Migration Day.
The lilacs are blooming and the buttercups brighten the river banks, so the blueback herring are swimming upstream to spawn. We counted 89 in one ten-minute stretch this week.
The herring do surprisingly well, despite the constricted tidal flow in the river. Their biggest problem comes at the culverts. Fortunately for them, the one near our count site did not have a snapping turtle, raccoon, or crow waiting on the upstream side.
Culvert on the Herring River, to be enlarged as part of the project to restore the Herring River estuary
We love seeing the herring. They tell us that the river, although damaged, is not dead.
A friend and neighbor says that she loves the herring, too, especially when they’re pickled with peppercorns and bay leaves, then served with onions. That was possible in the days when the river flowed freely. Our hope is that fishing, shellfishing, birdwatching, boating, and more can return when the river is restored.
Note: Portions of this article are cross-posted on chipbruce.net.
Come celebrate Earth Day, Friday, April 22 with the Wellfleet Conservation Trust.
We are offering a walk through a portion of the Fox Island Marsh & Pilgrim Springs Woodland Conservation Area at 10 a.m. Meet at the parking area off Baker Rd. in South Wellfleet.
The one-hour walk features the marsh and harbor views and background information on the area. This mildly challenging walk includes up and downhill terrain. Sturdy walking shoes are advised.
Please join us for a focused Annual Meeting on your Wellfleet Conservation Trust. Due to pandemic concerns, we have not been able to meet in person since our August 2019 Annual Meeting, but we have some statutory requirements, so we hope you can join us via Zoom. There will be a brief review of recent activities, a video presentation of our new Herring River Overlook site, and election of Trustees for terms ending in 2023 and 2024.
We miss meeting in person but plan for a regular, in-person annual meeting in the summer of 2022.
For more than 15 years, the Wellfleet Conservation Trust (WCT) and two Wellfleet-town committees have worked in partnership to provide walking trails on designated conservation lands. All of these trails are outside of the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Wellfleet Bay Sanctuary of Mass Audubon who have some of their own nice trails. On the WCT website, see the down-loadable map called “Wellfleet Open Space and Conservation Lands” for all the conservation land in town.
WCT works most closely with the Open Space Committee (OSC) which is charged with evaluating town owned lands and designating additional lands for acquisition for conservation purposes, including installation of trails, i.e. “passive recreation”. The OSC has had its eye on currently town-owned land which would have a best use as conservation land whether just for pure conservation purposes without trails, or with trails. The OSC then works through Town Meeting to get the land placed under the care and custody of the Conservation Commission (ConsCom).
This has been a very effective partnership leading to trails on eight of the areas designated for conservation. In these areas, the underlying lands are owned variously by WCT and the Town, under the care and custody of ConsCom. The underlying ownership divisions on the land are intentionally invisible so the public can enjoy the underlying conserved land without interruption. The land is cared for by feeownership for conservation purposes and protection under contractual conservation restrictions. In some places the land is owned by the Town with a conservation restriction held by WCT. In other places, it is the reverse. See the map below called WCT and Town Conservation Trails which shows the locations of these trails.
The partnership then maintains the trails through work parties consisting of the WCT trustees, and volunteers, along with members of the town committees. There are times when the efforts are greatly supplemented by the members of AmeriCorps of Cape Cod who bring skills and endurance through youth and contagious enthusiasm.
There are trail maps and guides, in hard copy, that are provided at various public locations such as the Library and Town Hall. Also, these trail maps and guides are available for download or printing from the WCT website.
Enjoy your walks in Wellfleet. There is a lot to appreciate.
The WCT would like to thank the Extreme Terrain Clean Trails Program for their recent grant of $250. The moneys awarded will be used for equipment to help keep our trails clear and for various trail improvement projects.
After much consideration in regards to the latest Wellfleet Board of Health Covid requirements and recommended guidelines, the Wellfleet Conservation Trust has decided to cancel our annual guided walk scheduled for 11 September.
Normally the walk has involved over 75 people. The Health Board recommends that all people not from the same household should maintain six feet of distancing and when closer, masks should be worn, even outside and regardless of vaccination status. Trying to keep six feet physical distancing and masking among our normal numbers would be extremely difficult and would eliminate the group discussions and socializing that walkers have enjoyed in the past.
The walk we planned this year will still be there next year when we will try again. We support the Board of Health in their concern for keeping Wellfleet a safe healthy community.
The Wellfleet Conservation Trust (WCT) has reluctantly decided to postpone its in-person Annual Meeting which was scheduled for Wednesday August 18, 2021. This decision was stimulated by the Wellfleet’s Board of Health issuance of further COVID-protection procedures associated with the current level and trends of COVID in our community.
WCT Trustees were looking forward to interacting with our members and explaining the progress we have made in the past couple of years. We will be attempting to reschedule the in-person meeting in the Fall, but in recognition of the end of the summer season, we will likely set up a dual in-person and virtual meeting. We feel it is beneficial to hold some sort of Annual Meeting as we have not been able to do so since our last Annual Meeting was held on August 17, 2019. The purposes of an Annual Meeting are to elect members to a Board of Trustees and to provide our members with updates on our activities and financial position.
We will be announcing the date and location of the rescheduled meeting on our website and on our Facebook page. We will be providing written notice to our members.
Thank you for your understanding. We will continue our mission to protect open space and habitat for the benefit of all current and future generations of people, fauna and flora.
Wellfleet Conservation Trust 
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