Trail Work, Invasive Plants, Water Quality, Plant and Animal ID, Marsh Advocacy
The Friends for the Abbott Marshlands completed six weeks with our 5 interns and it has been an amazing experience for all concerned. The interns were MacKenna Durbin (intern leader) who is pursuing a Master’s Degree at Rutgers; Maisie Conrad-Poor, recent graduate from Lawrence University; Delaney McEvoy, a rising sophomore at University of Miami; Yurau Gutierrez from Princeton High School; and Emma-Lee Lazo who is starting at Monmouth University.

Our interns spent a significant portion of their time outside contributing to the stewardship of various trails in the marshlands. With their help we removed invasive plants like mile-a-minute and Japanese knotweed. They trimmed overhanging vegetation on some trails and helped to re-route others. They helped to move large rocks to slow the flow of water and reduce erosion on downhill slopes andinstalled way-finding trail signs. They also helped to weed a newly installed rain garden near the Nature Center. During their time with us, we visited 7 different trail locations within the marshlands, often picking up any trash or litter along the way while they learned about native and invasive plants, watched butterflies and birds and observed frogs, toads, dragonflies, turtles, etc.

On very hot afternoons the interns attended trainings on the history and ecology of the Abbott Marshlands and worked on helping us to organize and label specimens in our herbarium collection. We were also able to coordinate efforts with the Mercer County Park Stewardship staff to enable them to attend a presentation about seed collection and propagation from the New York City Parks Department, they attended a NJ DEP Youth Inclusion event highlighting phragmites removal in the marshlands and talking about careers in environmental remediation. We spent several hours with the local Watershed Ambassador, studying macroinvertebrates with an opportunity for the interns to ask questions about the Ambassador’s role.

As part of our intern program, we ask each intern to spend some time working on an independent
project and to share their work at the end of the program. Each intern gave a final presentation last
week to a group of almost 50 people, consisting of members of the Friends for the Abbott Marshlands as well as family and friends of the interns. The presentations were excellent and well received by the audience. Topics included butterflies identified in the marshlands, a survey of frog and toad calls, responses of birds to alarm calls of non-native birds, and the creation of videos for our You Tube and Instagram channels. In addition, one intern who lives in the local neighborhood surveyed her friends from high school about their knowledge and appreciation of the marsh. Although this student is leaving for college in the fall, we have made arrangements for her to lead several evening walks for young people in the marshlands during August, with several of the other interns attending in support.

At the end of the program this year, we are very proud of the interns’ accomplishments to improve trails throughout the marshlands. As a result of their enthusiasm and creativity, we have better materials to help with recruiting next year’s interns. And we have new connections to the local community including the local high school and new ideas for engaging young people with the Nature Center and the Abbott Marshlands. Perhaps, most importantly, each of our interns seemed to really enjoy and learn from the program and left us with a determination to continue to find ways to work to enhance the natural world.
