Coexisting with Connecticut’s Critters

Wednesday February 11 at 7:00 pm
At the Lyme Public Hall, 249 Hamburg Rd. (Rt. 156), Lyme CT

Registration: education@lymelandtrust.org

Coexisting with Connecticut’s Critters with Master Wildlife Conservationist, Ginny Apple, Connecticut DEEP

How can we coexist safely with wildlife and minimize negative interactions in backyards and open spaces?

In Lyme, we are fortunate to share the land, water and sky with an impressive diversity of wildlife. We value protecting native wild animals and plants in their natural communities. However, because of the fragmentation of habitats, the risks of habituation and the movement of animals, conflicts between humans and wildlife can and do occur. These interactions may increase as climate change shifts animal ranges and as species recover or disperse to new areas.

How can we move from conflict to coexistence? What tools and strategies can we employ to reduce conflicts that may arise when people and wildlife share landscapes? And can these strategies help imperiled wildlife rebound and expand to their historical ranges?

This discussion by Ginny Apple will help answer these questions and guide our thinking about animal encounters, opening the path to coexistence.

A native Texan, Ginny Apple was one of the first full-time women sportswriters in the country, who left the field mid-career to pursue a path in communications/public relations. Through the years she has hiked, climbed, kayaked, skied and poked her way through the outdoors and developed a passion for all things natural.

A move to the middle of the woods in Barkhamsted, CT twenty years ago brought her into an environment filled with bears and other wildlife. Living in a house surrounded by Peoples State Forest, she observes a large population of Black Bears and supplies field notes and photographs on them to DEEP bear biologists. Her affinity for this magnificent creature led her out west to participate in a Grizzly research mission in Montana and to become a Master Wildlife Conservationist with DEEP. She has been a Bald Eagle interpreter for the Shepaug Dam Eagle Observation area for 13 years and monitors Bald Eagle and Osprey nests throughout the State.

Ginny is Chair of the Barkhamsted Conservation Commission and also on the Town Economic Development Commission, on the Boards of the Farmington River Watershed Association, the Friends of American Legion and Peoples State Forests (FALPS), the Litchfield Hills Audubon Society, the Northwoods Land Conservancy, the Friends of Connecticut State Parks and she volunteers regularly with the Barkhamste