Land Stewardship

Mass Audubon actively manages more than 33,000 acres of wildlife habitat across the state, ranging from barrier beaches to open fields to northern hardwood forests.

Every Mass Audubon wildlife sanctuary is covered by a current ecological management plan. These plans identify the conservation assets provided by a sanctuary and prescribe actions necessary to maintain or enhance those assets in the face of 21st century challenges. Through this planning process, Mass Audubon strives to choose management actions that have measurable and lasting benefit to the nature of Massachusetts.

Habitat Management

We actively manage wildlife habitat across our entire wildlife sanctuary system to maintain and enhance uncommon, exemplary, and vulnerable natural communities on our land.

Sunset at Rough Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary © Paul Mozell — © Paul Mozell

Coastal

We protect, manage, and restore salt marshes, bird breeding islands, beaches, and coastal uplands.

green forest with trails — Road's End Wildlife Sanctuary, Worthington

Forests

Forests of various ages provide many ecological services and require different management strategies.

Eastern Meadowlark by David Larson — Eastern Meadowlark (Photo: David Larson)

Grasslands

We develop sustainable management practices for grasslands.

Vernal Pool in spring at Attleboro Springs Wildlife Sanctuary (by Rosemary Mosco/Mass Audubon) — Vernal Pool at Attleboro Springs

Vernal Pools

These seasonal wetlands provide critical breeding habitat for several amphibian and invertebrate species.

Reducing Stressors to Increase Resilience

Resilience is the capacity of a natural system to respond to disturbances by changing while maintaining basic functions such as pollination, plant succession and nutrient cycling.

Climate change and other ecosystem stressors are altering the habitats of Massachusetts. Reducing as many stressors as possible increases resilience. We strive to reduce ecosystem stressors on all lands we manage. Examples include:

Invasive Species Management

Mass Audubon considers invasive species to be one of the greatest threats to the nature of Massachusetts because they out-compete, displace, or kill native species.

Our approach to addressing invasive species includes projects on our wildlife sanctuaries, supporting statewide initiatives, and educating the public. Get more details

Reducing White-tailed Deer Density

White-tailed Deer are a native species in Massachusetts, but in the absence of their natural predators (wolves and mountain lions) these charismatic animals have reached an unsustainably high population density in many parts of the state.

At very high densities, White-tailed Deer devour the forest understory—resulting in decreased plant diversity, destruction of nesting and perching habitat for birds and other wildlife, and removal of tree seedlings and saplings that would have been the next generation of our forests. Learn more