The Marlboro Conservation Commission has been working over the past decade to identify a network of 24 Wildlife Road Crossing areas throughout the Township for potential inclusion in new zoning as an Overlay District (which would provide a review process to help encourage that future development be sensitive to potential impacts on wildlife movement). This proposal was removed from the current zoning update process at a late stage, due to public concern when awareness of the idea (but not it's intended effects) spread in the wake of Planning Commission notices that went out to landowners within the proposed WRXing Overlay (most of whom hadn't been aware of the initiative until then). Concurrently, the MCC has been involved in a regional process of aligning Southern Vermont conservation organization efforts with the growing Northern Appalachian~Acadian Ecoregion conservation effort to prioritize critical wildlife movement habitat protection throughout northern and central New England, the Maritimes Provinces, and adjacent Quebec and New York, where we steward the northern boundary of one of the nine most important wildlife movement linkage areas in the Ecoregion (maps 1 and 2). We've begun the process of viewing Marlboro in the context of this priority, as refined by statewide conservation planning that identifies our area of SE Vermont (including portions of Guilford, Halifax, Marlboro, Newfane, Dover and Wardsboro) as forming one of two critical North~south wildlife corridors connecting our Ecoregion~priority linkage area to the wild habitat areas of the Southern Green Mountains (map 3). In Marlboro, we are the stewards of one of these two crucial crossings of Route 9 (map 4), and while we've been in the process of revising and improving our proposed network or wildlife crossing areas we are now including this crucial context in how we structure and prioritize crossings of Route 9 itself and of our approaches to Route 9 (map 4'). Other groups with potential interest in these regional wildlife conservation priorities may include the Green River Watershed Alliance (comprising most of this critical corridor South of Route 9 ~ map 5) and the Regional Gathering of Conservation Commissions and Organizations (comprising most of Windham County ~ map 6).

In Marlboro, our focus continues to center on Wintertime snow tracking of wildlife road crossings. Historically, this was done by identifying areas of likely wildlife movement importance and surveying there (i.e. only the areas identified as crossings in map 4'). We're now in the process of transitioning our effort to continuous surveys of all roads in the Town, both to help hone in on where the important crossings are that haven't yet been identified or proposed, and to help revise the existing proposed crossings while also providing baseline information on crossing rates for wildlife of concern between proposed crossing areas, potential crossings for future proposal and areas not to be proposed as crossings. We would welcome collaborations between the Towns in our area to collectively monitor wildlife movement patterns and identify critical crossing areas together, so that our efforts along Route 9 can expand out to connect from the MA line to the Southern Green Mountains (map 5') and throughout Windham County (map 6'). We are also keenly interested to partner with other organizations in our area, such as schools and colleges, to organize further wildlife movement monitoring and to support related projects within our Ecoregion~critical ​wildlife linkage ​area!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ncYeWPQghtC0EXrUvFi-AYK174fxIuTz?usp=sharing

Please feel free to be in touch if you or anyone you're working with would like to explore possible forms collaboration to address this conservation priority ~ which some of us feel to be both a critical need and an inspirational opportunity!

~ Ashley crumbs@marlboro.edu less ↑