Atlantic Coast Demonstration Areas

University of New Hampshire Woodlands and Natural Areas, Strafford County, New Hampshire

About UNH Woodlands

The University of New Hampshire is in Durham, in southeastern New Hampshire. A mile south of the campus, in an area laced with suburban development, lies a complex of almost 700 acres of woodlands and natural areas that the university manages as working forest for timber production and wildlife habitat and to advance the institution’s educational and research missions. Nearby, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Commission manages another 132 acres for wildlife, and an additional 115 acres of private land are under a conservation easement.

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Great Swamp Wildlife Management Area, Washington County, Rhode Island

About Great Swamp WMA

This 3,475-acre holding near West Kingston in southern Rhode Island includes 2,600 acres of forested wetlands in the floodplains of the Chickasheen, Usquepaug, and Pawcatuck rivers.

Red maple, Atlantic white cedar, red oak, white oak, white pine, and American holly are important tree species. The Great Neck, a higher-elevation drumlin near the center of the WMA, was farmed and pastured before being abandoned in the early to mid-1900s.

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Noquochoke Wildlife Management Area, Bristol County, Massachusetts

About Noquochoke WMA

Noquochoke WMA covers 255 acres. It lies between New Bedford and Fall River in the town of Dartmouth in southern Massachusetts. Shingle Island River forms the WMA’s western boundary. The largely flat terrain features abandoned farm fields and an old gravel extraction area, along with wetlands, grass fields, and woods. The WMA is essentially surrounded by slow-flowing streams and associated wetlands.

Tree species include gray birch, red maple, white pine, pitch pine, and alder. Exotic shrubs – particularly multiflora rose and autumn olive – have invaded the former farmland.

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Martin H. Burns Wildlife Management Area, Essex County, Massachusetts

About Martin H. Burns WMA

This 1,555-acre management area is in the town of Newbury in northeastern Massachusetts. The hilly, rocky terrain is scattered with poorly drained low areas that are seasonally wet. The WMA includes old pasture and wooded tracts that were clearcut many years ago and then swept by wildfires. Trees and shrubs include oak, hickory, black cherry, white pine, pitch pine, red maple, Eastern redcedar, aspen, birch, dogwoods, highbush blueberry, and viburnums.

Martin Burns WMA is a popular area for hunting ring-necked pheasants, stocked there in autumn by the Massachusetts Division of Fish and Wildlife (MassWildlife). Deer, snowshoe hare, gray squirrels, foxes, and coyotes are among the native mammals.

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Frances A. Crane Wildlife Management Area, Barnstable County, Massachusetts

About Frances A. Crane WMA

This WMA protects more than 1,900 acres near the town of Falmouth on lower Cape Cod. It is divided into a “Pheasant Area” of more than 1,500 acres (pheasants are stocked there during hunting season) and a “Quail Area” with nearly 400 acres (bobwhite quail are stocked there during hunting season). The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) manages the tract.

Although Crane WMA is surrounded by roads and residential areas, the region still has many acres of conserved and undeveloped land, including Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge; tribal lands of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe; and the 22,000-acre Massachusetts Military Reservation, which borders Crane WMA on the north.

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Roraback Wildlife Management Area, Litchfield County, Connecticut

About Roraback WMA

With 1,975 acres in western Connecticut, Roraback WMA is the state’s largest wildlife management area. Its varied habitats include streams, wetlands, mixed hardwood forest (aspen, hickories, oaks, maples, black cherry, white pine), farmed land, and brushy fields. Ruffed grouse, woodcock, songbirds, cottontail rabbits, deer, fisher, and porcupine are some of the many species of wildlife living on Roraback WMA.

In Connecticut, as in other states in the Northeast, forests are becoming increasingly mature, which means that populations of animals that need young forest – such as ruffed grouse, woodcock, Eastern towhee, brown thrasher, and New England cottontail – have trended downward for several decades.

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Southern New Jersey Woodcock Habitat Network, Salem, Cumberland, and Cape May Counties, New Jersey

About Southern New Jersey

In this region, urban and suburban development mix with intensive agriculture and a variety of natural ecosystems: bayshore, saltmarsh, damp and dry forests, old fields, and grasslands.

Southern New Jersey is extremely important to birds – including songbirds, raptors, shorebirds, and waterfowl – that migrate along the Atlantic Flyway in spring and fall. In autumn, the coast’s configuration funnels these avian migrants down the Cape May Peninsula to the narrowest crossing of Delaware Bay, where they must traverse about 12 miles of open water.

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Millington Wildlife Management Area, Kent County, Maryland

About Millington WMA

This 4,000-acre WMA lies near the Chester amd Sassafras rivers on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It includes wildlife food plots, agricultural fields that are leased to farmers, fallow fields growing up in shrubs and small trees, and mature forest (around 3,000 acres currently are forested).

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In the Works . . .

Hyannis Ponds Wildlife Management Area, Barnstable County, Massachusetts

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