{"id":931735,"date":"2026-07-13T10:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T10:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/931735\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T10:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T10:12:18","slug":"the-animals-are-among-cts-best-conservation-successes-it-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/931735\/","title":{"rendered":"The animals are among CT’s best conservation successes. It changed."},"content":{"rendered":"

Old Saybrook resident Anne McNulty has been a volunteer steward with Osprey Nation<\/a> for nine years, helping monitor several osprey nesting platforms in Old Saybrook and Old Lyme, but this year, she said, something is very different.<\/p>\n

Each spring, McNulty said she looks forward to seeing adult ospreys arrive from the South to begin the process of mating, as the raptors build their nests and lay eggs. But this year, she and her fellow stewards are noticing a concerning trend, less fledglings or baby ospreys are in the nests and some of the nests are abandoned altogether. She said that the last few times she has gone to observe the platforms, she\u2019s barely even seeing any ospreys anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just kind of an eerie silence when you go over to Great Island in Old Lyme. Normally you should be hearing a lot of the ospreys. We\u2019re just not hearing them or seeing them like we should be. In Old Saybrook, it\u2019s the same thing around South Cove or North Cove. They\u2019re just gone. I know a lot of us stewards are very concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osprey Nation<\/a>, which started in 2014 as part of the Connecticut Audubon Society<\/a>, is a dedicated group of around 400 volunteers who make it their mission to both spot and monitor the hundreds of active osprey nests around the state. Over the years, the number of nests spotted have gone up significantly.<\/p>\n

In 2024, there were over 900 active nests being monitored. Last year, the number fell to around 682 nests with a noticeable drop in fledglings as well, according to the Connecticut Audubon Society\u2019s Osprey Nation 2025 Season Report<\/a>. While the drop isn\u2019t a seismic shift in the population, it\u2019s enough to cause alarm.<\/p>\n

In 2025, there were more than 800 fledglings for the fifth straight year but at 1.26 fledglings per nest, productivity was the lowest since the group started in 2014, according to the Connecticut Audubon Society. This year, McNulty said she is worried that the trend may be accelerating, and that without osprey fledglings, the population may start to decline. This year ,she said she\u2019s been monitoring four nests.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn osprey nests in its habitat at Haley Farm State Park in Groton. in 2010 BETTINA HANSEN | bhansen@courant.com<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is very concerning, this is my ninth year doing this, I have never seen it like this,\u201d McNulty said. \u201cGreat Island is what\u00a0 ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson called the \u2018Osprey Garden.\u2019 They have 30 osprey platforms there, and this year they have only found seven young on the island and only three appeared to be healthy. This is hugely different from even last year, this is just absolutely devastating.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Caption:An adult osprey buzzes Mike O’Leary, a member of a volunteer banding team that is taking the fledglings from the osprey’s nest to band them on Great Island in Old Lyme in 1997. Photo by Michael Kodas) \/The Hartford Courant<\/p>\n

The raptors are considered a major ecological success story<\/a>. Ospreys nearly went extinct from the toxic pesticide DDT, which the birds ingested when eating high quantities of fish that carried the chemical in their gills. DDT, which was used up until 1972 to control the mosquito population, would often seep into waterways. Bald eagles and brown pelicans were also impacted.<\/p>\n

By 1970, there were only eight nests left in Connecticut. In the 50 years since DDT was banned, over 688 active nests have been observed with an estimated population of just over 2,200 ospreys across the state. The state has been monitoring the species since the 1970s.<\/p>\n

Dan Ferrier and Kris Rowe have been observing the Great Island monitoring platforms for years to check on the osprey population and monitor fledglings. This year, Ferrier said what he has found is very concerning, fledglings dead in nests and many appearing sickly or ill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this for about eight years, I\u2019ve never seen anything like this. Basically the colony on Great Island has collapsed. This is the worst year that I have ever seen. We\u2019re seeing so few chicks and it\u2019s because they are starving. You will see them literally dying on the platforms. You\u2019ll see an occasional chick alive but severely emaciated,\u201d Ferrier said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went there last week, I couldn\u2019t believe how quiet it was. Usually you see 20 or 30 flying around and protecting their platform. They\u2019re fairly noisy birds and usually protect their young. This year we\u2019re barely seeing them,\u201d Ferrier added. \u201cOut of the 30 platforms on Great Island, only around half are occupied by adults right now, and only seven chicks are alive on platforms. We think three chicks are going to make it as the rest are very emaciated looking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ospreys rely heavily on a fish called menhaden, a small, silvery saltwater fish that is rich in oils and fats. The fish are filter feeders that eat plankton and serve as a crucial food source for the predatory birds. The fish are considered highly nutritious for fledglings as well, Ferrier said. But conservationists warn that the commercial fishing of menhaden is depleting their population and causing a mass die-off of ospreys.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do a lot of fishing also and we use bunker or menhaden for fishing,\u201d Ferrier said. I also have a sailboat in North Cove, so I\u2019m very close to what activity I see from fish. What\u2019s happening is there is a shortage of menhaden. You use to be able to throw a net in the water and get a bunch of menhaden. Now you barely get any, you can\u2019t even find them anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A migrating osprey heads south over Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, Conn.in 2012. Photograph by MARK MIRKO | mmirko@courant.com<\/p>\n

Ferrier said that menhaden are the primary food source for ospreys and that fledglings heavily rely on the fish.<\/p>\n

The Connecticut Audubon Society launched a pilot program this year to identify the primary fish species the state\u2019s ospreys depend on, Ferrier said. The hope is that once scientists figure out the bird\u2019s primary source of food, they can rule that out as a cause for their decline in population. But Ferrier said that after years of monitoring ospreys, he knows that menhaden are the fish most commonly seen on nesting platforms.<\/p>\n

While Connecticut doesn\u2019t have commercial fishing of menhaden in the Long Island Sound, it is a major business in the Chesapeake Bay, he said. Several companies commercially fish menhaden, and he said he believes overfishing is primarily to blame for the loss of fledglings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very sad to see our ospreys starving,\u201d Ferrier said. \u201cIt may take several years and legislation to bring back their colony on Great Island. We\u2019re hoping to get more data and information from another nesting site on Long Island. We\u2019re gathering data that hopefully can lead to some legislation around fish quotas for menhaden.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Connecticut Audubon Society said they are gathering data on the connection between the menhaden population and Ospreys. The next Osprey report is due to be released later this year after the season ends when the birds head South in September. The 2025 Osprey Nation report<\/a> on their population can be found here<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Old Saybrook resident Anne McNulty has been a volunteer steward with Osprey Nation for nine years, helping monitor…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":931736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[27],"tags":[157896,19528,285,178115,17963,7000,375733,30341,746,9251,728,107363,35639,1759,44677,2824,65990,10008,159,68936,67,132,68,837],"class_list":["post-931735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-audubon","tag-birds","tag-climate-change","tag-connecticut-audubon-society","tag-connecticut-news","tag-ct-news","tag-ddt","tag-endangered","tag-environment","tag-fish","tag-local-news","tag-long-island-sound","tag-menhaden","tag-nature","tag-ospreys","tag-outdoors","tag-raptor","tag-raptors","tag-science","tag-shoreline","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116912139030174103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=931735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/931736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=931735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=931735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=931735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}