Ecological Preserve

Rutgers Ecological Preserve 50th anniversary celebration   Community Paint-by-Numbers mural on the new storage container. The celebration was held on Saturday October 24, 2026 10AM-12:30PM After a few remarks by Rick Lathrop, EcoPreserve Faculty Director, and Karl Alderson of NOAA, the ribbon was cut to officially open the Accessible Trail. There was a whole series of associated activities including                         Accessible Trail Excursion on new 0.5 mile trail     …

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EcoPreserve Trails closed due to drone overflight. There is a drone research flight scheduled and due to FAA regulations we have to exclude non-participants from certain trails in the EcoPreserve for the duration. These trails will be posted at trailheads and key trail junctions. Thursday September 17 2026 9AM-3PM

We were all astonished to see and hear a scarlet macaw in the oaks near the EcoPreserve gravel lot. Who knew that macaws like to eat acorns? The bird spent a good bit of Wednesday morning pulling acorns off the branches from a number of different pin oaks. A very impressive bird and very loud! Lorenzo, as we learned was the macaw’s name when the owner came to try to coax him down from the treetops. After a few hours,…

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Two new benches were added to the central portion of the EcoPreserve. One adjacent to the large meadow off the Orange/Green Trails (pictured above); the other overlooking Buell Brook off the Red Trail.  The seat and backs are from slabs sawn from a Dawn Redwood  tree that came down on campus; the frame is oak. Thanks to the Urban Forestry program (Dr. Jason Grabosky and Rosyln Dvorin) for the redwood slabs.