Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society Releases CBC 2022 Highlights By SANDRA BRIGHT ONEONTA – The Christmas “Side Hunt” was a holiday tradition around the turn of the 20th century, in which people would shoot as many birds as possible. In 1900, ornithologist Frank M. Chapman proposed a new holiday tradition, to count birds rather than kill them. Twenty-seven participants counted birds in locations around North America that year. Thus was born the National Audubon Christmas Bird Count, now the longest running citizen…
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News from the Noteworthy Exploring a Working Example of Applied Idealism The Unadilla Community Farm in West Edmeston, established in 2014, is a nonprofit whose mission is providing space for the teaching and practice of sustainable skills in agriculture, natural building, and food equity. The farm was an abandoned corn field, now transformed into an edible food forest. It grows 200 varieties of annual and perennial products, using sustainable techniques. It uses a diversity of conservation practices, such as rainwater…
Communities Urge Gov. Hochul To Sign S6510/A07785 into Law Multiple User Groups Want Outdoor Access Free of Holiday Deer Hunt By JOHN RYBINSKI New York State communities are seeking action from Governor Kathy Hochul to allow them to opt-out of the newly adopted Holiday Deer Hunt, in order to ensure safe outdoor access to multiple user groups during the Christmas holiday break. The state legislature acted by passing Senate Bill S6510 and Assembly Bill A07785, giving counties the ability to…
How To Address HABs? NALMS’ New President Offers Guidance By TED MEBUST WESTFORD – This past summer, Otsego Lake and surrounding area water bodies saw an influx of harmful algal blooms, posing a threat to biodiversity, water potability and recreational activities. HABs, caused by an overabundance of Microcystis, a harmful strain of cyanobacteria, represent one of the biggest environmental threats to area water bodies since the introduction of zebra mussels, and more recently quagga mussels. The latter two species are…
What To Do About the Deer: An Ongoing Rural Debate By TED MEBUST ONEONTA – The City of Oneonta’s Quality of Life and Infrastructure Committee recently heard findings from a commissioned report on the various impacts of increasing deer populations in the area. Carried out over two months, the Deer Management Task Force report named overabundance, Lyme disease and an increasing number of deer-related accidents as driving forces behind their investigation. “Our goal is not to eliminate deer. It’s to…
Letter from Antoinette Kuzminski OEC Scoping Plan Comments on Point The final version of the New York State Climate Action Scoping Plan will be made available January 1, 2023. In its statement on this topic in this paper last week, Otsego Electric Cooperative (OEC) made very clear the shortcomings of present versions of this plan, particularly as regards the needs of the population served by OEC. I am grateful for OEC’s thoughtful analysis, which illuminates the true costs of keeping…
In Memoriam James Andrews Melrose Johnston December 20, 1953-November 14, 2022 COOPERSTOWN—James Andrews Melrose Johnston, Jamie to family and friends, crossed the bar on November 14, 2022, following a prolonged battle with multiple ailments. He was 68. Born on December 20, 1953, in New Haven, Connecticut, into a family of educators, naturalists, poets, historians, sailors and adventurers, Jamie never missed an opportunity to gleefully embrace novel experiences, such as when, as a toddler, he astonished his mother when she removed…
Natural Burial Gaining Countywide Interest By Darla M. Youngs During my father’s last hospital stay, as he was being treated for lung cancer that had spread to the brain, an attending physician asked him, “What’s your life’s plan?” The doctor wanted to talk about brain surgery, and Dad was having none of it. “What’s my life’s plan?” he replied. “Pushing up daisies, that’s my life’s plan.” This was in the spring of 2006, and my father died shortly after. Since…
Editorial Looking an Aqua Pandemic in the Eye Recently, we at The Freeman’s Journal have become aware that some of our readers, and others who may not be our readers, still have questions about the toxic algae blooms that of late have been creeping up on us from the depths and edges of our beloved Otsego Lake. So here goes an effort to get it right. According to NOAA, whose satellites, along with those of the EPA, NASA and the…
THIS WEEK’S NEWSPAPERS The Freeman’s Journal • Hometown Oneonta September 1, 2022 PHOTO OF THE WEEK FRONT PAGE Wildlife Rescue Rehabilitation Center Gets Calls 24/7 Weekly Medical News: 09-01-22 Inside The Paper Fernleigh Foundation Provides Grant to SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station The Grand and Glorious Fall Fair Moves to Neahwa Park Helios Care Receives $1,200 Donation $82 Million Grant Will Improve Access to Care, Increase Key Investments in Bassett Staff September Is National Preparedness Month Drnek: We’re All in…