At this point in the global pandemic crisis, we are all experiencing strange and uncertain times with numerous precautions, social distancing, and changes in how we live and operate daily. We hope all of you reading this are safe, healthy, and able to access the resources you need to make it through this time. While school, summer camps, and many other major events have been canceled this year, the work of a conservation organization can never be canceled. There are invasive species to manage, forest management plans to update, and the continued measures to protect the water and land resources in our care. Despite some slight changes, we want to assure you we are continuing our conservation efforts as normal. However, Ninevah Foundation has not escaped the reaches of the COVID-19 pandemic and we want to update you on how this pandemic has affected some operations.
The two main changes have been with the Lake Ninevah Greeter program and in-person community events this summer. As mentioned before, the greeter program funding has been delayed this year, but we have finally received funding and are now able to continue with programming to prevent aquatic invasive species spread, including scheduling diver surveys. Greeters will start about a week later than normal due to this delay. Greeters will also be receiving the required training to prevent the spread of COVID-19 while interacting with lake visitors.
Ninevah Foundation also needed to reconsider offering a series of community hikes and paddles this summer due to the need to be cautious about recreating in groups. Instead, we plan on hosting a few online events in July to engage our community and reevaluate hosting group recreation events as the summer progresses. We will email and update our social media with any news on in-person events for the rest of this year.
Another way that the pandemic has impacted our operations is that we were not able to have any group land invasive management events this spring. Therefore, we were only able to hand pull a few garlic mustard patches this May, which are found along the roadsides of Sawyer Hill Rd. and Lake Ninevah Rd. However, despite this, we were able to collect some data on where the worst infestations are, and we hope to use this for a larger community hand-pulling event in May 2021. We are also continuing to monitor for invasive species and treat high priority areas as needed and collect some materials to create educational resources.
Finally, starting soon, many of our staff will be much less available with fewer office hours until the new year. This is so we can conserve our funds and operate on high priority and necessary operations. You can still reach us by email at ninevahfoundation@gmail.com, we just ask that you be patient in waiting for a response as we will have less time to go through our messages. We also may reach out to the community with requests for volunteer time to help us maintain the care for our conserved lands.
We ask that if you are using our land for outdoor recreation, that you follow the Vermont guidelines on how to recreate safely during this pandemic. Current Vermont guidelines can be found here: https://fpr.vermont.gov/recreation/outdoor-recreation-and-covid-19.