NRPA, Friends of Canonchet Farm, South County Museum and the Maury Loontjens Memorial Library sponsored the third season of On Pettaquamscutt: Presentations on the Environment and the History of the Narrow River Watershed.
January 26: The Red House at the Head of Narrow River: Birthplace of Gilbert Stuart, Painter of Presidents
Peggy O’Connor, Director of the Gilbert Stuart Birthplace and Museum presented about the painter and the snuff mill where he was born.
February 23: Biodiversity is Everywhere: 1,200 Species of Life and 4 1/2 inches of rain in the Narragansett BioBlitz
David Gregg, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Natural History Survey, spoke about the BioBlitz at the South County Museum in June 2013, what the professional and amateur scientists found in their 24-hour search of Canonchet Farm and Pettaquamscutt Cove, and how they survived the heaviest rainfall of the summer.
March 30: Restoring Habitat at Lake Canonchet
Throughout 2014 and 2013, 100 volunteers have removed more than five tons of Japanese knotweed and other invasive plants from the shore of Lake Canonchet across Boston Neck Road from the Narragansett Town Beach. The work is part of a Friends of Canonchet Farm project to restore native habitats along this fresh-water coastal pond.
At this On Pettaquamscutt presentation, Kathie Kelleher and David Smith, members of the Friends of Canonchet Farm Restoring Habitat Committee, discussed the goals of the project, described the problem of invasive vegetation in South County, and showed some of the initial results of the restoration project.
