Slide 6 of 25
What do we know about the locations of vernal pools in Massachusetts? Thanks to the certification program, we know the locations of about 3100 certified pools, but these data are quite biased. To a great extent, the distribution of certified vernal pools reflects the distribution of energetic high school science teachers.
Fortunately, Matt Burne at Massachusetts Natural Heritage has recently completed a GIS coverage of nearly 30,000 “potential vernal pools” based on aerial photography. These potential vernal pools have not been extensively field-validated.
Obviously, we can’t protect all of these pools--we can’t even visit a large fraction of them. The goal of our work is to focus conservation efforts on the potential vernal pools that are most likely to be connected across the landscape.