IN THIS ISSUE

Artist Support

Minister of Education on Bird Education Initiatives

Learning about the Kirtland’s Warbler

Wine & Art Festival

Strange Object Washes Ashore

The Newsletterof the BahamasNational Trust

P.O. Box N-4105Nassau, BahamasTel: 242-393-1317

bnt@bnt.bs www.bnt.bs

Artists support National Parks

Two major BNT events in January brought Bahamian artists together to support national parks.

The weekend of January 23-25 brought the sixth annu-al Art for the Parks event sup-porting the six national parks of Abaco. Featuring over 30 local artists and artisans, a food and craft market on Saturday and the comedy of David Wallace on Sunday, this weekend event was def initely a cultural experience.

“The national parks on Abaco protect pine forest and coppice habitat for many important birds including the Bahama Parrot. They also protect coral reefs, mangroves and rocky shoreline which are important for nesting Tropicbirds and other sea-birds. The funds raised at

Art for the Parks support the Bahama Parrot Management Plan, national park monitor-ing and the Abaco off ice,” said David Knowles, Parks Director.

“The Art for the Parks event was the idea of local Abaco artists who wanted a show that would allow them to promote and display their art while supporting the national parks on Abaco,” said Lynn Gape, Deputy Executive Director. “It has been a great partnership with the artists participating in the planning of the event, as well as the amazing support we have received from the Abaco Beach Resort and local corporate partners.”

Students also had the opportunity to demon-strate not only their artistic

talent but their commitment to the environment by cre-ating art out of ‘rubbish’. Talented young artists from S.C. Bootle, Abaco Central High, Mary E. Albury High School, Angels Academy and Man O’War Primary, showed creativity and talent with their submissions. The overall winner of the com-petition was Dorissa Russell

Minister of Environment and Housing the Hon. Kenred Dorsett, visited with artists Yutavia George and June Collie at the Wine and Art Members Evening.

Volume 10 Issue 6 February 2015

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Artists support National Parks

TrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 6 - February, 2015 2

Artists support National

Parksof SC Bootle High School.

According to Kadie Mills, BNT Abaco Off ice Administrator, “The speakers corner was once again very well received. All of our speakers including Catherine Booker (Conch), Cindy Pinder (Bonefish) and Dr. Ethan Freid ( Endemic Plants) gave excellent presentations and we are grateful for them taking the time to support our event.”

Due to inclement weather in October, BNT members and the gen-eral public were able to enjoy the Annual Wine and Art Festival in January. The event has been support-ing the national park system for over 20 years.

The annual festival featured over 40 talented artists, a selection of over 60 wines from Bristol Wines and Spirits and a wine and food pairing demonstration sponsored by Fresh Market and the Ministry of Tourism’s Culinary Tourism Division. The event also featured special appear-ances by Emanji Circus Arts with music throughout the day provided by Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival, ‘We Love to Play’ and ‘Tropical Depression’.

Rusty Scates, Wine Manager for Bristol Wines and Spirits stat-ed, “Bristol Wines and Spirits was pleased to be a major sponsor of the Bahamas National Trust’s 24th Annual Wine and Art Festival. This Festival provides us with a way of helping to promote our local artists, support the work of the Bahamas National Trust and gives the public the oppor-tunity to sample over 60 wines from Bristol ’s extensive wine portfolio.”

BNT members were able to get a special preview and a chance to win beautiful pieces of art in the Wine and Art Raff le on Friday evening, January 30th.

Kent LeBoutillier and guest Eddie Minnis.

Dorissa Russell - overall winner in the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ art competition.

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TrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 6 - February, 2015 3

Wine & Art

The stilt walker invited patrons to dance!

Wine Manager Rusty Scates showcased an incredible selection of wines from Bristol Wines and Spirits.

Sponsor Scotiabank were all smiles as they greeted patrons at the gate.

Marco Mullings’ work is an explosion of color.

Education

BNT Updates Minister of Education on Bird

Education Initiatives

The BNT met with the Minister of Education to update him on the Bird Education Initiatives that the BNT has undertaken in partnership with National Audubon and the Piping Plover Research Project. Accompanying the BNT on the visit were Matt Jeffery, Deputy Director and Senior Programme Manager for

the Audubon International Alliances Programme for the Caribbean and Anne Hecht, USFWS Piping Plover Recovery Coordinator. Ms. Hecht discussed how education plays a critical role in their conservation efforts in the US. With support from Audubon, the BNT has con-ducted shorebird education workshops for

students on Andros as well as engaging students in the creation of signage about the importance of Andros as a winter-ing habitat for the Piping Plover. These signs will be erected on beaches used by the endangered shorebird.

TrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 6 - February, 2015 4

Left to Right: Matt Jeffery, Deputy Director & Senior Program Manager for the Caribbean International Alliances Program, National Audubon Society; Anne Hecht, Endangered Species Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Hon. Jerome Fitzgerald, Minister of Educa-tion Science and Technology; Portia Sweeting, Director of Education, BNT; Eric Carey, Executive Director, BNT.

BNT Education Officer, Scott Johnson traveled to Eleuthera in January to teach students about the Kirtland’s Warbler.  The Kirtland’s Warbler is a migratory warbler that spends half of its life in Michigan and the other half in The Bahamas – most notably in Eleuthera. Scott was the perfect choice for this task as he is one of ten COB students who worked as an intern on the Kirtland’s Warbler Project, which has solved many of the mysteries surrounding the wintering habitat and needs of this endangered species.

During his trip, Johnson launched a poster competition for students in Eleuthera and their fellow students in the state of Michigan, to be published in 2016. “Because of its restricted home range and unique habitat requirements, the Kirtland’s Warbler has always been a rare bird,” said Portia Sweeting, BNT Director of Education. “The Kirtland’s Warbler compe-tition and the school visits that our Education Department is conducting, will provide information and educational outreach necessary for the management of this endangered species.”

Johnson visited Eleuthera schools including Windemere, Preston Albury, Tarpum Bay Primary, Rock Sound Primary, Wemyss Bight Primary, Green Castle Primary and Deep Creek Middle School.  Students ranged from kindergarten through grade seven and over 300 students participated in the presentations.

The poster competition is going on from now until the end of March, when the BNT Education Department will collect the artwork from students in Eleuthera and ship it to Michigan, where they will be added to entries from compet-ing schools. Twelve winners will be selected to be a part of the 2016 Kirtland Warbler calendar, which will be created by The Nature Conservancy.

“The BNT is very pleased to be able to contribute to con-servation in this creative way,” said Sweeting. “Our huge thanks to the Nature Conservancy for their funding support to this initiative and to our members who make this all possible. We are very excited to see the work our children will be creating.”

The BNT will be posting pictures of the submitted work on Facebook before they go to the completion.

Learning about the Kirtland’s

Warbler

Education

TrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 5 - January, 2015 5

Scott Johnson at Deep Creek Middle School.

Piping Plover Research Continues

National Audubon Society, the Bahamas National Trust and Partners from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service are banding Piping Plovers on Andros, the Berry Islands and Abaco during the first two weeks of February. Additionally two Audubon field biologists were conduct-ing shorebird surveys on Long Island and South Andros.

An exciting component of the trip was the filming of the Piping Plover research and the Bird Tourism Training Kickoff by the PBS News Hour team with Catherine Wise, PBS correspondent and producer.

The banding team spent the first week in Andros visit-ing and banding birds on the Joulter Cays, Blanket Sound, Cargill Creek and Young Sound, successfully banding 20 birds in spite of the windy weather conditions. The team was also able to record sightings of 125 birds roosting on the Joulter Cays and 94 birds in Young Sound. They travelled to the Berry Islands the week of February 2nd and met up with partners from Conserve Wildlife New Jersey to continue the banding on Abaco.

According to Matt Jeffery, National Audubon Senior Programme Manager for the International Alliances Programme, “The project will assist us in establishing connectivity with breeding grounds in the U.S. but will also help us understand survivorship in The Bahamas.” Jeffery went on to say that in Andros they were able to record birds that had been banded in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Piping Plover Team (L-R): Walker Golder,National Audubon; Melissa Bimbi, USFWS); Dan Caitlan, Virginia Tech; Anne Hecht, USFWS; Steve Smith, BNT.

TrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 6 - February, 2015 6

Science

World Renowned Herpetologist visits LLNPP in

Eleuthera

Joe Wasilweski is a herpetologist, a scientist who studies reptiles and amphibians. His work has taken him all over the world and he regularly consults for natural history productions for National Geographic, The Discovery Channel and many others. Joe recently spent a week on Eleuthera at The Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve sharing his passion for Bahamian herpetofauna with Preserve staff and the local community. Joe accompanied Preserve Manager, Falon Cartwright, and Botanist, Ethan Freid, to several schools to give presenta-tions on the importance of National Parks to herpetofauna conservation in the Bahamas. At each school and during a public lecture at the Preserve on January 21st, Joe showed off some of his local herp friends. He was happy to point out that despite common fears and folklore, Bahamian snakes are harmless to people and are very important to a healthy natural environment.

Joe Wasilweski at Central Eleuthera High School.

Joe Wasilweski at Governor’s Harbour Primary.

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UMD - working the trails.

Once again students from UMD gener-ously donated their time to BNT this year. The team flew into Nassau on Tuesday, January 13 and onto Andros on Thursday January 15, where they were hosted by BNT staff. The 15 member team of 4 men and 11 women spent time in the Blue Holes National Park (BNHP) where they

helped with minor repair and maintenance work. Their primary task however, was to clean up trails along the perimeter of Captain Bill’s and the Parks Pal short trail in the coppice. Additionally the students donated books to the BNT Andros office.

This year the group stayed at Camp Makepeace, Methodist House in Staniard

Creek and visited Morgan’s Bluff and Red Bays when they were not cleaning trails at BNHP.

While in Nassau they visited the College of Bahamas, the Ministry of Tourism, the BREEF sculpture garden and Dolphin Encounters.

University of Maryland (UMD) visit Andros

Public Lecture Series at the Rand Nature Centre

The launch of the 2015 Public Lecture Series was a huge success. The room was filled with BNT Members, locals and stu-dents as Peter Barratt presented an excel-lent depiction of the similarities between the Taino and Maya civilizations, describ-ing the artifacts and remains found on Grand Bahama and at the Lucayan National Park. Several artifacts were on display for

meeting attendees to view and insights from excavation expeditions on Grand Bahama were shared by Peter and oth-er paticipants. Shamie Rolle, Chairman of the Grand Bahama Regional Branch, thanked all for attending, and expressed his excitement for the start of a series of public presentations that will feature guest speakers every third Tuesday of the month.

Left to Right: Students from Jack Hay-ward High School and St Paul’s Methodist College with GB Parks Manager Lakeshia

Anderson, Guest Speaker Peter Barratt and GB Regional Branch Chairman

Shamie Rolle.

NATIONAL PARKS

TrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 6 - February 2015 8

During the Christmas season, a strange object washed up on the beach at Shroud Cay in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.  It appeared to be some kind of oceanographic equipment, and mark-ings on it identified the manufacturers, who in turn led us to the owner.  

 Furu Mienis from Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research said, “This land-er is a bottom observatory of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) that we deploy as a standalone system on the seafloor for long periods

and which is designed to measure the near-bed environmental conditions. The lander you have found was deployed in 2012 in the Norfolk Canyon for the period of up to a year, in a scientific research project in cooperation with several USA univer-sities and NOAA. When we returned to this location to recover the lander we were unable to find it. Data retrieved from a lander that was deployed at greater depth in this same canyon showed that some major events (sediment avalanches) took place during the year. The thing we did

not know at that time was if the lander was buried by sediment, had released early and was already drifting at the time we went to pick it up, or that it released dur-ing the cruise in 2013 but did not surface at that time.”

 The scientists are excited that their lost benthic lander has been found, nearly intact, and they hope their data is pre-served on the various instruments that were recovered by the staff at the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.   

Strange Object Washes Ashore at the Exuma Cays

Land and Sea Park

NIOZ Lander.

NATIONAL PARKS

Bahamas National TrustP. O. Box N-4105, Nassau, The Bahamas

Tel: 242-393-1317 www.bnt.bs | bnt@bnt.bs

BNT BULLETINTrustNotes - Volume 10, Issue 6 - February, 2015 9

Trevor Tucker has been a BNT member and Wine and Art participant for approximately six years. “I came to the BNT to participate more with my fellow artists”, says Trevor. “The Trust also has a wonderful environment and most of my work is nature-based so it feels good to be able to dis-play there each year.”

Trevor’s work is primarily acrylic on canvas but he is currently exploring techniques on plexiglass and ceramics. His work is strongly influenced by the changeable, natural patterns and colours found in nature. There have been many styles of art that have inspired him including stained glass with its transparent multi-layered qualities and Expressionism. He rarely limits his color pallet or the expressive nature of his brushstrokes, giving each piece a bold, energetic quality. 

This artist, teacher, husband and father of two is always looking for new ways to express his work and has expand-ed into commercial sales with the creation of his business ‘Trevor Tucker, Original Bahamian Art’, in 2012.

Event CalanderCuban Pig Roast

Saturday, February 07, 2015 (Nassau)

Horticultural Society Plant Sale & Da Market

Saturday, February 14, 2015 (Nassau)

Da MarketSaturday, February 21st, 2015 (Grand Bahama)

MembershipHighlight