Contoocook River Protection Project

Vernal pools like the one pictured here are temporary spring pools, as the name suggests. They are essential breeding grounds for a multitude of amphibians because, being temporary, they lack fish populations that prey on amphibian eggs. Photo by Francie Von Mertens.

Some land protection is intended to benefit wildlife, but wildlife and humans clearly benefit from the same clean water and air, healthy forests, and room to roam in a natural landscape.

National Fish & Wildlife Service approached the town in 1998 to identify land to conserve for the benefit of wildlife—using Superfund money paid in penalty for harm to wildlife. Eighty acres along the Contoocook River near the Greenfield border that had been approved for 12 house lots led the list. Its gravel deposits would be mined for roads, a stream bridged, and a string of vernal pools along the historic river channel running parallel to today’s channel would be impacted.

The Conservation Commission secured additional funding from the Goyette Memorial Fund, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the town, and individuals.

The land is easy for wildlife to access, but humans must park their cars at the most westerly point in the Peterfield subdivision off Burke Road, cross a narrow stream, then wander along old logging roads, a wildlife trail along the river, or bushwhack through a wonderfully wild natural world.    

The spring frog chorus (left) is vigorous here, beginning with the wood frog's duck-like quacking in late March and building to the din of the of spring peepers in April. The pickerel frog (left in photo) adds an underwater-snore croak to April’s chorus, and its companion green frog a plucked-banjo-string croak—the sounds of males advertising for mates. Photo by Francie Von Mertens.