Silvio O. Conte National Fish And Wildlife Refuge
A meadow in the Fort River Division of the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge; Hadley, MA.
Photo by James Weliver/USFWS
The Fund helps communities save their favorite outdoor places. This was the case in 2011 when a local land trust wanted to save 32 acres in the town of Hadley from development.
The property had been subdivided into four house lots and put on the real estate market in July 2011. To protect the land from development, the Kestrel Land Trust stepped in at that time to purchase the land until the Conte Refuge could acquire the property. The purchase was made possible with funds from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and a loan from our Land Trust Loan Program.
The refuge division is in the heart of a mosaic of farmlands and grasslands extending north from the base of the Mt. Holyoke Range to the Fort River in the towns of Hadley and Amherst. This newly acquired land at the Fort River Division will help protect the longest free-flowing tributary to the Connecticut River in Massachusetts. The Fort River and surroundings
provide habitat for the federally endangered dwarf wedge mussel and rare bird species.
