Advancing Marine Research and Conservation Across New England’s Coastal Waters
Founded in 1984 and managed by QLF since 1995, The Sounds Conservancy is a marine research program facilitating the protection and stewardship of the sounds, estuaries, and coastal waters of southern New England and New York.
Each year, The Sounds Conservancy awards research grants to graduate students and practitioners in the fields of marine conservation, environmental policy, and environmental education and outreach. In turn, grantees contribute their research findings to an electronic publication documenting the work of the Sounds Conservancy Fellows, which then serves as a reference for future grantees.
For over half a century, ornithologist Helen Hays of the American Museum of Natural History (New York) documented, banded and nurtured endangered Common Terns and Roseate Terns on Great Gull Island in eastern Long Island Sound – now the largest nesting colony of the terns in the Western Hemisphere.
For approximately 30 of those years, Helen and her project partners received funding in the form of research grants from the QLF-administered Sounds Conservancy. The funding supported extension of her research to Argentina. The longitudinal study of the migratory patterns of terns banded on Great Gull Island and annually migrate to South America is deemed critical to the protection of the colony’s nesting grounds and overall restoration of the species.