Parks and Partners

A view of Acadia National Park's Eagle Lake
A view of the mixed forests that surround Acadia's Eagle Lake

The Northeast Temperate Network serves 13 National Park Service units spanning from Maine to New Jersey, as well as the length of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.

Sitting in the heart of the temperate forest ecosystem, network parks encompass such diverse areas as the rocky coast, mountain tops along the Appalachian Trail, and inland broad-leaf forests. A wide variety of wetlands, fields, forest-types, small and large lakes, and rivers and streams provide many unique habitat niches for hundreds of species of plants and animals.

To learn about a network park and the specific monitoring programs that take place there, choose from the photos below.

Northeast Temperate Network Parks

Partnerships

NETN works with several other groups to complete it's mission of monitoring park natural resources over the long term. Below are brief introductions to NETN partners, and links to their websites to find out more.

Vermont Center for Ecostudies (VCE)

NETN and VCE partner on a few projects related to terrestrial bird monitoring. VCE helps us implement our long-term forest and grassland breeding landbird monitoring program within 9 park units. VCE staff recruits, trains, and coordinates all bird monitoring volunteers. This partnership also contributes in part to VCE's long-term Vermont bird monitoring study and provides an opportunity to make inferences related to changes in bird abundance and community structure beyond park boundaries. In addition, NPS and NETN help support VCE’s Mountain Bird watch program. This unique volunteer program utilizes the high mountain ridges of the Appalachian Trail to monitor high elevation bird populations to gain insight into their status and conservation needs. For more on VCE please visit vtecostudies.org.

Schoodic Institute

The Schoodic Institute is an important non-profit partner based at Acadia National Park in northeastern Maine. We are working with Schoodic scientists to better interpret and disseminate the results of our monitoring to member parks, as well as to gain further insight into the drivers affecting the condition of natural resources within the region. We have active collaborative projects examining the factors affecting park forest and intertidal resources. Schoodic staff also provides much needed logistical support. For more, visit: www.schoodicinstitute.org/.

Last updated: September 20, 2022