Julian Bender spent most of his weekends in the spring and summer of 2024 dedicated to one project: creating a bikepacking route through the Pine Barrens. He mapped out campgrounds and sites of natural and historical interest. He rode drafted routes, ruling out options that weren’t suitable for bikes due to flooding or overly soft
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On a late winter-early spring evening, with a warm rain falling and temperatures above 45 degrees, volunteers with the Sourlands Conservancy in central New Jersey take up posts along nine roadways in Hopewell Township that frogs and salamanders need to cross while en route to the vernal ponds where they breed. The conditions have to
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From April 24 to April 27, Philadelphia and its adjacent counties will strive to recruit people to find as many species as possible, alongside hundreds of other cities around the world. Using the iNaturalist app as a tool, the City Nature Challenge encourages us to explore and document the biodiversity right where we live while
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As a parent of a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old who play baseball in West Philly’s Philadelphia Athletics Youth Sports Association (PAYSA), I know firsthand how hard it can be to find space to play organized sports. The league has grown from 170 kids in 2014 to around 300 today, with a waiting list of 20.
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By Julia Lowe and Gabriel Donahue Nature lovers, mark your calendars for Love Your Park Week 2026. One hundred forty park friends groups care for the city’s parks year-round and are calling for volunteers to join the cleanup and beautification days hosted from May 9-17. “I think it’s a great way to be outside with
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If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, the plan to renovate Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia might have proceeded without significant opposition. Workplace lockdowns and virtual schooling drove people outdoors to get some exercise and socialize in the fresh air. In South Philadelphia, many of them found the park’s shuttered golf course and fell
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I would need to book a flight to Portland, Oregon, to see shad runs like Philadelphians once did. That might surprise Delaware Valley residents accustomed to hearing how scarce the once-abundant fish are. But while shad have long suffered in their home range, they have flourished out West. The sleek silver herring is a celebrity
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When entering Cobbs Creek Park at Florence Avenue and Cobbs Creek Parkway, a mural on the sidewalk asks, “How far can you hop?” On an adjacent wooden display, a spinning wheel lists actions inspired by reptiles and amphibians in the creek — slither, crawl, jump — and challenges the player to cross a series of
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A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Nine fully intact eggplants. These are just a few of the unexpected objects the Cobbs Creek Ambassadors have come across while cleaning up Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia. But most of what they pick up is just typical litter: bottles, cans, food wrappers, old tires. And the
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At 11 a.m. on Valentine’s Day, Aspen Simone stood on the corner of 7th and Christian streets in South Philadelphia holding a long dowel with a laminated, cutout pigeon on the end. That wasn’t just any pigeon on the end of Simone’s walk leader staff. Primrose the pigeon is how the whole pigeon education enterprise
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