Herring Ponds Watershed Association

05/20/2026

The HPWA Water Quality team is hard at work making sure that Great Herring Pond is safe for swimming. This is an all volunteer organization. If you're interested in helping us monitor, protect and preserve our watershed's natural resources, we have a few volunteer positions available.

05/15/2026

Reminder: Join Mark Faherty, Science Coordinator with Mass Audubon, for a “Landscaping for Wildlife” Presentation. The Herring Ponds Watershed Association (HPWA) and Wildlands Trust are excited to bring you this free talk!

Mark will talk about his experiences gardening for wildlife both at home and at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, where he oversaw a complete redo of the pollinator garden and other outdoor spaces. He’ll cover the most important cultivated and wild plants to focus on to benefit birds, butterflies, bees and other wildlife, as well as what plants work or don’t work here on Cape Cod, land of hungry rabbits and annual droughts. He’ll also address other yard maintenance issues, like what “leave the leaves” really means.

Mark Faherty has been the Science Coordinator at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary since 2007. While his current projects involve everything from oysters and horseshoe crabs to bats and butterflies, he has studied primarily bird ecology for the last 20 years. Mark’s Weekly Bird Report airs each Wednesday on WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR station.

This is a hybrid presentation with Q&A to follow. Registration is required for this FREE event. Please register to attend either in person or online using https://www.wildlandstrust.org/calendar/landscaping-for-wildlife-presentation

05/13/2026

Plymouth residents! Make sure you run, just like the herring, to your local polls this Saturday, May 13th to vote in Plymouth elections!

Bourne residents, your election is on Tuesday May 19th!

These elections tend to have low voter turnout but directly affect your town’s policies! Make sure your voice is heard!

Video taken by Tess Goldmann at Carter Beal Conservation Area.

05/01/2026

Help clean up litter and trash this Saturday

May 2, 9:00am - noon,
Plymouth Town Clean-Up

Join other HPWA volunteers helping clean and beautify our watershed for an hour or two this Saturday.

If you have already picked up a purple trash bag please gather trash along a road or in your neighborhood. Then bring the filled bag to Elmer Raymond Park near the entrance parking area.

If you do not have a purple bag you can come to Elmer Raymond Park Saturday morning, May 2, between 9am and noon to pick up your trash bag(s). Collect roadside litter and trash in your neighborhood and return the bag to the park for collection by the Town DPW.

04/28/2026

The Herring Run Festival seemed to be a big hit this year! While the hill at Brewster Gardens wasn't as steep as the one by the grist mill, the kids still had a lot of fun making like a herring, climbing up through all the obstacles and sliding back down to the "ocean"! There were lots of fun activities for the kids and lots of opportunities to learn more about our precious natural resources.

04/25/2026

Setup is just about done! Come run our herring obstacle course at the Herring Fest at Brewster Garden from 10-3!!!

04/22/2026

Just as the herring return to the same rivers every year, our ever-popular herring run obstacle course will be back again but in a new location - Brewster Gardens! Kids of all ages (including some adults!) will get to crawl over dams, past predators, and up a fish ladder on their way to drop off their ping pong ball ‘eggs’ at their breeding pond. Last year, our intrepid helpers told me that over 100 different herring - I mean children completed the course and got to slide all the way back to the ocean.

This year, the herring swim on Saturday, April 25th from 10am to 3pm. The rain date is the following day, same time.

We would love any and all volunteers, both teens and adults, to help us on the day of the fest! If you have a couple of hours to help us set up (8-10am), pack up (3-4pm), or assist obstacle course users any time between 10am - 3pm, please contact Education Committee chair Tess Goldmann at her email, [email protected].

The Herring Fest doesn’t just have herring though, the town’s Department of Energy and the Environment will be showing off some real river herring and eels. Many other local nonprofits will have activities and information about how to get more involved in town! Food and entertainment will also be present.

Hope to see you there!

04/18/2026

Great news! Our volunteer herring counters started seeing them yesterday, swimming up stream to Great Herring Pond to spawn. It's always so exciting to see them start coming. We could still use a few volunteers. To volunteer or ask questions, contact Lynn Oertel, [email protected], or 774-217-3178.

04/14/2026

Sorry for the late notice, the first in a series of seminars on "P*e the Change" held by the Nutrients Out of Wareham Wastewater and the Wareham Land Trust is being held at 6:00 tonight. Follow up seminars on April 29th and June 9th.

04/14/2026

‼️Did you miss our “Principles and Guidelines for River Herring Counting Programs” Presentation by Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries' John Sheppard, co-hosted by Wildlands Trust? No worries😊! It is available now on Wildlands Trust's youtube! Now you can watch anytime!🐟🐟🐟

If this inspires you to count some herring, contact Count Coordinator Lynn Oertel at [email protected] or 774-217-3178.

On March 23, 2026, Wildlands Trust and Herring Pond Watershed Association hosted John Sheppard, Division of Marine Fisheries’ Diadromous Fisheries Biologist,...