Wildlife is always fascinating to sit and watch as they hunt for food or make a new home. Have you ever considered the wildlife that goes beyond the Deer, Turkeys, Coyotes, Foxes, Red Tailed Hawk and more?
Have you ever considered the species that might be ENDANGERED, THREATENED or of SPECIAL CONCERN?
How about the Holstein Cow. That is now EXTINCT in the Town of Abington and as more and more farm land disappears from their territorial range, they too will be gone from the State of Massachusetts. We have already witnessed the disappearance of the Dairy Farmer in Abington.
One program that is administered by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife is the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program. Massachusetts Natural Heritage Program This site is GREAT if you would like to learn more about ANY species that may be contained on the State's list of rare plants or animals.
While at the present time NO rare species have been mapped as having made Griffin's Dairy its habitat, I would like you to concentrate on the value of the habitat that currently exists and the POTENTIAL that species that are contained on the Endangered Species List may or could potentially exist on the dairy.
I have personally viewed a Harrier Hawk flying overhead on Griffin's Farm, but I have not observed it nesting within the area of Griffin's Dairy. The same can be said about the Sharp-shinned Hawk as many abutters have reported seeing it sitting on their decks or BBQ's. How about the Upland Sandpiper?
Each of these bird species are in the area from Weymouth, Rockland and Whitman.
When someone mentioned they observed a Bobolink nesting off Bellows Circle, some members of the Middle School Site Selection Committee, which wants Griffin's Dairy for a school, scoffed at the mention of this species. No! It is not on the Endangered Species List, but it clearly demonstrates that ground nesting birds can and have found Griffin's Dairy as their habitat and it clearly demonstrates that the Upland Sandpiper could also.
So much for the birds how about things the kids find! Turtles! Have they ever come home with an Eastern Box Turtle or how about a Wood Turtle?
What do these species have in common? They are all on the Endangered Species List for Massachusetts and the type of habitat that Griffin's Dairy offers, they just so happen to favor.
On the western side of Plymouth Street we have the large expanse of Mt. Vernon Cemetery. On the eastern side of Griffin's Dairy is the Rockland Golf Course and 30 acres of wooded wetlands of the dairy. In the middle is the open fields of the heart of the dairy. All people have to do is LOOK. Who knows what you will find!
I guess it is real hard to envision an old farm and an old barn having a local 4 H program run out of it. It's hard to see animals in a fenced in area grazing the land or the sounds of animals that are familiar to a farm cry out. I guess it is hard for some who has grown up in the city and has moved to Abington thinking it was country. "HEY! Let's pave that area and build over there. Let's fill in that spot. Ahh life is good in the country".
Let's teach our children that there is more to the earth than asphalt and concrete and that there is a world to be learned about our resources that we so blindly take advantage of. I would be curious to know how many Abington Graduates went on into the environmental world to become a Biologist, Botanist or heaven forbid an Environmentalist.
Griffin's Dairy could be a great educational opportunity. It doesn't need to have a school built upon it to accomplish that task! Let what exists be the classroom.
