Aaron Lefland

‘A Second Shot at Life’: Orphaned Foxes Released at Local Land Preserve

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A large crowd gathered Thursday evening to witness the release of two rehabilitated red foxes on a New Canaan Land Trust nature preserve off of Davenport Ridge Road. The young foxes, one male and one female, had been orphaned earlier this year, according to Dara Reid, director of Wildlife in Crisis, a Weston-based nonprofit organization that has been caring for the pair. “Both families were killed,” Reid said from the Colhoun Preserve, a 21-acre parcel acquired by the Land Trust in 1974. “One by cars and one by rodenticide—rat and mouse poison.”

Now about six months old, the foxes were in “very poor” condition when they were brought in, Reid said. “We had to give them fluids and a lot of rest when they first came to us but they have fully recovered and grown at this point,” she said. 

When the cages were opened in a clearing away from the road, one of the foxes was eager for freedom, hesitating only momentarily before bounding into the bushes.

Aaron Lefland

Land Trust Preps for New Wildflower Meadow at Silvermine-Fowler Preserve

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Aaron Lefland stepped into a hilltop clearing amid beech, chestnut oak and American holly trees in Silvermine on Wednesday morning, and began to unroll about 80 feet of plastic tarp in a strip over the cold, hard ground. Together with local volunteers Susan Bergen, Catharine Sturgess and Peter Bergen, Lefland—executive director of the New Canaan Land Trust—laid the plastic over the footprint of a house that had stood here until about 18 months ago. That’s when the nonprofit organization acquired this 6.35-acre property from award-winning zoologist and longtime New Canaanite Jim Fowler, and began transforming the property into a publicly accessible piece of open space that features trails, seating, pond views and connection to an abutting 40-acre property that collectively form what’s being called the “Silvermine-Still Pond Preserve.”

The purpose of the plastic is to rid the site of invasive and other plant species without using herbicides or chemicals, so that a wildflower meadow may sprout there. “We tore down the house, and now we want to convert it really into prime wildlife habitat,” Lefland said on a crisp, cool morning, the “counsel ring” seating area created by Gus Larson of Troop 70 for his Eagle Scout project, and Still Pond itself, behind him. “So we are going to be planting native wildflowers and grasses that promote bee, butterfly and bird populations.”

An effort that honors the legacy of Fowler, a Georgia native who earned wide fame as TV host of “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and called the sylvan property home for nearly 35 years.

Government

‘They Are Trying To Run Roughshod Over The Process’: Aquarion’s Neighbors Issue Cease-and-Desist on Land Sale

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Though it aims to subdivide and sell a large piece of untouched land tucked away behind Indian Waters Drive, the water company has no legal way to establish access from that private road and neighbors have issued a cease-and-desist order, one of them told New Canaan’s legislative body last week. Residents of Indian Waters Drive “are urgently trying to keep this as open land for the town” and Aquarion has “ignored us,” Peter Bergen told members of the Town Council during their regular meeting, held Wednesday at Town Hall. “We are prepared to work with the town, to work with the New Canaan Land Trust to try to keep this land open. I think this land is currently assessed at about $13,000 an acre that they are trying to sell for about $1.5 million an acre. So I am urging the town to keep considering this issue, to slow down the process, especially given the legal issues that are ongoing, where we do not believe for a second that they have access at all and they are trying to run roughshod over the process.”

He spoke during a public comments section at the top of the Town Council meeting.