Today on our final excursion for the 2017 Pine Barrens Intensive Learning, we visited Pine Island Cranberry Company. Pine Island Cranberry Co. is a 14,000 acre stretch of land in the Pine Barrens that includes cranberry bogs, forests, and wildlife. We first watched a presentation on the history of the company, what jobs they do, and learned an overall understanding of how their company functions. We then went out to one of the cranberry bogs and got to walk inside it. At this time of year, the bogs are drained so we were basically walking on the dry plant of the cranberries. They taught us about the plant and how there are five leaves surrounding the bud. They harvest the berries in September to November.
During the presentation at the beginning of the trip, we were also informed about how the former native bird of the Pine Barrens, the quail, has been extirpated and was missed dearly. Nature walkers, hunters, and local residents wanted them back in the Pine Barrens. So, to fix this problem, bird expert John Parke teamed up with Pine Island to bring quails up from the south and back into the environment they once lived in. They have being doing this for 3 years and bring 80 Quails each year. We went with John to where they set the quails loose in hope of seeing a few. We ended up not seeing any but we heard one in the distance. Overall it was a very fun day with a lot of learning on an interesting topic.