On September 23, 2021, the Friends participated in an event sponsored by the Falmouth Rod & Gun Club and the Sporting, Safety, Conservation & Education Fund to celebrate the completion of the Childs River Restoration Project in Falmouth. Speakers at the event included State Senator Sue Moran, State Representative David Viera, MA Commissioner of Fish & Game Ron Amidon, Executive Director of the Association to Preserve Cape Cod (APCC) Andrew Gottlieb, and others. The day’s activities included site tours and demonstrations, a picnic lunch and more!
The Childs River is a 2-mile long stream flowing from Johns Pond through Mashpee and Falmouth to Waquoit Bay. The river is part of the Waquoit Bay estuary watershed and located within the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Mashpee National Wildlife Refuge. For more than 150 years, the Childs River has been impacted by humans including addition of a dam for milling and upstream cranberry farming. The Child River Restoration Project is focused on restoring a more healthy and natural system through the removal of the dam, replacement of the Carriage Shop Road culvert, reconstruction of the stream channel in the former ponds behind the dam, and reconstruction of the stream channel and wetland within the former Farley and Garner cranberry bogs. Led and managed by the Falmouth Rod & Gun Club, many project partners have helped move this project from conceptual ideas (2017) to final designs (2019), permitting (2020), and construction (2020-2021). The Childs River now enters a new phase of its evolution – recovering from centuries of impact and providing new habitat for fish and other wildlife.
For more information about the Childs River Restoration Project, please view the full presentation handout.