2025 A2A Science Symposium Retrospective
True to the adage about April in the Northeast, the biennial Algonquin to Adirondacks (A2A) Science Symposium got underway in a light but steady drizzle on April 11th in Clayton, NY. Located in the 1,000 Islands region of the St. Lawrence River, northwest of the Adirondack Park, the Harbor Hotel once again hosted the event that drew about 100 activists, scientists, and students from across the eastern U.S. and Canada to watch, listen, and learn as expert speakers shared their research and findings. Three members of the Rewilding Institute team attended the conference.
The A2A Collaborative is an international conservation effort taking on the challenging task of connecting two of the region’s largest protected wild lands with a protected corridor. The A2A corridor crosses not only an international border, but also a large river and numerous roadways in the Southern Ontario Province of Canada.
The project (58,000 sq. miles/93,000 sq. km) on a map looks like a large tilted hourglass with the narrowest part bottlenecked at the NY-Ontario border. The hourglass landmass is the bedrock basement complex of 1.1 billion-year-old anorthosite, a highly resilient metamorphic rock that connects the Canadian Shield complex to the Adirondack Mountains via the Frontenac Arch. Here, the St. Lawrence River carved out the 1,000 Islands so long ago that the numbers seem meaningless. It is along this axis that Alice the moose traversed this route from the central Adirondacks up to Algonquin Park in the year 2000. Alice walked from near Newcom, NY, through the protected Adirondack forests to the St. Lawrence, swam across the river, and then traversed the busy four-lane highway, the 401, and became a Canadian citizen as she headed northwest, where she settled in Algonquin Provincial Park.
A2A map
The A2A Science Symposium is a regularly occurring update on the best science and information necessary to bring the ambitious project to fruition. Both ends of the project are protected lands where suitable habitat for large-ranging mammals. The area connecting these two core preserves is a mix of mostly wooded and agricultural lands and the unfortunately located Route 2 and the 401 Highway. The hope of connecting these two preserves lies in the crossing of these two highways with wildlife overpasses and/or underpasses. The new science of Road Ecology has taken on a lead role in the design and sighting of overpasses and underpasses, which are key to the safe crossing for all wildlife as it moves north and south, as climate change and seasonality require. It is hoped that the eastern populations of wolves and cougars in the region of Algonquin Park could expand their range into the northeastern US, where suitable habitat exists.
Amongst the many sessions during the day, topics ranged from Landscape Connectivity Mapping, Wildlife Corridor Mapping, Road Ecology on the US Side of A2A, Best Practices for Turtle Crossings in A2A, Invasive Species Mitigation, Moose Movement Patterns in the Adirondacks, Habitat Fragmentation & Connectivity in the A2A Region. The Rewilding Institute’s Northeast Carnivore Advocate, Nadia Steinzor, presented a highly engaging talk and slideshow on Challenges & Opportunities for Wolves Arriving in the Northeastern US. (See the slides from her presentation here.)
All in all, it was an inspiring and hopeful day despite the issues with two presenters delivering their talks over the phone, which were difficult to hear. In light of the hostile political climate, the US finds itself with our good neighbors to the north, we can all work towards a more wild region here in the northeastern US and southeastern Ontario while we wait for cooler heads to prevail and normalcy returns to the nation. Fingers crossed, people!
A2A has uploaded the recordings of many of the presentations from the A2A Science Symposium as a podcast series so anyone can listen.
You can check out the podcast series on Spotify here.
You can also find it on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and on the A2A website.
Jason attended SUNY Geneseo, graduating with a BS in Geology in 1984, and from SUNY New Paltz with an MA in secondary education, (and an unofficial minor in rock climbing) in 1992. He’s been a lifelong wild lands enthusiast enjoying a varied array of outdoor activities. Jason taught Earth Science and Physical Science for 30 years in Chatham, NY before retiring to Amherst, Massachusetts. Jason’s been an environmental activist/ educator for most of his adult life, focusing chiefly on the Adirondack Mountains of his home state and wildlife issues in the northeast.
