Big Turkey Lake Conservancy, Inc.

Our Purpose

Lake and watershed conservation through preservation, restoration, scientific study, education, and community involvement.

Initiatives & projects

What we are working on

Six of them. Some are habitat, some are water quality, and some are simply getting people down to the shoreline on a Saturday morning.

Build an osprey nesting platform

An osprey feeds almost entirely on fish and will nest on a platform or a dead tree near open water. The goal is to put platforms up in safe spots on the lakes.

Eagle nesting support

For the bald eagle it is protection, not building. The nests are already here. The work is keeping them undisturbed.

Create fertilizer buffer zones

Working with farmers and lakeshore owners to put planted strips between the ground and the water, so fertilizer and herbicide stop short of the streams and the lake.

Kids' Junior Lake Stewards day

Hands-on crafts, water experiments, and plain lessons about why a lake needs looking after.

Shoreline restoration workshop

A working demonstration of how to plant native vegetation along a bank and stop it washing away.

Aquatic invasive species awareness

Helping residents and visitors spot invasive species, keep them from moving between lakes, and deal with them when they turn up.

Osprey nesting platform

What we are trying to put up

15 to 20 ftNest of crossed sticksthe same pair rebuilds it each springPlatform, about 4 ft squarewith a perch bar alongsidePredator guardstops raccoons climbing to the nestOpen water in sightan osprey eats almost nothing but fishTaller than the trees around itopen sky above the nest
15 to 20 ft12341Nest of crossed sticksthe same pair rebuilds it each spring2Platform, about 4 ft squarewith a perch bar alongside3Predator guardstops raccoons climbing to the nest4Open water in sightan osprey eats almost nothing but fish
What we are trying to put up. Nothing exotic: a pole set clear of the tree line, a platform on top, a guard to keep raccoons off, and open water in sight. Ospreys find them on their own.
Around the lakes

Photographs from here

Taken on Big Turkey and Henry by people who live on them.

A bald eagle perched on the broken top of a dead tree against a grey sky.
A bald eagle on a dead snag. Standing timber like this is why the eagle work is protection rather than building.
A bullfrog resting at the surface among green rushes in shallow water.
A bullfrog in the shallows, in among the rushes.
About ten adults and children standing on a grassy bank beside the lake, next to a row of filled black trash bags.
Big Turkey Lake Conservancy sponsored volunteers and their kids at a shoreline cleanup.
A pile of roughly a dozen full black trash bags on the grass at the top of a lake bank.
What came off the bank and out of the water that morning.
A flat dredging barge with a crane and a spud pole sitting on open water, houses along the far shore.
A dredge at work on Big Turkey Lake.
A wide bare basin of grey sediment behind sand berms, with a discharge pipe running into standing water.
Dredged sediment pumped ashore into a settling basin. Everything a lake loses off its watershed eventually has to be moved somewhere.