Conservation Lands
"I think that each Town should have a park, or rather a primitive forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, either in one body or several... a common possession forever for instruction and recreation." — Henry David Thoreau
The Conservation Commission’s principal mission is establishing Town Conservation Lands. These are undeveloped parcels owned by the Town, open to the public and dedicated to traditional outdoor recreation, wildlife habitat, and environmental education.
The Town acquires land through gifts and by purchase from willing sellers. The Town also can acquire conservation easements (restrictions on use of land agreed to by the owner) and collaborate with private owners on common management goals.
Conservation Lands are managed by the Conservation Commission, in compliance with Chapter 66 of the Town Code. Some conservation lands are small parcels gifted to the town as potential neighborhood parks or as parts of a trail. Other Conservation Lands are large enough to have significant ecological value; these may become Wildlife Commons.
Wildlife Commons
A special kind of Town Conservation Land is the Wildlife Commons — a large, roadless, undeveloped parcel that contains several land types, or biomes, such as marsh, forest, and swamp. A parcel’s large size combined with lack of development makes it especially valuable for wildlife habitat, since habitats are often thwarted by roads and other development. Threatened species such as spotted turtles are especially vulnerable to road crossings. As for size, animals as small as turtles and as large as moose, as well as birds such as hawks, need to range large distances to feed and mate.
The name Wildlife Commons is a reference to the colonial New England "Town Commons," a common pasturage, and the older English Commons, a land too wild for cultivation. We call our lands Wildlife Commons because the land is shared not only by the townspeople, but also by the animals who reside there.
To date, the Town has designated The Fenderson Wildlife Commons, which has grown to 600 acres because of gifts from Wells families and purchases from the Town Land Bank. It lies in north central Wells, bordered by the Horace Mills Road, the Quarry Road, the Sanford Road, and the Sanford Town Line.
There is a marked trail leading from the Horace Mills Road (Route 9), and a trailhead on the Sanford Road (Route 109) just north of the High Pine Loop.
Activities in the Wildlife Commons include hiking, birding, hunting, fishing, wildlife observation, tracking, nature photography, picnicking, and just taking a walk in the woods. The wide variety of plant communities and wildlife are detailed in the Fenderson Commons Management Plan.
Note that motorized vehicles are not permitted on Conservation Lands.
Seasons in the Commons
Diedra Sargent from the University of New England reports on what you can observe in the commons during the seasons.