Tony Pane

Describe your volunteer activities at HCT:
Currently I collect corks from 8 restaurants in Orleans for HCT’s “Corks for Conservation Project,” and with my wife, work many of the HCT sponsored live animal programs at the Community Center (Eyes on Owls visiting March 2nd, Mission Wolf, Birds of Prey). I also am a property monitor for 3 parcels of HCT land. Previously, I helped certify vernal pools.  When we started there were 5 certified vernal pools in town and now there are 38.

How long have you volunteered?
6 years

What do you like most about it, memorable moments?
What I like most are the people who HCT have recruited because they’re fun to work with. The most memorable times were trying to find salamander and frog egg masses in vernal pools and never being sure how deep the water was. At times that was sufficiently exciting.

What’s special about Harwich?
We were looking for a location that would enable us to be able to walk to as many different places as possible. East Harwich seemed then, and still seems now, to fulfill that requirement. One of the bonuses that we discovered was the great number of protected places, in a great variety of environmental habitats. This we found out was due to Mike Lach and the HCT, which is
an excellent incentive to volunteer, in order to help preserve more.

What else do you like to do for fun or other activities or volunteering?
I also volunteer at Wellfleet Audubon, where I am a volunteer trail naturalist. I have also gotten overly (according to my wife) involved with turtles, as part of the diamondback terrapin nesting program from late spring through early fall, and as part of the sea turtle stranding network, a program that I have successfully drawn Mike Lach and his children into, although I must admit that it took very little persuading on my part.