NFC Spotlighted in WBUR, Boston’s NPR...
NFC National Chair Emily Bastian showing tour attendees a fish trapped from one of the small ponds in Newton Cemetery and Arboretum…
In Spring 2026, the Massachusetts chapter of NFC with support from National NFC conducted two “fish tours” at Newton Cemetery and Arboretum. This was done as part of a top-to-bottom Holistic Stream Assessment/Restoration on the property.
Both the morning and evening tours were filled to capacity with roughly 45 people per session. Members of NFC and staff from Newton Cemetery and Arboretum gathered people at a small brick pumphouse where Cold Spring Brook first enters the property and worked downstream through open air stream, three ponds on the stream, and one that while not part of the stream is fed by water from the stream.
Along the way members of NFC pulled minnow traps set the night before, placed the fish captured in a bucket, and then passed them around in small acrylic viewing tanks so attendees could get a close look. In many case, it was the first time people had seen a fish in the wild. We also captured a couple of bullfrog tadpoles and saw several painted turtles and one unusually large crayfish.
“Another type of tour asks visitors to look down instead of up. The cemetery’s four ponds are home to lots of fish, and this year, the Native Fish Coalition guided the public through the different types...”
NFC was spotlighted in a recent article, How Massachusetts' historic cemeteries are trying to draw in the living, which appeared in WBUR, Boston’s NPR.
NFC will be returning to Newton Cemetery and Arboretum to conduct two more tours in Spring 2027.
A tour attendees looking at a wild native golden shiner from one of the ponds in Newton Cemetery and arboretum. She said it was the first fish she had ever seen in the wild…
