Angela Sirois-Pitel
Watershed Conservation Manager, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
Tracking Bog Turtles Watershed Conservation Manager Angela Sirois-Pitel holds a bog turtle in a wetland in western Massachusetts. © Ayla Fox
Areas of Expertise
Endangered Species, Watershed Partnerships, Land Conservation, Freshwater Connectivity, Land Steward
Biography
Angela Sirois-Pitel is the Watershed Conservation Manager for The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts. She works collaboratively with communities, stakeholders and local, state and federal agencies to improve the health and resilience of freshwater and land in Massachusetts, with a particular focus on the Northern Appalachians region.
Angela's journey with TNC began in 2005 as an intern with the Student Conservation Association, serving TNC in the Berkshire Office. Angela then spent the next 15 years managing 7,000 acres of conservation land in Western Massachusetts. This included completing her graduate research studying the bog turtles within TNC preserves, and overseeing a range of stewardship and restoration activities.
In the last two years, Angela transitioned into a new role in watershed conservation. She is now working with conservation partners, local and state agencies to improve freshwater connectivity in priority watersheds, with a primary focus on upgrading road-stream crossing for flood resilience and aquatic connectivity. This includes helping watershed partnerships groups in their efforts to support municipalities in designing and constructing upgraded culvert by coordinating efforts to bundled projects into large funding proposals that cover multiple watersheds.
Angela is also co-leading a team of freshwater colleagues across the Northern Appalachians to deepen their collective knowledge of about federal transportation funding as a means of securing these funds to support local connectivity projects in priority watershed across the Appalachians.
In the Media
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The Search for America’s Tiniest Turtles
Angela Sirois-Pitel and colleagues are restoring wetlands and using old-school ways to track bog turtles. Read more
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Meet Stiltgrass, Your New Garden Adversary
How to identify this fast-spreading invasive weed—and what to do about it, if you find it on your property. Read more
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Inside the effort to save a tiny, endangered turtle in western Mass.
Searching for bog turtles with Angela Sirois-Pitel. Learn more
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The state’s endangered bog turtles increasingly at risk of poaching
Angela Sirois-Pitel weighs in on the importance of protecting bog turtles. Read more
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Drivers urged: As you hurtle, beware of turtles
Angela Sirois-Pitel advises against picking up large snapping turtles. Check out the piece
Publications
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Long-Distance Dispersal by a Northern Bog Turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii)
Report on the apparent long-distance dispersal of a young male Bog Turtle marked at a long-term study site in Massachusetts in June 2018. Read the report
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Hepatic Neoplasia in Two Bog Turtles from the Same Massachusetts Fen
Research that describes the discovery of liver cancer in two adult bog turtles from the same Massachusetts fen. Read the paper
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Effects of Habitat Alterations on Bog Turtles (Glyptemys muhlenbergii)
This study supports the value of properly planned and enacted habitat management actions for this federally threatened and state endangered species. Read the report
Keep Reading
The Scientists Behind Decades of Bog Turtle Research
Since the 1980s, scientists have been researching endangered bog turtles and their unique habitats in Western Massachusetts to best understand how we can preserve them into the future.
The Women Behind Our Conservation
On the ground and in the office, these are some of the inspiring women driving our science-based conservation in Massachusetts.
On the River to Recovery
At one point, the Mill River was declared "dead." In 2018, alewife ran the river again for the first time in two centuries and have increased in numbers since.