The Friends of Wildwood Cemetery encourages the public and schools in the surrounding area to consider our beautiful grounds as an outdoor classroom. Wildwood's eighty-five acres are the perfect place to learn about history, anthropology, geology, ecology, and conservation. All studies and activities are respectful of the graves, funerals and cemetery visitors. Please read the project descriptions below and enjoy the links.
If you have a project idea please contact the cemetery office and the General Manager will be happy to talk to you.
If you have a project idea please contact the cemetery office and the General Manager will be happy to talk to you.
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The UMass Mosquito Trapping Optimization Project
This project aims to find the best types of mosquito traps to monitor public health in local forests. Public health officials use several different types of small battery-powered traps to track the numbers and types of mosquitoes: https://www.cdc.gov/mosquitoes/php/toolkit/mosquito-surveillance-traps.html This project led by researchers at the UMass School of Public Health and Health Sciences and the New England Center of Excellence in Vector-borne Disease (www.newvec.org) will be rotating several different trap designs to optimize capture of mosquitoes in our forests that may carry the viruses that can cause human infections like West Nile or Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEEV). It will also provide practical field experience for undergraduate and graduate researchers. Contact information: Dr. Andrew Lover [email protected]; loverlab.io |
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The UMass Amherst Wildlife Project
This project is an undergraduate-driven research study that aims to monitor levels of species diversity and patterns of habitat use for local populations of wildlife species inhabiting a mix of urban, suburban, and conservation lands across the Town of Amherst in western Massachusetts. Using photo detection data collected at 41 trail cameras during 2017-2022, this project provides research experience for students enrolled in Natural Resource Conservation courses within the Department of Environmental Conservation. In addition to revisiting trail cameras to collect data, undergraduate students help to identify wildlife species in the photos, analyze the data based on their own hypotheses, and engage in outreach efforts on campus as well as through our website: https://amherstwildlife.weebly.com/ Contact information: Kelly B. Klingler, Ph.D. (she/her) - Lecturer, Faculty Advisor Natural Resources Conservation Department of Environmental Conservation 160 Holdsworth Way University of Massachusetts |
Check out the animal highlights from the past few years here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/cMuD2ZPsqDKSZ6Rz6
List of species you will see in these photos (in order of appearance in album): Bobcat, white-tailed deer, American black bear, opossum, raccoon, red fox, wild turkey, eastern coyote, eastern gray squirrel, striped skunk, eastern cottontail, and porcupine. |
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The Ecology and Physiology of Backyard Songbirds at Wildwood Cemetery
For this four year study, Prof. Stager and her students has installed 10 homemade feeders suspended from tree branches throughout the undeveloped part of the Wildwood Cemetery forest. These feeders will be up from November - the end of March. During this time, they will check the feeders regularly, as well as catch avian visitors to the feeders. These birds will be marked with bands. They are especially interested in four of our most common species: Black-capped Chickadees, Downy Woodpeckers, Tufted Titmice, and White-breasted Nuthatches. The team holds state and federal permits for this work, and the work is approved by UMass's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Wildwood serves as part of a bigger project. It is one of two sites in the Amherst area. The other is on the UMass Amherst campus. The collaborating professor at the University of Nebraska will have two sites running at the same time. Contact Information: Maria Stager, Assistant Professor Department of Biology University of Massachusetts Amherst https://stagerlab.weebly.com/ |
Our winter birds have physiological adaptations to promote heat production and maintain body temperature, as well as behavioral adaptations such as foraging in flocks that can be composed of single or multiple species. In these flocks, the network of social relationships between individuals—within and between species—affect daily feeding patterns. Thus, these physiological and behavioral adaptations are linked through a feedback loop, as social foraging allows birds to collect enough food to fuel heat production, and energy expended for heat creates demand for more food, which affects social foraging dynamics. This project explores these connections between the physiology of an individual and the ecological and social relationships that arise between group members and across species when they flock together in search of scarce resources." - Assistant Prof. Maria Stager, Biology UMass Amherst 
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Internships With UMass Students
2025 - Arboretum and Garden Installation
Julian Hynes, first Year Arboriculture/Community Forestry student at the Stockbridge School of Agriculture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, completed a three-week internship with the Wildwood Cemetery. Julian participated in a variety of hands-on and planning-focused tasks that supported the development of a tree inventory and map, management plan and arboretum certification application. He drafted the cemetery's arboretum policy for board approval. Throughout the internship, Julian worked extensively on the ARBNET application—editing map points, backing up data, and supporting planting efforts to make the Wildwood Cemetery an accredited arboretum. Julian also installed nearly 80 native bushes, shrubs and ornamental trees for a successional planting plan. Additionally, he drafted educational materials for preschoolers in the local Head Start program across the street, and helped prepare educational pamphlets for visitors, contributing to both the project's physical impact and its outreach efforts.
Photo: Julian Hynes, first Year Arboriculture/Community Forestry student planting phase two/three in the front garden. (Spring 2025)
Internship Funded by the Lorber Family Foundation
Photo: Julian Hynes, first Year Arboriculture/Community Forestry student planting phase two/three in the front garden. (Spring 2025)
Internship Funded by the Lorber Family Foundation
2023 - 2024 Front Garden Design
Kayleigh Lin, a senior in the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning department, signed Wildwood Cemetery’s internship contract in October of 2023. After one tour and a brief introduction, Kayleigh began an emotionally moving and pivotal landscape design process. Kayleigh approached the project with care, research, and a calm can-do attitude, even though the cemetery asked her to do practical work beyond her academic experience. After reading Olmsted’s correspondence, Kayleigh realized the challenge was to develop a garden that fit in with the historic aesthetic, but at the same time expand the native plant diversity and increase the area allowed for future cremation burials. Kayleigh took the initiative to gain a better understanding of the site, the history of the cemetery, and Olmsted’s rural cemetery vision. In the process she balanced the practical concerns she heard from the grounds superintendent and the limitations of the site, which includes shade and poor soil, with the more aesthetically driven vision of the cemetery manager and the board. Kayleigh's work on phase one and her plans for phase two and three made the project move from an abstract idea to a beautiful space for all to enjoy.
Photo: UMass Senior Intern Kayleigh Lin, garden designer, poses in front of Front Garden area before any work began. (Spring 2024)
Internship Funded by the Lorber Family Foundation
Photo: UMass Senior Intern Kayleigh Lin, garden designer, poses in front of Front Garden area before any work began. (Spring 2024)
Internship Funded by the Lorber Family Foundation