Each Town Core Habitat Report provides information from the Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program about important sites for biodiversity conservation in your area. This information is intended for conservation planning, and is NOT intended for use in state regulations. For all projects requiring environmental impact review, consult the Natural Heritage Atlas or Priority Habitat and Estimated Habitat datalayers available from MassGIS and submit a Request for Rare Species Information form to Natural Heritage. Core Habitat descriptions and species lists refer to the entire Core Habitat and cannot be considered applicable to a portion of the Core Habitat. Also, additional rare species may be present within a given Core Habitat, but are not described due to species sensitivity, new information that was received after the project’s deadline, or for other reasons.

The local information in each Town Core Habitat Report is organized by Core Habitat number, which is keyed to large color maps, available for $15/ map by emailing natural.heritage@state.ma.us or by calling 508-389-6360.

A town’s Core Habitat Report can be viewed and printed with Adobe’s free Acrobat Read software. To download a copy of the software, click here:

Note: Minor revisions were made in January 2005 to the following Town Core Habitat Reports: Amherst, Athol, Barre, Belchertown, Brewster, Cheshire, Eastham, Granby, Hadley, Hardwick, New Salem, Orange, Orleans, Pelham, Petersham, Phillipston, Shutesbury, South Hadley, Ware, Wendell, and Windsor.