Interactive Priority and Estimated Habitats

Online Viewer

With the support of MassGIS, the NHESP Priority Habitats and Estimated Habitats are now viewable through an interactive mapping program.

Open the viewer program (A new window will open)

Read these instructions if you haven't used this program before:

Navigating:

To navigate to a town, use the drop-down menu on the right-hand side of the map: town dropdown menu

To move around within the map area you can use the following tools. Clicking on the tool will activate it, so when you click inside the map area the appropriate action will take place:

Use the magnifier tool to zoom in. Clicking once will zoom in a little bit, or draw a box around the area you want to zoom to.
Use this tool to zoom out. Clicking once will zoom out a little bit, or draw a box to zoom out a proportional amount.
Use this tool to pan around a map. Drag in the direction you want to display.
Use this full extent tool to go back to the original statwide extent.

Scale:

At a smaller scale (more zoomed out), you'll notice that only major lakes, rivers, cities, and highways are visible. As you zoom in, more detailed roads will appear. As you zoom further in, a digital aerial photograph (2001) will appear in the background.

NOTE: if you zoom too far in, the background map will disappear.

Priority Habitats:

When you use the "id tool", and click within a Priority Habitat polygon, a number will appear below the map area. It will always be prefaced with a "PH" (e.g. PH154). This is a unique identifier that the Natural Heritage Program uses to track information related to each Priority Habitat. Please reference this number when contacting the Program for more information about a Priority Habitat. For more information on requesting information from the Program, please read about Information Requests on our MESA Section.

Troubleshooting:

The mapping application is usable through a dial-up connection, but will draw rather slowly.

If the map window won't pop up, check to see if you have a pop-up blocking software installed; if so, disable it to view the map.