In the year 2000 CU was also acknowledged by the EPA for the work on an osprey colony, their annual raptor and waterfowl survey, the film “Down Jersey” and accompanying teachers’ guide, and the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.
In 2002 Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River and Its Tributaries, Inc. took first place in the category of Education and Learning Institute, NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Division of Watershed Management for their PBS film “Down Jersey” and the teachers’ curriculum, “Down Jersey: Celebrating Our Sense of Place.” Over 500 teachers have taken workshops in order to teach the curriculum.
CU also co-produced a documentary with New Jersey Network for which they received a Mid-Atlantic Emmy award for Outstanding Arts Program or Special.
[2] Their mission reads: CU's work in the Maurice River watershed typically begins geographically at Willow Grove Lake and continues south; the South Jersey Land and Water Trust begins its work in the vicinity of Willow Grove Lake and extends northward to the headwaters of Scotland Run.
The Maurice River watershed has a drainage of 386 square miles (1,000 km2) and runs south through Cumberland County, New Jersey to the Delaware Bay.
The Maurice River and its tributaries drain the Southwest portion of the Pinelands National Reserve, which is also an International Biosphere Reserve under the United Nations Man and Biosphere Program.” The New Jersey Landscape mapping indicates the Maurice River watershed as habitat for bald eagles, waterfowl, and several other migratory birds.
[12] The AJ Meerwald, a 1928 oyster schooner that operated on the Maurice and in the Delaware Bay, dubbed “NJ’s Tall Ship” by former Governor Christie Whitman, has been restored by the Bayshore Discovery Project for educational purposes.
[18] CU's fieldwork includes an osprey colony project, purple martin banding, wood ducks, Adopt-a-Swamp pink population, eagle nest monitoring, and international shorebird team assistance.
Under the management of the New Jersey State Division of Fish and Wildlife, the NJ Endangered and Nongame Species Program monitors osprey populations statewide.
They were not productive, so chicks were brought in from nests in regions that had not been exposed to these chemical contaminants and the young were fostered by NJ's remaining birds.
Citizens United's volunteers monitor approximately 50 nesting platforms and they have constructed and erected more than 50 platforms for other organizations and corporations, including the NJ Endangered and Nongame Species Program, NJ Department of Protection Bureau of Emergency Response, Community Energy, PSE&G and The Natural Lands Trust.
In 2008, CU member Allen Jackson and those working with him banded over 8000 purple martins, an increase of 2000 birds from the prior year.
Assisting NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Endangered and Nongame Species Program: CU assists in two facets: a number of volunteers monitor eagles’ nests for the State; and their members also provide support to the international Shorebird Team that visits May–June of each year to study the migratory shorebird phenomenon.
CU members help with the banding of shorebirds, as well as hosting the scientists during their stay by providing them with meals and local cultural activities.
World Series of Birding: CU's team, the “Fish Hawks”, was formed in 2007 and placed second in the category of limited geographical region that year.
Partners have included National Park Service, Natural Lands Trust, The Nature Conservancy, New Jersey Network, New Jersey Audubon Society, NJ Conservation Foundation, Bayshore Discovery Project, NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, Columbia Environmental Law Clinic, and U.S.