BECKET, Mass. — Mass Audubon purchased Palmer Brook – the 858-acre Becket property formerly known as the Berkshire Fishing Club – on May 4, completing a years-long effort to protect a parcel that provides habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal species, enhances climate resiliency, and will eventually be a wildlife sanctuary fully open to the public.

 

In 2024, after years of conversations with the landowners who owned the property since the 1960s, they agreed to sell the property to Mass Audubon for $5 million. This will expand a 26,000-acre conservation corridor – one of the region's most significant – anchored by October Mountain State Forest consisting of 16,500 acres. Protecting large landscape corridors is key to the state's biodiversity strategy.

 

Although the opening of Palmer Brook Wildlife Sanctuary isn't planned for some time, it will eventually become one of Mass Audubon's largest wildlife sanctuaries in the Berkshires. The small lodge near the 125-acre lake may become a visitor center that eventually offers a broad range of nature education and recreation opportunities for the community.

 

This acquisition was made possible with the help of conservation partners including the Becket Land Trust, Berkshire Natural Resources Council, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, and many individual donations.

 

MathWorks, a Natick company, has also stepped up by donating $25 million for land conservation two years ago. Funds from that transformational commitment seeded Mass Audubon's 30x30 Catalyst Fund and were used in part for this acquisition.