July 2019

Article contributed by Hannah Updike and other members of the VMN-Pocahontas Chapter

Lee Hesler, a beloved volunteer and leader of the Virginia Master Naturalist’s Pocahontas Chapter, passed away last week. Lee’s legacy of leadership and many, many accomplishments will live on. 

Lee initiated the Pocahontas Chapter’s Vernal Pools chapter project, and then expanded it into a statewide project. Vernal Pools Monitoring is now a statewide effort to identify and monitor vernal pools (isolated wetlands) on public lands. Vernal pools support a unique suite of organisms and are critical habitats for the breeding and early life stages of certain amphibians. The data collected will be used by multiple Virginia agencies, with a long-term goal of contributing to a regional and national database for research and conservation efforts on these habitats.  The project won the VMN Volunteer Project of the Year award in 2016, and Lee was a Volunteer of the Year nominee that same year.
 
Lee and his wife, Jane, began the Bluebird Monitoring project at Pocahontas State Park. The park now has 50 nest boxes and about 200 chicks are fledged each year. Monitoring nest boxes greatly increases nesting success and gives volunteers an opportunity to see the complete life cycle. As is evident from the memories and stories shared by several VMNs, the Bluebird Monitoring project is a powerful and meaningful volunteer opportunity, and we are indebted to Lee and Jane for their work. 

Lee also served on the Pocahontas Chapter board as a member of the Basic Training Committee. He will be greatly missed by the Pocahontas Chapter and all those who had the pleasure of knowing and working with him. 

Below are a few stories and memories from members of the Pocahontas Chapter.  

If you are a hunter, you may be aware that the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has management plans for deer, bear, wild turkey, and other game species. These plans are developed with stakeholder input and revised periodically.  They guide the management of these species and their habitats.  
 
Until now, there has not been a management plan to support wildlife viewing.  While there are overall declines in hunting and fishing, national data suggests continued growth in wildlife viewing.   Wildlife viewing is an important part of DGIF’s strategic plan to increase participation in outdoor recreation.  In fact, Virginia is the first state to include wildlife viewing in their R3 (“recruitment, retention, and reactivation”) initiative.  For these reasons, DGIF is partnering with researchers at Virginia Tech to develop a management plan for wildlife viewing.
 
Development of the plan will include input from a Stakeholder Advisory Committee, data from surveys, and results of focus groups.  VMN Director Michelle Prysby is serving on the Stakeholder Advisory Committee alongside representatives from many other organizations with an interest in wildlife viewing (bird clubs, herp clubs, butterfly clubs, wildlife photography groups, and more.)  Our collective role is to guide the agency’s vision and goals for how to best engage and work with wildlife viewing groups, foster conservation activities, promote viewers’ enjoyment of wildlife, and meet the needs of viewers via projects and programs.  We are also tasked with sharing the progress of this planning process on a regular basis through opportunities like this newsletter article.
 
The goal is to create a plan that is technically sound, based on evidence from wildlife viewer input, and publicly acceptable.  The Stakeholder Advisory Committee hopes that the plan will help increase wildlife viewing opportunities, increase access to places for viewing wildlife, and improve communication with DGIF relating to wildlife viewing.
 
You may be wondering, “Am I a wildlife viewer?”  For the purposes of this plan, a wildlife viewer is someone who intentionally finds, observes, listens to, records, photographs, or interacts with wildlife or visits parks and natural areas because of wildlife.  That definition probably includes most of our Virginia Master Naturalist volunteers!
 
Some of you may be invited to participate in a survey of wildlife viewers this fall, and you’ll receive more information about that when it is available.  Meanwhile, we will keep you posted as the plan develops.

Article by Page Hutchinson, Project Learning Tree Coordinator with the Virginia Department of Forestry and VMN-Rivanna Chapter Advisor

Many of you are familiar with Project Learning Tree, more commonly called PLT, but do you know that the State Coordinator will come to your chapter to lead PLT training specifically for your chapter? This training will count toward CE and give you many wonderful activities that you can use or adapt to use in your education and outreach.  

I think you will appreciate the mission of PLT since it’s a close parallel to the VMN program: Project Learning Tree advances environmental literacy and promotes stewardship through excellence in environmental education, professional development, and curriculum resources that use trees and forests as windows on the world.Project Learning Tree is committed to creating a future where the next generation values the natural world and has the knowledge and skills necessary to make informed decisions and take responsible actions to sustain forests and the broader environment.

PLT training consists of a 5-6 hour workshop arranged on the day of your choice. I will lead you through some of the PLT activities found in the K-8 Environmental Education Activity Guide so you have a feel of how the activities flow and how to lead them for others be it students or the general public. After each activity we debrief and talk about how to make the activity and discussion relevant to different populations or scenarios. Each person participating will receive their own Guide to take with them which has 96 hands-on, interactive activities. 

Some examples of activities are “Birds and Worms”, “Every Tree for Itself”, “How Big Is Your Tree?”, “The Forest of S.T. Shrew” and “Field, Forest and Stream”. Sound intriguing?

The cost for this training is $10/person. That’s it! And this cost includes receiving the Guide. We normally take a 30-45 min. lunch break with everyone simply bringing their lunch unless the chapter wants to provide lunch.

If your chapter is interested in PLT training contact me, Page Hutchinson, page.hutchinson@dof.virginia.gov. We’ll decide on day that suits you and I’ll take it from there. 

​As Virginia’s lead agency for wildlife protection and conservation, the Virginia DGIF has been conserving wildlife habitat in the Commonwealth for decades. We own more land than any other state agency in Virginia and we support restoration work on National Forests and private lands.

In addition to our habitat work on public lands, we also provide education, outreach, and technical expertise to help Virginians create and improve habitat in their own communities and private properties. As Virginia Master Naturalists, you are likely familiar with our Habitat Education Coordinator, Carol Heiser, and her work on DGIF’s Habitat Partners© Education Program, which provides volunteer training for community leaders who want to establish native plant demonstration gardens. Additionally, for private landowners, DGIF has a team of private lands wildlife biologists (PLWBs), hired jointly with Virginia’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), that specialize in on-site landowner habitat evaluations followed by management planning where appropriate. Working with native plant species is a cornerstone of their technical expertise.

Proceeds from the memberships will help support the DGIF’s on-going habitat restoration projects, including:

• Establishment and maintenance of meadows containing native wildflowers and grasses at the DGIF’s Goshen WMA, Lake Shenandoah, and Crooked Creek WMA. These meadows will support grassland birds and pollinators.
• Restore open pine woodlands through prescribed burns and planting longleaf pines at Big Woods WMAto benefit the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker, as well as grassland songbirds, Northern Bobwhite, and Wild Turkey.
• Improve open shrubland habitats along a ridgeline on DGIF’s Highland WMA by connecting two existing openings, facilitating shrub growth, and cutting back forest edges. This project will benefit the Golden-winged Warbler, an imperiled songbird, and other bird species.
• Working with partners to restore nearly ¾ miles of stream channel on the North Fork Roanoke and its
  adjacent shoreline. Multiple aquatic wildlife will benefit from this project; including the endangered Roanoke Logperch, a small freshwater fish, and the imperiled Eastern Hellbender, a large aquatic salamander.

The DGIF invites you to join us and help keep Virginia’s wild places wild!

​Thank you for all that you do to support habitat in the Commonwealth! We look forward to seeing everyone at the VMN annual conference this fall!