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On January 3, 2023, UVa Health announced the publication of The Cleopatra Project – Poisonous and Venomous Animals in Virginia, an on-line reference guide to 32 poisonous and venomous animals that live in the wild in Virginia. Written in non-technical language and filled with full color photographs, the publication is intended to be a reference for parents, educators, medical service providers, and the general public. 

The Cleopatra Project is a multi-chapter Virginia Master Naturalist educational project conducted in partnership with the University of Virginia School of Medicine, Blue Ridge Poison Center and Virginia Master Naturalists. The project, initiated in summer 2021 by current and former members of the Old Rag Chapter, is modeled after The Socrates Project on poisonous plants in Virginia which was produced in 2020. 
 
The Cleopatra Project, broader in scope and complexity than The Socrates Project, is the collaborative work of 8 VMN chapters and peer review experts affiliated with Virginia’s higher education institutions, museums and scientific societies.  Each of the 32 animal entries–ranging from Ants to Wasps & Bees–includes a description of the animal, its habitat and likely geographic range in Virginia, the source of poison or venom, potential physical symptoms, and possible animal “look-alikes.” The publication emphasizes the vital role that poisons and venoms play for some animals in gaining food, protection from predators, and defense of their territory and young– in order that readers learn to live respectfully and safely with these fellow inhabitants of Virginia. An understanding of the habitat and habits of these animals protects both animals in the wild and humans. 

In 2022, Old Rag Master Naturalists Cleopatra participants contributed over 957 volunteer hours toward production of this 106-page publication as authors, photographers, project managers and editors.  Old Rag Chapter’s contributors and project leaders included Kathleen Aucoin, Bonnie Beers, Brenda Clements Jones and Don Hearl, as well as past members Alfred Goossens (now a member of the Rivanna chapter) and Peg Clifton.  Certified members from 8 statewide VMN chapters–10 authors, 2 peer reviewers and 8 photographers—also contributed to the publication.  VMN chapters represented in this collaborative project are:  Banshee Reeks, Central Virginia, High Knob, New River Valley, Old Rag, Rivanna, Roanoke, Southwestern Piedmont.*

A limited number of printed copies of The Cleopatra Project will be distributed to health care providers, poison control centers, Virginia school nurses, Virginia State Parks, Shenandoah National Park, and other service centers and organizations in the state with educational missions.  Educational presentations, using materials created by the project team, will also be provided to interested groups throughout Virginia.  The online version is available at no cost to everyone. 

• The Cleopatra Project is now available for free download on the website of The University of Virginia Health’s Blue Ridge Poison Center
• Also available online is the companion document The Socrates Project, which addresses poisonous plants that may be encountered in Virginia: free download on the website of The University of Virginia Health’s Blue Ridge Poison Center
• The Cleopatra Project in the news: UVa’s 1/3/23 Cleopatra Press Release; Charlottesville NBC 29 News report of 1/3/23.
• Contact for additional information:  Cleopatra.Socrates@gmail.com 

​The Virginia Master Naturalist program’s state office is now accepting nominations for six statewide awards.  

• Chapter Leader of the Year
• Volunteer of the Year
• New VMN Volunteer
• Most Impactful Project
• Chapter Advisor of the Year
• Diversity & Inclusion Award.

These awards will be judged by the VMN statewide office team and one or more VMN sponsoring agency representatives.  We will announce the winners in late December or January.  To submit a nomination, please send the information requested for that particular award to Michelle Prysby.  Nominations are due by December 2 at 5:00 pm.  You can find this year’s award nomination information below.  You also can learn about our 2021 award winners!

Chapter Leader of the Year
This award is intended to recognize a volunteer for extraordinary service as a leader in their chapter.  The person could be a board member, committee chair or committee member, or any other type of leader in the chapter, so long as their work involved chapter administration of some sort and demonstrated leadership.  

In your nominations, please include the following:

• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the nominator
• Name, email address, VMN chapter affiliation, and leadership role(s) for the nominee
• Description of why the volunteer should receive the award, limited to 400 words.  Please include a description of the volunteer’s contributions this year and why they stood out to you.
• Optional: One photo that illustrates the nominee and their service.  Please include photo credits and make sure we have the photographer’s permission to use the photo.

Volunteer of the Year
This award is intended to recognize a volunteer who has made outstanding contributions to natural resource education, citizen science, and/or stewardship.  Criteria we consider include the impacts the volunteer has made on natural resource conservation and education, ways the volunteer has impacted or influenced other volunteers, and impacts the volunteer has had on their community, all in the context of the volunteer’s VMN service.  There is no minimum requirement for amount of hours or length of service for a volunteer to receive this award.  Our focus is on the last one to two years of service.

In your nominations, please include the following:

• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of nominator
• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the nominee
• Description of why the nominee should receive the award, limited to 400 words.  You may choose to include a description of the individual’s service, specific examples of positive impacts made, aspects that make the individual stand out from other volunteers, and quotes from other volunteers or local partners.  Please place your primary focus on the last 1-2 years of the volunteer’s service.  
• Optional: One photo that illustrates the nominee and their service.  Please include photo credits and make sure we have the photographer’s permission to use the photo.

New VMN Volunteer
This award is intended to recognize a new volunteer who completed or will complete basic training in 2022 and has been highly engaged during and after the training.  The volunteer may have completed many volunteer hours, started a new project, helped on a chapter committee, or been engaged in other ways.  In your nominations, please include the following:

• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the nominator
• Name, email address, VMN chapter affiliation, and basic training graduation date of the new volunteer
• Description of why the volunteer should receive the award, limited to 400 words.  Please include a description the volunteer’s activities and contributions this year and why they stood out to you.
• Optional: One photo that illustrates the nominee and their service.  Please include photo credits and make sure we have the photographer’s permission to use the photo.

Chapter Advisor of the Year
This award is intended to recognize a chapter advisor who has made significant and noteworthy contributions to a VMN chapter within the last 1-2 years.  In your nominations, please include the following:

• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the nominator
• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the chapter advisor
• Description of why the chapter advisor should receive the award, limited to 400 words.  Please include specific examples of how the chapter advisor has helped the chapter run effectively, make positive impacts in the community, or otherwise achieve its goals.
• Optional: One photo that illustrates the chapter advisor and their service.  Please include photo credits and make sure we have the photographer’s permission to use the photo.

Most Impactful Project
This award is intended to recognize a project that has made significant and noteworthy positive impacts for natural resource education, citizen science, and/or stewardship this year.  Our focus is on projects for which the VMN chapter played a significant, unique role in creation, implementation, and leadership (rather than projects that were created and run by another organization.)  These awards go to the chapter, not to an individual, so the expectation is that multiple members of the chapter be involved in the project.  The project need not have started this year, but it should have had significant impacts this year.  The chapter that wins the Most Impactful Project award this year will receive a special recognition sponsored by the Historic Southside Chapter, courtesy of the raffle they held at the state conference in September.

In your nominations, please include the following:

• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the nominator
• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation for any primary VMN volunteer contacts for the project
• Description of why the project should receive the award, limited to 400 words.  Please include a description of the project goals, activities completed, and impacts and outcomes for natural resources in your community and/or for your chapter.  Include the roles and contributions of VMN volunteers to the project.  Identify any significant partners for the project. 
• Optional: One photo that illustrates the project.  Please include photo credits and make sure we have the photographer’s permission to use the photo.

Diversity & Inclusion Award
This award is intended to recognize efforts to engage underrepresented audiences and efforts to increase diversity and inclusion throughout the VMN program and the educational programs volunteers provide in their communities.  It could be a particular service project that the chapter did that successfully engaged new audiences, work done by a chapter committee to create new partnerships, work done by chapter leaders to make all members feel more welcome and included in the program, or many other possible efforts.  This award will go to the chapter, not to an individual, though we can highlight particular individuals who played a significant role in our awards announcement.

In your nominations, please include the following:

• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation of the nominator
• Name, email address, and VMN chapter affiliation for any primary VMN volunteer contacts for the diversity and inclusion efforts being nominated
• Description of what the effort or activity was and how it successfully engaged underrepresented audiences or increased inclusion within the VMN program and/or educational programming by VMN volunteers.  Identify any significant partners involv
  ed in the work. 
• Optional:  One photo that illustrates the effort.  Please include photo credits and make sure we have the photographer’s permission to use the photo.

Please help us recognize the outstanding people and work of your chapters!

Each quarter, we invite our state agency sponsors to contribute news from their agencies. See below for the latest from DEQ, DWR, and VIMS!

Tackling the Problem of Plastics in our Ocean
Submitted by Virginia Witmer, Virginia CZM Program, DEQ

Virginia Marine Debris Reduction Plan
The Virginia Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Program and its partner Clean Virginia Waterways of Longwood University (CVW), released the 2021-2025 Virginia Marine Debris Reduction Plan with strategic, definitive actions to reduce debris in Virginia’s coastal waterways and the Atlantic Ocean. Harmful sources of plastic pollution are all too common along Virginia’s shorelines and become marine debris that ultimately flows into the ocean—including bottles, balloons, plastic bags, cigarette butts, and food containers.  

The plan, funded through grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), sets out major goals to reduce consumer debris, derelict fishing gear, microplastics and abandoned/derelict vessels. The plan was initially published by Virginia CZM in 2014, and was the first such plan on the east coast.

The Virginia plan focuses on changing the behaviors that often cause litter.  Virginia CZM and its partners, including local governments, will explore options for additional litter prevention behavior change campaigns.  In addition to prevention, the plan outlines the need for more research, monitoring, removal of debris and litter, increased infrastructure and proper disposal options, as well as new policies and laws.

New Survey Shows Virginia Voters Concerned About Plastic Pollution 
Virginia voters are concerned about plastic getting into our rivers, bays and ocean, and they support action to decrease littered plastic bags, bottles, cups, food containers and other plastic items according to a new statewide survey released in September 2022 by the Virginia CZM Program, CVW and OpinionWorks. 

The survey explored the perceptions and attitudes of Virginia’s voters about several problems, and measured voters’ support for policies that have been adopted in other states.  As a follow-up, OpinionWorks invited a cross-section of voters into deeper, one-on-one interviews to better understand their attitudes and reasoning around these issues.  Data from this survey will assist in crafting successful behavior change campaigns as well as public policies.  

The Virginia Marine Debris Reduction Plan and 2022 Public Perception Survey: Plastic Pollution can be downloaded from the Virginia CZM Program website.

Virginia Marine Debris Summit
The 2022 Virginia Marine Debris Summit was held in September at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center.  This year’s summit organized by CVW and the Virginia CZM Program focused on consumer debris. The event began with a free, public lecture detailing Virginia efforts to curb plastic pollution in the ocean, and featured a keynote from Nancy Wallace, Director of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program.  Summit presentations will be posted on the Virginia CZM Program’s marine debris webpage.

Virginia Social Marketing Work to Reduce Balloon Litter Expands throughout Mid-Atlantic 
One of the actions identified in the first Virginia Marine Debris Reduction Plan in 2014 was  a social marketing campaign to discourage people from releasing balloons.    While all marine debris has some potential to harm wildlife, balloons have been identified as among the five deadliest types of debris due to the risk they pose to marine wildlife through ingestion and entanglement.
​
In 2015, the Virginia CZM Program received a grant from the NOAA Marine Debris Program to pursue this work, and partnered with CVW and OpinionWorks to conduct extensive, state-wide, research to better understand who plans balloon release events – and, most importantly, why. This research informed design of the Joyful Send-off campaign in Virginia, which targeted  balloon releases held during weddings, and focused on alternatives to release. 

Before expanding the Virginia campaign throughout the Mid-Atlantic, and with additional funding from the NOAA Marine Debris Program to the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean, the team  conducted additional research across the region to validate our earlier findings. The Mid-Atlantic Prevent Balloon Litter Campaign focuses on a one-to-many, social normative strategy emphasizing the use of balloon release alternatives during celebratory, memorial and other events. Messaging stresses the ceremonial aspect of alternatives that create a lasting tribute and joyful, uplifting moments.  A pilot campaign was launched in fall 2021 with the National Aquarium, New York Aquarium and Virginia Aquarium. The full campaign (including a Teacher Kit on the website, which offers many downloadable materials) continues through early spring 2023. See more on PreventBalloonLitter.org. 
​
The Virginia CZM Program, established in 1986, is a network of state agencies and local governments led by DEQ that administer the enforceable laws and regulations that protect our air and water quality and coastal habitats.  Read more about the coastal resiliency, restoration and conservation efforts of the Virginia CZM Program being funded through the CZMA.  Visit https://www.deq.virginia.gov/coasts.

Wild Turkey Summer Brood Survey Results
By Katie Martin, Deer-Bear-Turkey Biologist and Mike Dye, Forest Game Bird Project Leader, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources

Through the months of July and August, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) staff and
cooperators completed the annual turkey brood survey. The survey provides an index to productivity of
wild turkey reproduction and can assist in making management decisions. The survey counts the
number of turkeys observed by staff and cooperators as they go about their normal day to day business
and is expressed as the number of turkeys observed per 1,000 miles driven and the number of poults
(juvenile turkey) observed per hen. The Department would like to thank the many volunteers of the
Virginia National Wild Turkey Federation chapters, DWR Complementary Work Force and Hunter
Education Instructors, and the Virginia Master Naturalists for their survey participation in 2022!

The 2022 annual survey suggests reproduction for wild turkey declined to a statewide average of 1.9
poults/hen, falling below the long term survey average of 2.5 poults/hen. The overall number of turkeys
staff have observed in the summer has declined since 2015. In 2022, the total number of turkeys
observed fell below the long-term average (18.4/1,000 miles) to 10.1 birds per 1,000 miles. Wild turkey
success in hatching and raising broods plays an important role in wild turkey populations and is
especially important in fall harvests. Further, the ratio of young birds (poults) to the number of females
(hens) is a critical index to reproduction (P/H).

See the attached Wild Turkey Summer Brood Survey Results PDF for more information and graphs of the data.

​Special Guest Presentation: One Ocean. One Canoe. One People
Contributed by Dr. Kirk Havens, Director, Center for Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Wednesday, November 16, 7-8:30 pm
In person at Watermen’s Hall
VIMS, Gloucester Point

Prepare to be inspired and captivated by native Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson during this very special presentation at VIMS. Thompson has dedicated his life to exploring the deep meaning of voyaging, inspired by mentors who introduced him to the mysteries of the inshore ocean, the stars his ancestors used to navigate great distances, the natural signs that provide guidance, and the universal values of voyaging: vision, self-discipline, preparation, courage, risk-taking, and the spirit of aloha.
 
On long voyages, under a dome of stars and surrounded by the vast ocean, Thompson came to appreciate the Hawaiian concept of “mālama” – care taking – from a planetary perspective. He will share that perspective while inspiring and educating us all to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world with a melding of science and indigenous wisdom.
 
Thompson is president of the Polynesian Voyaging Society and VIMS’ first Scholar in Ocean Residency. He is known around the world as a leader in the traditional Polynesian art of non-instrumented navigation and for his canoe voyages throughout the global ocean guided only by stars, waves, winds, and marine life. He has received numerous awards, including the Unsung Hero of Compassion, the NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award, the BLUE Ocean Film Festival Legacy Award, the National Geographic Society’s Hubbard Medal, and the Explorers Club Medal.
 
Seating for this program is limited, so early registration is strongly encouraged. A brief reception will be held afterward with Thompson and Lehua Kamalu, the first woman to serve as lead captain and lead navigator of the Hokule’a, a double-hulled voyaging canoe, on a traditional ocean crossing. Register here for the in-person event. You may also register here to participate in this event online.

By Meagan Thomas, Watchable Wildlife Biologist, Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources

If you are one of over two hundred Adopt-a-Trail (AAT) Volunteers, we at the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources want to reach out and extend a very sincere THANK YOU! This past year has been a doozy for all of us as DWR launched a major overhaul to the AAT project. We are so appreciative of all of our amazing volunteers for their patience throughout this transition and their dedication to help ensure that the Virginia Bird and Wildlife Trail remains a top guide to the wildlife viewing opportunities in Virginia.

Check out some of the amazing observations that volunteers have made during their visits to Bird and Wildlife Trail Sites in 2022. And if you want to learn more about the Adopt-a-Trail project and how you can participate, check out our project page on the VMN website.