Conservation Management Institute at Virginia Tech

03/16/2026

The Coastal Virginia Chapter of Quail Forever recognized CMI's Bob Glennon for his support of the Chapter with the Quail Forever Polaris Habitat Stewardship Award at the Chapter’s Annual banquet on March 13. Bob has represented Virginia Tech, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources with oral presentations and tabletop exhibits on habitat at each of the Chapter’s four ‘Introduction to Quail Forever’ events and its two annual banquets. Bob assists landowners in southeastern Virginia as the area’s private lands biologist.

Congratulations Bob and thanks for your continued hard work!

Send a message to learn more

12/12/2025

https://news.vt.edu/articles/2025/12/cnre-bird-atlas.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawOpEYhleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFGejRZUTJwSUdzRk5xOWlkc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHncXCYrms63Sv0nO0DJIiXblsPXsZN_5dnspP5hoTm8WqMwlZpzrWb555nw9_aem_r7vHkCmr1M6ONHJBuk18lA

Virginia Tech and partners unveil a digital atlas mapping decades of bird data to guide conservation, research, and land-use decisions across the commonwealth.

11/05/2025

After a lot of hard work by a lot of great people across a number of organizations, the Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas is live!

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗩𝗶𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗮 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗕𝗶𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝘁𝗹𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘!

The Atlas offers insights into bird species breeding in the Commonwealth and related information.

The Atlas website is being released in two phases. The initial phase, online now, includes:

• Species Accounts for the 203 species found breeding in Virginia are the centerpiece of the website.

• Interpreting Species Accounts gives detailed explanations to aid in understanding the maps, figures, and other information presented for each species.

• Atlas Methods explains how the atlas data were collected.

• Results providing insights into species no longer breeding in Virginia since the first Atlas conducted in the late 1980s, as well as the exciting discoveries of species now breeding here that were not during the first Atlas period.

• Acknowledgments lists the individuals and organizations who contributed to the Atlas project, including field volunteers and staff who contributed to the massive Atlas dataset, photographers whose images enhance the website, generous financial donors who made the website’s creation possible, and so many other contributions.

Stay tuned! In early 2026, the second phase of the Atlas release will provide the analytical methodology, additional results, summary statistics on survey effort and block coverage, information on Virginia’s geographical features and habitats, and the potential role of the Atlas in bird conservation.

We invite you to visit the Second Virginia Breeding Bird Atlas and let us know what you think using the Contact Us page.
https://vabirdatlas.org/

10/13/2025

PRIVATE LANDS PARTNERSCAPES MEETING. The Private Lands Partnerscapes organization met in Williamsburg last week. The national organization was developed by landowners to promote collaboration between landowners, local, state, and Federal agencies, and non-government organizations to manage natural resources. Three of Virginia's private lands biologists attended: Andy Rosenberger from southwest Virginia, Kelsey Stoneberg-Loch from central Virginia, and Bob Glennon from southeast Virginia. They are the three biologists working on the original agreement between Virginia Tech, NRCS, and the Department of Wildlife Resources. Scott Klopfer from Virginia Tech's Conservation Management Institute also attended. Bob Glennon had been initially invited to attend and represent the private lands biologists with an exhibit and a short presentation on the assistance provided by the private lands biologists. Bob brought Jason Ehret, a new landowner in Surry County who has been working with NRCS, The Farm Service Agency, the Peanut Soil and Water Conservation District, and Bob to develop and implement a plan to manage his land. Jason gave an excellent account of the assistance he received from the agencies. The meeting also included a field trip that featured a stop at a 1,200-acre longleaf pine restoration project. That project involved assistance from a number of state and Federal agencies and The Nature Conservancy. Unfortunately, neither NRCS nor the Fish and Wildlife Service was represented at the meeting due to the Federal government shutdown. They had been instrumental in organizing the meeting and bringing it to Virginia. The photo below is the tabletop exhibit that Bob Glennon staffed during the meeting.

08/29/2025

https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/scpn_petr_bat-inventory.htm

Secure .gov websites use HTTPSA lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

08/26/2025

Ben Wilson, a CMI private lands biologist, recently did a Stream Visual Assessment Protocol and Hellbender Habitat Assessment on a site in Butler Creek in northern Alabama.

Ben assessed a working lands property to determine if stream bank stabilization practices were warranted for the site; as a private lands biologist, he documented the aquatic life in the creek in order to learn what was living at the site and to then minimize disturbance to those plants and animals.

Ben also completed a Hellbender Wildlife Habitat Evaluation Guide to look for nesting rocks and cover rocks for Hellbenders. Overall, he determined the number of nesting/cover rocks was insufficient, which merited the installation of natural nesting/cover rocks as part of remediating the stream. These rocks will be useful to crayfish species as well.

An important goal to Ben is to address the needs of as many aquatic species as possible when completing these projects, so that the stream’s overall health is enhanced and a single issue (such as erosion) isn’t the only thing fixed. Thank you for the work you do, Ben!

08/18/2025

Virginia Tech professor William "Bill" Hopkins studies the eastern hellbender salamander and how environmental disasters like Hurricane Helene's floodwaters and anthropogenic factors affect the survival of the species. Undergraduate researchers and alumni from the College of Natural Resources and En...

06/26/2025

Jennifer Weber gave a talk on native bumble bees at Machicomoco State Park. See more at

Pollinator ecologist Jennifer Webber from Virginia Tech’s Conservation Management Institute was sponsored by Friends of Machicomoco for a recent talk on various species of bumble…

06/10/2025

Recently, some of our ecologists spent a couple months working in the southwest US studying bat populations via capture and acoustics. They spent a lot of time working in both the desert and the high country of the Colorado Plateau.

The bats included in this post are Townsend’s big-eared bat, Canyon bat, Western small-footed bat, fringed myotis, and spotted bat. The southwest is rife with bat species!

03/06/2025

Last week, Liz Keily, one of our CMI staff at Fort Walker, assisted with prescribed burns on the installation. A prescribed burn is good for maintaining early successional habitat, providing more habitat for ground nesting birds, and high-quality browse for deer.

02/22/2025

Some of our ecologists are out in the field this winter surveying for waterfowl for a CMI project with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). Shawn Kurtzman and Megan Zeger have put in a lot of chilly hours this winter counting numbers and species of waterfowl utilizing impoundments in Maryland.

While waterfowl is the main focus, sometimes they get to see other natural wonders such as a scavenging bald eagle and a Delmarva squirrel. Or an even more rare sighting— a pink-footed goose!