Welcome to the Virginia Chapter of the Wildlife Society!
Welcome to the Virginia Chapter of The Wildlife Society (TWS) website. The website provides up to date information on meetings and workshops sponsored by the Virginia Chapter TWS.
The 2010 VATWS Annual Meeting will be held February 3-5, 2010 at the Skelton 4-H Conference Center in Wirtz, Virginia. This meeting will be a joint meeting with the Virginia State Chapter of the America Fisheries Society. Please navigate to the "Meetings" section using the links to the left.
Wildlife Capture and Techniques Demonstrations at Mountain Lake Biological Station
Thanks to all who helped out at the VATWS sponsored Wildlife Techniques Demonstration Fair held at the Mountain Lake Biological Station in Pembroke, Virginia.For the second year this event was held during the Virginia Tech Wildlife Techniques Class’s 10 day field course.This course, taught by Dr. Marcella Kelly, provides students with an outstanding opportunity to work in the field and hone their skills as young wildlife professionals.
Several VATWS members volunteered their time to put on demonstrations and talk to the students about their jobs and their career experiences.In addition to the 32 students from VT, this year’s event was attended by biology students from Radford University and from Ferrum College.The students moved from station to station in small groups and were able to interact with the biologists.The stations in this year’s event included demonstrations on rocket netting, wildlife deterrents, predator trapping, non-game techniques, bear snaring, and the always popular darting equipment station.
Many thanks to our members and friends David Allaben and Grant Harter (USDA Wildlife Services), Amy Roberts, Michael Baisey, and Gary Norman (VDGIF), Catherine Tredick, Claudia Wultsch, and Hanne Small (Virginia Tech), and Tom McNamara and Mark Larsen (Mountain Lake Biological Station) for all their help with the event.Thanks too to Karen Francl and Glen Stevens for promoting the event at Radford and Ferrum.Were also pleased to welcome Shannon Pederson from the National Office of The Wildlife Society (and VATWS member) as well.
The VATWS also sponsored a cook-out after the event to provide more opportunities for the students to interact with the biologists.A special thanks to Mike St. Germain and Andy Rosenberger for helping prepare the food.
We hope to continue this event in the future and are always looking for ideas, participants, and help.Watch for the announcements for next year, and thanks again to all who made this year’s Wildlife Techniques Fair a great success!
As you search our website I’m sure you will see that we are an active, dynamic Chapter of TWS with a passion for stewardship of Virginia’s abundant natural resources. Our chapter is comprised of wildlife biologists and natural resource professionals from across Virginia, representing a wide variety of wildlife and natural resource interests, from governmental, private and academic agencies.
The Virginia chapter tries to hold 2 meetings annually. Our winter meeting generally features a selected topic or theme with solicited speakers, but also includes invited papers on research or other wildlife related topics from our membership and a special session for student papers (for which cash prizes are awarded for the best). Chapter awards are presented at our winter meeting banquet.
Our summer meeting, in recent years, has been more of a workshop format aimed at providing opportunities for professional development of our members. We have held workshops on “Distance Sampling techniques”, “Wildlife Diseases”.
Thank you for visiting our Virginia Chapter TWS website and we trust you will find it interesting and informative. Please consider joining our chapter, especially if you are in Virginia.
