Page 7 – Virginia Outdoors Foundation

Fulfillment Farms, Albemarle County

Jenny West was newly married and six months pregnant when she went duck hunting for the first time. “I grew up in urban environments, Los Angeles and then Northern Virginia,” she says. “I didn’t eat anything that didn’t come wrapped in cellophane from the grocery store.”

When her husband, a wildlife biologist and lifelong hunter, had a friend cancel right before a hunting trip, he surprised West by asking her to come instead. She’s never looked back. “I loved being up, watching the sunrise over the water and listening to the sounds of the marsh waking up,” she remembers. “It was fascinating.”

Now an avid hunter, West’s love for the sport led her from positions in environmental consulting and development to her current role as executive director of the Wildlife Foundation of Virginia (WFV), a nonprofit organization that works to inspire present and future generations of sporting enthusiasts by providing public access to multiple properties the organization owns across the Commonwealth. One of the largest is Fulfillment Farms, nearly 2,000 acres in Albemarle County donated to the organization by its owner, Thomas Forrer, in 1997. Forrer also protected the property in perpetuity by donating a conservation easement to VOF the same year.

“Tom was a very strong advocate of providing outdoor enthusiasts with places to recreate,” West says, “and we take to heart what he really wanted to see out there.” WFV manages the property for no-fee public access, providing hunting, birding, and hiking opportunities to individuals as well as organized groups such as the Boy Scouts and Wounded Warriors.

WFV has built infrastructure to support those activities and users, including an ADA-accessible hunt cabin, completed in 2019. There are no hotels near the property, West says, which made a pre-dawn start to the hunting day more difficult for participants in their Wounded Warriors program, among others. “It has opened up some great possibilities for us,” she says. The next project in the works is an ADA-accessible boardwalk that will serve as both an observation and hunting deck.

Now in her 19^th year in the role, West reflects on what led her WVF. “A lot of the reason I moved into this [field of conservation] is because of what it can teach kids,” she says. “From my own experience raising two boys, I saw the way learning to hunt and spending time outdoors instills intrinsic values like patience and respect. You can’t control nature. You have to learn to work with it.”

WFV issues two types of permits to potential visitors to the property: a hunting permit, issued per hunting season; and a general use permit for those who wish to hike or birdwatch on the property, valid for a year from purchase.

WFV will accept hunt permit applications for the 2022-2023 hunt season until October 30, 2022.

VOF records its first easement in Colonial Heights

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) has completed its first conservation project in Colonial Heights, thanks to a conservation easement granted by the Capital Region Land Conservancy (CRLC).

The 0.934-acre property is adjacent to the Appomattox River at the site of the former Harvell Dam and is mostly surrounded by land owned by Virginia State University (VSU) and its main academic campus.

The conservation easement protects approximately 200 feet along the Appomattox River, a designated state scenic river. The land was mapped in ConserveVirginia as Virginia’s highest conservation value lands that are unprotected, based on 24 mapped data inputs. ConserveVirginia is also a key tool in guiding state investments for land conservation to ensure the highest conservation outcomes. Such consideration was important to the Board of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in awarding a grant from its Open-Space Lands Preservation Trust Fund to assist CRLC with its acquisition of the property.

“We are thrilled to add this parcel to our portfolio of conserved land,” said VOF Executive Director Brett Glymph. “We look forward to continued partnership with CRLC, the city, and river enthusiasts to make the river and adjacent trails more accessible to the community.”

VOF now protects open space in 113 of Virginia’s 133 counties and independent cities.

In addition to the scenic qualities of the property, the Colonial Heights parcel is also essential for connecting the planned 25-mile Appomattox River Trail at its proposed intersection with the Fall Line Trail. The conservation easement ensures that the property will be available for public access in perpetuity. This is important for an area where the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation Nature-based Recreation Access Model ranks the area as “high” for land-based and water-based recreation needs.

Capital Region Land Conservancy’s acquisition of the Colonial Heights land was part of a larger transaction with Josh and Ingrid Greenwood that included more than 40 acres of upland and islands located in the Ettrick portion of Chesterfield County at Campbell’s Bridge as well as in the City of Petersburg. All the land was essential for the development of the Appomattox River Trail. CRLC will celebrate this historic acquisition and the work of VOF, Friends of the Lower Appomattox River, and other conservation partners on October 16 with tours of some of the properties during the Closing Ceremony of the 2022 Conservation Games at VSU’s Appomattox River Overlook. The Games run between September 30 and October 16. For more information about the Games, visit www.capitalregionland.org/conservation-games.

Essex County Museum and Historical Society, Essex County

When the ceiling of their historic building in downtown Tappahannock collapsed in May, the team at the Essex County Museum and Historical Society (ECMHS) had a backup plan: they took the museum outside. The grand opening of their new courtyard wasn’t scheduled until June, but volunteers and staff were able to move some activities and scheduled events to the space during the month-long repair period. “We switched gears and were able to stay open while repairs were happening,” says Meg Hodges, ECMHS’s executive director.

The Get Outdoors grant paid for walkways and solar lights that make the courtyard easier for all to use.

That quick thinking was instrumental in ECMHS’s acquisition of the courtyard two years ago. “We found out that the folks who owned the lot behind the museum were interested in selling. It was too good to pass up—right out our back door and not even a block up from the [Rappahannock] river.”

ECMHS started a capital campaign that attracted the attention of the Silver Foundation, a local nonprofit named for Max Silver, an immigrant from Ukraine who had settled in Tappahannock in the 1930s. The foundation acquired the lot on behalf of the museum, which now holds a 99-year renewable lease on the property. The lease stipulates that the property’s intended use as open space cannot be changed.

With the space secured, Hodges says, “We returned to our capital campaign and created a game plan as to what we would do with it. Here in Essex County there’s not a lot of access to the river or outdoor space. It’s mostly private land and there’s no state or county park. We wanted to create something that could be used by all.”

A grant from Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Get Outdoors Fund helped ECMHS build walkways and solar lights. “It’s one thing to erect a gazebo and pavilions,” says Hodges, “but if they’re not connected by walkways, not everybody can access them. And that’s what the grant did for us: it helped us finish out the space and make it more user-friendly than it would have been.”

The Get Outdoors grant also helped pay for an educational kiosk that tells the story of an African American riverboat pilot who lived on the site in the late 1800s, as well as the construction of a back entrance to the courtyard that leads to city-owned property on the river. Plans are to develop natural history and conservation programming to get visitors down to the water.

Children learned about 17th-century leisure time with hoops, jump ropes, jacks and horseshoes at one museum event early this spring.

Other ideas for future programming include seasonal history walks starting from the courtyard, and an outdoor exhibit curated in collaboration with youth members of the Rappahannock Tribe. “The courtyard really frees us to do a lot more of the things we want to do,” Hodges states. “One of the activities we’ve been able to add is outdoor play with 17^th-century toys. Children roll hoops, jump ropes, play jacks and horseshoes. These activities feed into other conversations.”

The activities are also just fun, Hodges adds. She remembers one little boy who approached her that day. “He was all out of breath from playing and was so excited,” she says.” He told me how much fun he’d had, and said, ‘I’ve never spent so much time outdoors!’

“That’s what we hope to do a lot more of. This space is for them.”

Preserve Spotlight on Superstar Volunteer Jeanann Foster!

Continuing our series on the people that make the Preserve such a special place, today we’ll be meeting the ever-adventurous Jeannan Foster. Like so many of the people involved with this evolving project, it is hard to characterize her role in just one way. Over her 6+ years of service, she has been a trail-maintainer, a surveyor, a guide to new discoveries, and a true champion of the Preserve’s value to the community.

She first began volunteering with us during Second Saturday cleanups hosted by local naturalist Janis Stone. Since then, she has helped cut in new trail, survey cemeteries, and recently guided Conservation Assistant Deneith Reif to some intriguing historical artifacts. She has a knack for plant identification as well and is a particular fan of some of the Preserve’s more lush, green settings.

For Jeanann, the Preserve is a family affair. She and her kids have been hiking this area for many years, and her husband is an intrepid member of our Stewardship Council! She is looking forward to the many improvements we have planned, including a brand new trailhead and parking area set to be built in the near future. We are looking forward to Jeanann joining us on more adventures, and could not be more grateful for all the time and dedication she and her family have shared.

If you’d like to get involved with Preserve happenings, make sure to follow us on facebook, Instagram, and meetup!

VOF welcomes two new trustees

Governor Glenn Youngkin recently announced two appointments to VOF’s board of trustees.

V.B. “Tack” Richardson III, of the City of Alexandria, is a management consultant for the McLean-based MITRE Corporation and former staff member for Senator John W. Warner, where he worked on conservation and environmental issues affecting Virginia, including land preservation, increased public access for the Chesapeake Bay, and enhancing tourism for the Commonwealth’s natural, cultural, and historical assets. A native Virginian, Tack spends much of his free time enjoying Virginia’s Northern Neck with his family, as well as in the Warm Springs Valley and Virginia’s Western Highlands. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Elizabeth Copeland, of King William County, is a senior director in U.S. Regulatory Submissions and Compliance for Juul Labs, Inc. (JLI). Prior to joining JLI in September 2020, Elizabeth worked at Altria Client Services Inc., a subsidiary of Altria Group, Inc., for 15 years. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in animal and poultry sciences from Virginia Tech and a Master of Science degree in regulatory affairs from San Diego State University. Elizabeth also dedicates time and focus to community service and helping others. She was appointed to serve on the King William County Wetlands Board of Directors (term ending September 30, 2027) and she serves on the Board of Directors for the James River Horse Foundation and Aylett Country Day School. Elizabeth also remains active in the Virginia Tech community, where she served on the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni Organization Board for six years and is a lifetime member of the Virginia Tech Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Council. Elizabeth grew up and currently owns a farm that has been in her family for multiple generations in King William County. She is a passionate outdoorswoman and an avid animal lover and enjoys spending quality time with her many rescued dogs, cats, and horses.

For a complete list of VOF’s trustees, visit https://vof.org/contact/board/.

Connecting the Community With Nature, Fairfax NAACP

“Just take one more step.”

For a kid on their first day rock climbing, that’s a lot harder than it sounds, says Chris Knowles, art director for Calleva Outdoors, a Washington, D.C.-area non-profit that specializes in outdoor education. This summer, Calleva partnered with the Fairfax NAACP to organize week-long camps for young people living in communities without access to safe parks in Fairfax County. For many, it was their first opportunity to get out into nature and rock climb, swim, kayak, raft, and stand-up paddleboard.

Camp organizers say their primary goal is to get kids to take home what they learn about themselves and the environment at the camps.

Knowles went out the first week of camp to take pictures and to talk to campers about their experience. “There was one kid who said he wasn’t going to climb at all when I asked him,” Knowles says. “He was nervous about falling. But then it came time to try, and he did it.” Encouraged by counselors and step by step, he made it halfway up, Knowles recalls, but fears overcame him and he stopped there. “He was disappointed and quite emotional because he didn’t make it all the way. So, we talked about what success looks like, and he eventually understood that he was a success. That’s what success is. It doesn’t mean getting to the top; it just means stretching your boundaries, going farther than you thought you could.”

Getting kids to challenge themselves outdoors is just the beginning, says Lydia Lawrence, environmental and climate justice chair of the Fairfax NAACP. “Our number-one goal is campers taking this knowledge [about themselves and the environment] and bringing it back home,” she states.

A grant from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation Get Outdoors Fund helped with planning and provided funding for 30 campers to attend. “Being able to apply [for the grant] during the planning stage gave us the luxury of time,” says Lawrence. “You have to consistently show up and get to know people,” she says. “Every community is different.”

United Community, a Fairfax nonprofit, helped with outreach to two specific Fairfax communities, Creekside and Sacramento, where there was no safe space for kids and families to gather outside.

“There is a park adjacent to the Creekside Community, Mount Vernon Woods, but it wasn’t maintained,” Lawrence says. “It got to the point where the community considered it unsafe. So, part of the project has been to help these communities gain a voice in advocating for safe spaces to be outside.”

Calleva Outdoors staff brought gear to demonstrate for future campers during the careful planning process.

There are ripple effects to this engagement that Lawrence says she never anticipated. Each community now has an active youth environmental club that conducts cleanups of the nearby creek. The elementary school adjacent to Mount Vernon Woods Park has added environmental education to its curriculum and is building a community garden on the premises. And finally, an environmentally themed “Family Fun Day” organized by the Fairfax NAACP and United Community at Mount Vernon Woods helped to highlight longstanding inequities and neglect, reigniting community interest and feedback in the Park Authority’s proposed vision for the park.

None of this could have happened without planning, Lawrence says. “It was the long planning process leading up to the camps that engaged people. It was excitement for the camps themselves that created this engagement.”

Watch a video of Chris Knowles’ interview with campers and United Community’s Niema Knight below.

Morven Park, Loudoun County

With an annual visitor count of 500,000, Morven Park has earned its nickname as “Loudoun County’s 1,000-acre backyard.” But executive director Stacey Metcalfe just likes to call it her “happy place.”

After a decade of enjoying the trails through the park on her weekly runs, Metcalfe was married in front of the historic Davis Mansion on the property. Not long after, she was asked to join the park’s board, and in 2021, she assumed her current role. “It’s such a special place. I was its cheerleader long before I was ever sitting at this desk.”

Metcalfe’s tenure as executive director began with a reassessment of the park’s mission after the pandemic. “It became more focused,” Metcalfe states. “We wanted to make sure we continued to be relevant.”

Part of that reassessment included updating tours of the historic Davis Mansion on the property to match the evolving interests of visitors. The mansion was home for 39 years to Westmoreland Davis, Virginia’s governor from 1918-1922, and tours used to concentrate on his and his wife Marguerite’s lives and the art and antiques they collected during their travels. That changed, Metcalfe says, when people began to ask questions about the world outside the family at the time. “Now, the tours are not only about the people and things inside the mansion, but also about the country. Marguerite Davis couldn’t even vote for her husband when he ran for governor. Reminding people of that history is important.”

Six hundred and thirty-six acres of the property, including the grounds of the mansion and the Ridgetop Trail behind it, have been protected since 2005 by an open-space easement granted to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. The challenging 1.3-mile trail ascends 232 feet through forest to Catoctin Ridge, the highest point on the property. Miles of natural surface and gravel trails extend through the park. All trails are free and open to the public daily.

The remaining portion of the property hosts the Morven Park International Equestrian Center, which holds events like Polo in the Park, horse trials in fall and spring, and the Loudoun Hunt Point to Point Races.

Educational programming coordinated with Loudoun County’s elementary schools and the Morven Park Foundation’s Center for Civic Impact brings schoolkids out to the park’s pollinator garden to learn about monarch butterflies and the importance of habitat preservation.

The park’s refocused mission, Metcalfe says, is to get all sorts of people out to the park to understand how special it is and how it’s worth preserving. “We’ve learned that public engagement ensures sustainability,” she states. “Ideally, I want everybody to have Morven Park as their happy place.”

For more on what Morven Park has to offer, go to the park’s website and calendar.

Africulture, Carter Family Farms, Orange County

Michael Carter, Jr., is sowing seeds. A fifth-generation farmer in Orange County, Carter grows indigenous African vegetables like amaranth, Nigerian spinach and gboma. But he’s also laying the groundwork for future farmers.

“My father taught agriculture and I am a lifetime farmer,” he says. “It’s always been my desire to plant seeds in others.”

Carter’s family has owned the property since1910.

After five years in Ghana as a consultant to farmers transitioning from conventional to organic growing methods, Carter returned to the family farm and started Africulture, a program that melds his love of African culture and agriculture together to educate others.

“You don’t realize how much people don’t know,” he says. “The most common thing I hear when I’m talking to people is ‘I didn’t know that’ or ‘I learned a lot.’ It’s refreshing because it means that they were listening and it resonates.”

Now Carter hosts Africulture events on the family farm. Most recently, he celebrated Juneteenth there with over a hundred people in an event that was designed to attract families. A Virginia Outdoors Foundation Get Outdoors Fund grant helped fund that and future events this summer. “The VOF support made it possible for us to come up with some concepts that really helped us engage the audience we were trying to reach, which was younger people as well as their parents.”

Activities at the Juneteenth celebration included making banjos out of African gourds.

Activities at the Juneteenth celebration included a presentation and African libation ceremony with representatives of the United States Colored Troops, a painting workshop with paints that participants made themselves from vegetable dyes, another workshop where people learned to make banjos out of African gourds, and educational sessions learning about heritage vegetables. And, of course, plenty of opportunities to eat good food.

Everything at the event, Carter says, was designed to “engage your senses, your connection with the land and the gifts the land gives you. With the right creativity and the right processes, you can create something, too.”

To further this engagement Carter utilizes all resources, including technological ones. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is one of his favorite apps to get kids to slow down and listen. “You want to give them the opportunity to appreciate the frequency of joy and peace. It’s at the heart of what we do.”

In the end, Carter aims to inspire young people to reconnect to the land and foster a new generation of Black farmers, whose numbers are in decline at the rate of 20 to 25 percent every agricultural census. “That’s every five years,” Carter notes. “We need to help folks understand that this is a crisis. And we want to bring attention to that crisis in a meaningful way.”

Carter was named the Small Farm Agent of the Year by the Virginia Cooperative Extension. His mission is to share his knowledge with others.

Carter leads tours of the farm for one to two groups of students from Charlottesville every week, aiming to get them to understand where their food comes from. “Even just yesterday,” he says, “there was a group of young African American students here and the conversation we had was really in-depth, really intriguing. They weren’t afraid to ask the hard questions. I tried to answer.

“I can’t say I know what will happen in the future,” he says, “but I know that I planted some seeds.”

Spotlight: Talking Ticks with Valerie Huelsman

When it comes to least-loved wildlife species, ticks are one of the first that jump to mind. And understandably so, since they are vectors for a variety of diseases affecting both humans and our pets. Due to multiple factors including climate change and forest fragmentation, incidence of such tick-borne diseases is on the rise. Therefore, it is important to know as much as possible about these tiny arachnids and what we can do to minimize health risks.

I recently had the opportunity to discuss this important topic with Preserve research associate, Valerie Huelsman. As a Virginia Master Naturalist with an environmental science degree, Valerie is a local environmental educator with a wide breadth of knowledge to share. A she told me, “Taking the time to try to understand the relationships between different creatures and their habitats and how they relate back to people is also integral to our scientific understanding–making these relationships relatable through outreach is definitely one of my goals as a local volunteer and environmental educator in Prince William County.”

Valerie worked with Preserve manager Joe Villari to conduct a study on tick abundance and distribution here at the Preserve over the course of a year. Compared to some other locations, relatively few ticks were found here (good news for hikers!), but this study did document the first appearance of the Asian Longhorned Tick in Prince William County.

According to Valerie, the best thing we can do to protect ourselves is to always perform a “tick-check,” even if we were only outside for a brief time. Insect repellant and careful removal of any ticks are also important. If you ever develop a rash after a tick bite, please do not hesitate to contact your physician.

Valerie does not let concern over ticks keep her from appreciating the outdoors, and the Preserve in particular. As she told me, “I’m a big believer in the value of our local natural areas–you do not need to take trips to far off places to appreciate nature–it is truly all around us.” A huge thank you to Valerie for her work here at the Preserve understanding ticks, and all she does for the local area!

Remembering Marty Martin

My friend, William H. “Marty” Martin, was born in Leesburg Virginia in 1941.

While I am devastated to have to share that he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away this week at the age of 80, I am thankful that it was with his wife and daughters by his side.

He was a true original in every sense of the word.

A human of mythic proportions – a being far more rare than the threatened and endangered snakes to which he dedicated his life.

Marty was a father, husband, mentor, adventurer, survivor, war veteran, herpetologist, and total unassuming badass.

A friend to snakes, he acted as one of their earliest ambassadors – far before the eruption of the ecological and animal welfare enlightenment of the 1970s.

Though snakes were his obsession, he was a friend to all of nature and humanity alike, and I know that I don’t carry this heartache alone.

Marty has been going out in the field to locate and study rattlesnakes since he was a young child (around nine years old). He went on to traverse across most of the snake-bearing continents (on foot!), intentionally spending time in some of our globe’s most dangerous locales to document venomous snake populations.

As down to earth as a human could be, he was the field naturalist asked by Steve Irwin to take him out to find timber rattlesnakes to film for his show, The Crocodile Hunter.

Joining the military as a young man before pursuing his university education, Marty served as a paratrooper in the Vietnam war and even once survived a faulty parachute accident during his training. Upon watching this all-too-rough of a landing, his sergeant ran over to see if he was still alive. Seeing that he was, and at least did not have a clearly broken leg, he kicked Marty right in the ribs and told him to get up – because hurt or not, there was no time to lie on the ground if one wanted to remain alive in a war zone.

Tough as nails, he was selected to fight as a bantam weight boxer representing his armed service division. After taking a few punches and delivering many more, he eventually hung up the gloves to fight in the Vietnam War as part of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division. Seeing plenty of action, Marty honorably left the military just before (sadly) many of his immediate team with which he served lost their lives in a helicopter combat scenario.

Leaving his time in the military and coping with his wartime experiences, Marty went on to gain his Bachelors of Science from the University of South Florida. No stranger to death or danger, once graduated he decided to set out across the world to document venomous snakes.

This love of snakes seemed to place Marty at ground zero for many newly emerging disease outbreaks, civil wars, and many other man-made, and natural, disasters – such as the time he found himself in a Congolese village that happened to be ground zero for the very first Ebola outbreak as it unfolded. Or the time he spent time in Somalia just as civil war erupted.

One of my personal favorite Marty tales is the time he got into an altercation on a small airplane in South America just before takeoff. He was apparently sold a fake ticket and when refused a seat, saw the person on the plane that sold him the fake ticket. Both him and the scammer were thrown off the plane and were in fisticuffs on the tarmac as the plane flew off.

It turned out that the scammer and Marty unintentionally saved each others lives, as that very plane crashed into the rainforest and left only a very few survivors. Oddly enough, he only came to know this when he was reunited with one of his occasional travel companions, who happened to be one of the survivors of the plane crash, while traveling on a public bus through Colombia.

The adventure didn’t stop there for these two intrepid travelers, as the bus was pulled over by the National Police of Colombia along its route. Long story short, most of the bus’s passengers were detained due to the discovery by police of considerable illicit substances in the storage area. Imprisoned for a few weeks, Marty made-do and was even quickly promoted to yard boss. Despite his ability to cope, known innocence in the situation, and patience – he became increasingly worried that they weren’t ever planning to provide due process. Knowing that the prison was very close to the Colombian border, one day during lunch he decided to flee into the rainforest with nothing but the clothes on his back. After walking a day or two, Marty eventually found freedom and sanctuary in an Ecuadorian embassy.

With a life like this, there are many legends surrounding Marty and I am always impressed how I can be almost anywhere and run into someone who knows Marty. His love for snakes connected him with humanity, and he connected so many of us to the beauty and joy of rattlesnakes.

World traveling aside, Marty’s roots run deep around these parts.

The Bull Run Mountains were special to Marty as were almost every single timber rattlesnake denning site here in the Mid-atlantic. He knew each den site intimately and by heart, and if you mentioned one he didn’t recognize he would interrogate you until he realized he already knew it, or needed to go document it for himself.

Marty’s uncle worked at the Beverley-Chapman mill and was bitten on the hand by a timber rattlesnake. Marty remembered being entranced by his uncle’s gnarled pinky insisting that his uncle let him observe his hand every time that he saw him. Marty remembers it was his earliest fascination in particular that hooked him on rattlesnakes.

Marty’s father first showed him a rattlesnake in the Mountains of West Virginia, seeing a similarity in habitat Marty became obsessed with finding rattlesnake denning sites on any mountainous area he went, including the Bull Run Mountains – which was the closest suitable habitat to his childhood home, though no one had officially documented a population here.

In fact, when he was just thirteen, he reached out to herpetologist Dr. Leslie Burger, and told him that there were timber rattlesnakes (Crotalus horridus) in the Bull run Mountains. Skeptical but intrigued, Burger drove Marty out there and followed him to a den site he discovered. Sure enough, there was an enormous gravid female timber rattlesnake right where Marty claimed them to be. Dr. Burger was thrilled, as the kid was right – there indeed was a population of rattlesnakes on the mountain. So excited, Dr. Burger was eager to collect the snake to preserve as a wet specimen and anchor into his research collection.

Well, that didn’t sit well with young Marty and an argument ensued. Dr. Burger insisted that the pickling of the snake was absolutely necessary to the population’s research, but Marty continued to stand his ground. From Marty’s perspective, it was his snake and Dr. Burger would have never found it if it weren’t for him – so he got to call the shots. According to Marty, Dr. Burger resorted to threatening to not drive young Marty home if he would not let him collect the specimen.

Marty retorted by saying that that was just fine and to do what he needed to do, but that Marty’s mom would be visiting him soon with her .45 when she found out Dr. Burger had left her son in the field. Shocked by young Marty’s moxie, Dr. Burger didn’t want to find out whether or not this was an empty threat. So, Marty was driven home and the snake’s life was spared.

From there forward, young Marty continued to develop a name for himself snake den scouting and taking our area’s best herpetologists out to sites to show them where venomous snakes weren’t yet documented. This led to him being one of the founding members of the Virginia Herpetological Society (at only 17 years old), and then serving for decades on the IUCN task force focused on timber rattlesnake conservation, and a recent coauthorship of the 2021 Partners in Amphibian and Reptile Conservation tome, “The Timber Rattlesnake: Life History, Distribution, Status, and Conservation Action Plan”.

Marty’s happiness was intrinsically tied to the presence and well-being of venomous snake populations, especially his beloved timbers.

At 80 years old, he was more physically capable than most 20 year olds that I have scrambled across the mountain with. Effortlessly crawling up rocky slopes and pushing his way through the thorniest swaths of smilax bushes.

The photos in this post are some of the last I took of Marty as we walked together out of the field earlier this year. I will always cherish that last hurrah.

I love you, Marty.

Thank you for sharing your knowledge, passion, stories, and wonder with me. I hope there are other worlds than this and that you are just on to your next adventure.

This world certainly won’t be the same without you in it, but it will be forever changed for your time here and I hope that you left knowing that you have inspired a whole new generation of snake enthusiasts and we will be sure to continue to watch over your beloved scaly friends for you.