Photo: Black Skimmers, Irina Pigman/Audubon Photography Awards
A new feature, alternating with the President’s Corner, to introduce some of our board members, coordinators, and friends
Jerry Touval
I have been on the ASNV board for exactly one year, chairing the Citizen Science committee and participating in conservation initiatives. A year in I am impressed by the dedication and hard work of my fellow board members and our incredible partners, volunteers, and supporters. The work of ASNV is making an impact on bettering the habitat available for our northern Virginia birds. And I am especially enthused about our new initiative, Stretch Our Parks. It is the kind of project that attracted me to ASNV in the first place.
Black Skimmer, Matt Felperin
My interest in nature and my commitment to conservation started when I was a teenager. One day, as a 15-year-old kid in suburban New Jersey, I looked out into my backyard and really noticed for the first time that there were a lot of different-looking birds. Intrigued, I bought a copy of a Roger Tory Peterson field guide, which I still have. Two years later, as a high school junior, I helped organize the very first Earth Day at my school. We planned a full day of presentations, discussions, and entertainment.
But it wasn’t until I was a college freshman at George Washington University that I learned that my interests could lead to a career. One sunny spring day, I walked through the E Street entrance of the Department of Interior building and picked up a brochure called “Careers in Wildlife Management” that showed a ranger in a hat sitting on a hilltop, looking though binoculars at the field below. I knew right then I wanted a career in wildlife management.
To pursue that goal, I left George Washington and enrolled at Rutgers University’s College of Agriculture and Environmental Science which offered a degree in Forestry and Wildlife. Unfortunately, when I graduated a few years later, it seemed as if everyone was looking for jobs in natural resource management. We were among the first graduates after Earth Day inspired many to get degrees in environmental sciences. Competition for employment was fierce.
So, I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Honduras doing land use and land cover surveys for 10 watersheds. The Peace Corps is everything they say it is – the toughest job you’ll ever love. Plus, the Peace Corps experience led to my goal of a career in wildlife management, netting me a job as a wildlife biologist for the Eastern Regional Office of the US Bureau of Land Management. I can’t describe the exhilaration I felt walking back through Interior’s E Street entrance, now as the wildlife biologist I had dreamed of becoming. And, after several years with BLM, I was able to return to conservation work in Latin America with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. My work focused on issues related to migratory bird treaties.
After a number of years with USFWS, I enrolled in the Conservation Biology and Sustainable Development master’s degree program at the University of Maryland. With my new degree in hand, I moved to The Nature Conservancy’s Latin America Regional Program, where I spent the next 27 years. I was incredibly fortunate to have worked in the cloud forests of southern Mexico and Central America, the high Andes of Colombia, the Brazilian Amazon, the Atacama Desert in Chile, and the Patagonian Steppe in Argentina. They were experiences I never could have imagined while growing up in New Jersey and watching the birds in my suburban backyard.
A note on the photos with this article. The Black Skimmer is my favorite bird. In the US they are coastal residents, but they have a wider range in Latin America. I’ve enjoyed seeing them in North America, Central America and South America.
I retired in early 2022. After forty-plus years working on international conservation, my goal in retirement was to contribute to conservation in my own backyard, northern Virginia. So, joining the ASNV board was a perfect fit. In the coming year I’m looking forward to working with all of you ASNV members as we collectively pitch in to make northern Virginia a great place for birds, and a great place for people to be able to enjoy the benefits that nature provides.