We become Junior Rangers at Shenandoah / May 2025

What might a Dame of the Realm, a Fellow of the Royal Society, the latest member of the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee, and me all covet? That's right: a Junior Ranger badge from Shenandoah National Park! After an intense few days, Bill Sutherland, Julia P.G. Jones, EJ Milner-Gulland and I headed into nature to experience the spectacular landscapes of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia and do some birding.

The National Park Service in the US runs a wonderful program for anyone aged 8+ (which we just about qualified for) to introduce people to nature, and Shenandoah is no exception. We visited the local ranger lodge in the park, and picked up a program booklet. They're full of activities for kids to do, but of course adults also pick up a lot of random knowledge (such as the endemic salamander species in the region).

The activities are rigorous: in addition to crosswords and drawings about the park, we had to compose poems and haiku, and also experience nature. First, we had to dance like butterflies... (I was a Monarch, so I occasionally had to respawn while migrating).

...and then hug a tree, of which there were many around, and they told us their stories...

...and try not to fall off sweeping overlooks as we clambered around...

And once that was done, we returned to the ranger lodge to swear our ranger oaths, with a delightful Ranger who knew lots about the local area, the forest/meadow management, and where we might spot more of the salamanders (which are apparently under some threat from an invasive look-a-like that is not endemic but outcompeting the local salamandar).

Bill's Conservation Concepts

During our hikes to the various lovely sites, we also took some time to record the 101st video for Bill Sutherland's wonderful Conservation Concepts video series, about the work Sadiq Jaffer and I have been helping out the Conservation Evidence Copilots team on.

I highly recommend watching Bill's whole channel series as it's full of endlessly fascinating facts, and congratulations to Bill on reaching the century mark on the number he's done!