Laws & Ethics -- February 28, 2024

 Laws, Regulations and Ethics-Unit 22 in your textbook. Complete the (optional) quiz.

Mike Mitchell, retired Commander Game Warden, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department 

Read Mike's BIO

1. Look over Unit 22 in your textbook. Complete the optional quiz HERE

2. Watch Mike's "Laws and Ethics" presentation (23:52)

3. Watch video Endangered Species Act 101 (8:43)

4. In your Member-in-Training Handbook, (pages 23-24) read the TMN Code of Ethics and the TMN Standards of Conduct. Jot down one thing that perhaps you didn't know or never thought about. 

5. Read The History of the Migratory Bird Act. Visit the Migratory Bird Treaty Act site and see if your favorite bird is protected. 

6. Read the dilemmas and be ready to discuss your answers in class.

7. Check out the Class Project on iNaturalist and mark one or two observations as favorites.

8. Watch the how-to video (1:24) and make at least ONE observation in iNaturalist. Be prepared to share your observation during class.

Optional Activities

Endangered Species Act 50th Anniversary (species updates) (2:32)

dilemma notes from #5 above

iNaturalist observation on Zoom device for sharing

Logging Hours

*Make sure that you have recorded last week's attendance in VMS

 (If you missed class, contact your pod guides  to schedule a make-up.)       

Opportunity: Init Training-Class 03

Date: February 21, 2024      

Hours: 3.0     

Description: Herpetology, presented by Ryan Blankenship

If you attend the Field Trip to Connemara Meadow, enter it in VMS. 
Opportunity: Initial Training: Field Trip (A)

    Date: February 24, 2024
Hours: 2.5
Description: Field Trip to Connemara Meadow (add more details if you like)

Advanced Training (AT) Opportunities

• Prairie & Timbers Audubon Society Chapter Meeting presentation, "Burrowing Owls"; see Zoom registration information on our chapter calendar

• LLELA Trail Guide volunteer training, February 29th, 9am-1pm, details on chapter calendar

• See Chapter Calendar for additional AT opportunities

Volunteer Service (VH) Opportunities

iNaturalist Observations

Here’s one suggestion for Volunteer Hours that you can do at any time: Blackland Prairie iNaturalist Project: Field Research. This does NOT have to be an organized outing with a group. You can go out on your own, or with a friend, and make iNaturalist observations. NOTE: only surveys made within our service area (Collin, Hunt, and adjacent counties) are eligible for VH. Please DO use iNaturalist on your travels, but this does not count as Volunteer Service. If you are going for a walk and make a few iNaturalist observations of interesting things you see, that’s great, but it would NOT count as Volunteer Hours. However, if you go out with the express purpose of making iNaturalist observations, and spend most of the time you’re out there making observations, or taking pictures to enter later, that DOES count as Volunteer Hours, including your travel time, and the time you spend at home entering your observations, trying to identify them, etc.

o    Here’s an example: Say I decide to spend a morning making observations at the Heard. It is a 30-minute drive each way, plus I spend 2.5 hours making observations. Then, I go home and spend an hour cleaning up my pictures and entering the observations. That would be 4.5 volunteer hours.

o   You don’t have to go to any place special, though. One of our richest finds was a “vacant lot” in our neighborhood that Rick and I had walked past for years without every going across it. Half of it is slated to be a Fire Station eventually, and the other half is HOA property. Once we started iNatting, we still walked right past that lot dozens of times while going to “more interesting” places, until one day we decided to cut across it. It turned out to be really rich in biodiversity. This little 6-acre lot had Big Bluestem, Lemon Beebalm, winecups, and much, much more! It also had plenty of Johnson grass and other invasives, but you didn’t have to look hard to find some treasures. The field had so much Green Milkweed that we organized a big milkweed rescue and transplanted hundreds of plants. And we discovered, with the help of iNaturalist, Carol Clark, and others, a rare milkweed that had plant nerds driving hours to see it! (Check out the Future Frisco Fire Station Project on iNaturalist. )

Also on iNaturalist, you can earn volunteer hours in another way: Blackland Prairie iNaturalist Project: Species ID and Curation (non-field work). (Note: The “non-field work” that you do for entering your own observations does NOT go here: anything you do with your own observations is included with Field Research. The stuff you do for other people on iNaturalist goes here, in the Curation bucket. This includes identifying observations other people put it in. Maybe you are a long-time birder and can contribute to bird ID’s: excellent! But maybe you don’t have any particular expertise yet. You can still help by identifying the “Unknowns” with a general ID, such as Birds, snakes, plants, etc. This is actually very helpful, and there is a huge need for it!  A lot of the expert identifiers don’t like to spend time doing it. Here is an identification search for observations in Texas listed as Unknown: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?iconic_taxa=unknown  Just sign in to iNaturalist, copy and paste that string, and start identifying! Right now, there are over 1000 observations in Texas with no ID, just listed as “Unknown.” As you work on these, it’s a good idea to copy and paste a message such as:  "Just putting a high-level ID for now, to get your observation into a bucket for the right people to see it".

This avoids the problem of people going, “Well, duh! I knew it was a plant! I wanted to find out what KIND of plant it is!”  Many newbies don’t know about the Computer Vision suggestions, so they enter things as Unknown, never get a response, then give up on iNaturalist. So, take an hour or two some evening and pitch in to help with this. It’s important work that needs to be done, and you’ll be earning Volunteer Hours, too. It’s very easy to get absorbed in this and spend two hours at it before you know it!

Logging Volunteer Service(VH) for iNaturalist Outings, or on your own:

Log this as Volunteer Service Hours:

Opportunity:  Blackland Prairie iNaturalist project: Field Research Hours

Date: ACTUAL DATE

Hours: You should count your time at the event, plus travel time. If you spend additional time at home editing your pictures and entering your observations, you should include that as well. 

Description: Group Outing to PLACE or Individual Observations at PLACE; took pictures and made observations for entry into iNaturalist. (add more details if you like)

Log this as Volunteer Service Hours:

Opportunity:  Blackland Prairie iNaturalist project: Species ID and Curation (non-field work) (only enter your hours here if you are doing work with other people's observations.)

Date: ACTUAL DATE

Hours: TIME SPENT

Description: Identified observations made by others in iNaturalist. (add more details if you like)

• Texas Wildlife Annual: Summary of Texas Hunting, Fishing & Boating Regulations

• Endangered Species - US Fish & Wildlife Service 

• Migratory Bird Treaty Act 

• IUCN Red List of Threatened Species - from the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

• Recovering America's Wildlife Act - update by Richard Heilbrun, TPWD

• US Fish & Wildlife - Arlington Field Office

• US Fish & Wildlife Endangered Species - Texas

WEEK FOUR CLASS UPDATE

Happy Thursday Class of 2024!

Great Herpetology class last night, even with the last-minute juggling! Thank you all for being flexible.  And a huge thank you to Don for sharing his darlings with us: what fun to get to see them up close and personal! Pre-work is available for Week 4 on the class website. Please log your Init Training-Class 03 Attendance before Saturday. (details below.) Most of you are doing a great job with logging your classes. THANK YOU! If you need help, your guide would be happy to help you!

Our first field trip is SATURDAY!  If you have not signed up for Connemara yet, there is still time. Go to Sign Up Genius to sign up. Be sure to look for the updated parking directions. If you sign up but need to cancel, be sure to cancel your slot. We take roll at the field trips, and assume that anyone who doesn’t show up is lost! Information on how to log the field trip is on the class website. 

Interested in the Stream Team training this Saturday? Email Crystal at cflannerybachicha@friscotexas.gov  to sign up.

REMEMBER: Next week is on ZOOM! The link is on the This Week page of the class website. Please complete this brief ZOOM Self-Assessment (google.com) to make sure you're ready! We have several zoom training/practice sessions available if you think you need a refresher. (Sign-up link is included in the self-assessment.)

Hope you all have a wonderful week, and I’ll see you next Wednesday via Zoom!

Cheers,

Lisa

Make sure that you have recorded last week's attendance in VMS

 (If you missed class, contact your pod guides  to schedule a make-up.)       

Opportunity: Init Training-Class 03

Date: February 21, 2024      

Hours: 3.0     

Description: Herpetology, presented by Ryan Blankenship

Lisa Travis, Training Director

Texas Master Naturalist, Blackland Prairie Chapter
education@bptmn.org
(817)832-3912

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

  -- Margaret Mead