Laws & Ethics -- March 19, 2025 ZOOM link

 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. Read Mike's one-page notes sheet for the class

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

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

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

7. Read the dilemmas and be ready to discuss your answers in the live Zoom.

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

9. If you haven't uploaded an iNaturalist observation yet, do so before class.

Optional Activities

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

dilemma notes from #7 above

iNaturalist observation on Zoom device for sharing (laptop/PC)

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 06

Date: March 12, 2025    

Hours: 3.0     

Description: Botany with Dr. George Diggs

If you attended the TMN Tuesday LIVE at noon

here's how to enter it in VMS:

Opportunity: AT: TMN Tuesday  

Date: March 18, 2025      

Hours: time of presentation   

Description: Stewards & Statutes with Benjamin Anderson

If you watched the TMN Tuesday recording

here's how to enter it in VMS:

Opportunity: AT: TMN Tuesday  

Date: that you viewed recording    

Hours: time of presentation   

Description: watched recording of 3/18/25 presentation Stewards & Statutes with Benjamin Anderson

Advanced Training (AT) Opportunities

• See Chapter Calendar for AT opportunities

Volunteer Service (VH) Opportunities

YOUR 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 - see map) 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. )

Log Volunteer Service (VH) hours as:

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)

OTHER PEOPLE'S iNaturalist Observations:

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 broad 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!

Log Volunteer Service (VH) hours as:

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 SEVEN CLASS UPDATE

If you feel inspired after last night's botany class, these are just a few VHAT opportunities:

• City of Plano park workdays - contact Jean Higgens at b.jean.higgins@gmail.com

• City of Frisco park workdays - contact Rick Travis at travisfam2@yahoo.com

• Heard Museum native plant sale - contact Laura Ragan at lragan@heardmuseum.org

• Milkweed Grow Out initiative - contact Carol Clark at carol.clark@npsot.org

• Garden bed maintenance at Holifield Science Learning Center - contact Brett Taylor at brett.taylor@pisd.edu

• Erwin Park workdays - weekly on Mon chapter calendar

• Baha'i Faith Plano Center Native Plant project- weekly on Wed, Fri, Sat

• McKinney Greens workdays - monthly on 2nd Sat

• Prairie Creek Wetland & Wildscape workdays - monthly on 3rd Sat

• Pollinator Garden in JM Caldwell Sr. Park - monthly on 3rd Sat

• Garden bed maintenance at Heritage Farmstead Museum -monthly on 4th Sat

Week Six leftovers

I've added links and info from George's presentation onto the Resources page of the class website. Just scroll down to "Week Six extras". 

LOG YOUR CLASS HOURS! VMS Information

Week Seven: Mar 13 - 19

Next week's class is on ZOOM!!!

Here's the link. Remember that you must be logged into Zoom with the email you used to set up your Zoom account. Otherwise, the link won't work. For this first Zoom class, plan to sign into your Zoom account 10-15 min prior to class to work out any glitches. 

If you get stuck trying to access the Zoom on Wednesday, call or text your pod Guides first. If no response, call or text Lisa at 817-832-3912.

Pre-Work:

Get ready for next week's Laws & Ethics class by completing the pre-work prior to class.

TMN Tuesday:

The March 18th TMN Tuesday will feature Benjamin Anderson's "Stewards & Statutes" presentation.

Register HERE and see how to log the AT hours HERE.

Looking Ahead

Heard Spring Native Plant Sale:

The Heard will be hosting their native plant sale in a month so mark your calendars!

Friday, April 11th 4-7pm, for Heard Museum Members only

Saturday, April 12th 9am-5pm, open to the public

Sunday, April 13th 1-5pm, open to the public

Please note: Museum admission is not required to attend the public sale days. If you want to shop the members-only date, you can become a member at the event or you can purchase your membership online.

See you next week in the Zoom,

Nancy

Nancy Casillas, Training Director

Texas Master Naturalist, Blackland Prairie Chapter

nancyc@bptmn.org

214-725-2309