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Biodiversity Task Force

	Naturalized pond. Photo by Pam Owen.

Most of us live in Rappahannock County because it offers gorgeous scenery and a quiet, rural way of life. But we also love the county because it gives us the opportunity to be in close touch with nature. While poison ivy and hordes of ladybugs may be the price we pay, we willingly do so to see bald eagles fishing the local rivers, bears eating berries along the trails we hike, and trillium and dogwood blooming in our woodlands in the spring. We enjoy the fact that nature is literally, abundantly at our door.

While we enjoy our native species in Rappahannock, just what do we know about them? Which are native to the county? Which species are plentiful and which are threatened with extinction? What can we do to maintain species diversity in Rappahannock? How should we deal with invading species that are not native? RLEP has formed the Biodiversity Task Force to explore these questions.

If you would like more information on the task force or would like to join us, please contact us at office@rlep.org. No matter what your interest in native species, we'd like your input.

A Wild Day in Sperryville. Four hundred people did something wild at the Sperryville Schoolhouse on Saturday, February 9, 2008 – they attended the second annual Wildlife Habitat Open House.

	Mary Willeford Bair (right) leads the 2007 Butterfly Day walk. Photo by Paula Endo.

Beautiful weather and abundant butterflies make Butterfly Day in Rappahannock a success (Summer 2007)

Biodiversity-sponsored Spring bird walk a success (Spring 2007)

Biodiversity Task Force Focus-on-Habitat Series: Invasion of the Alien Plants

Biodiversity Task Force Focus-on-Habitat Series: Growing Habitat with Native Plants

RLEP and PEC Hold Wildlife Habitat Open House, February 2007

Want to know more about biodiversity? Join the Rappahannock Biodiversity news group at Google Groups. Here's how...

Birds in shade coffee: A visit to Panama

Nature's fierce little predators: dragonflies and damselflies

Butterfly fans brave July heat to attend Butterfly Day

Biodiversity Task Force ramps up for butterfly count

Annual spring songbird migration

Biodiversity Task Force's Spring Nature Series is a hit

Wanted: Alive or alive: Local resident offers bounty for identification of native plants. Twenty botanists and knowledgeable amateurs, working in teams, comb Jones' property, bit by bit, identifying all the plants they see.

Peregrine falcons raise chicks in the Park, May 2006. It's nesting season again, and a pair of falcons in the Shenandoah National Park are foster parents to two rescued chicks.

Reintroduction program brings peregrine falcons back to the Virginia mountains.

Biodiversity Task Force is up and running with a dynamic agenda for 2006.

The Biodiversity Task Force had its first meeting in July 2005.

BTF formation. RLEP launches the Biodiversity Task Force in 2005.