Here’s What Our Supporters Helped Us Accomplish in 2024. Together, We’ll Do Even More in 2025!
Celebrating its 25th year, Loudoun Wildlife’s Peterson Young Naturalist Program has trained 2,000 teachers and helped over 15,000 students get outside to observe and record nature.
Through the Peterson Young Naturalist Program, 1,000 students per year are now participating in the nature journal award program, and teacher assessment of the Peterson Program has averaged 4.9 out of 5 (excellent) in terms of developing naturalistic intelligence, math and science skills, and visual art skills.
Loudoun Wildlife’s Stream Monitoring Program volunteers conducted 47 biological stream surveys this year to track the health of our local streams. The program includes 26 macroinvertebrate sites (up from five in 2020); 31 certified benthic monitors (up from eight in 2020); and 40 non-profit, government, and community partners.
Loudoun Wildlife’s Chemical Monitoring Program now operates six sites in Leesburg and has collected over 2,000 data points this year to help us better understand the health of streams at those sites.
Loudoun Wildlife’s Bluebird Program monitors 58 trails and 716 nest boxes, the most in both categories of any Virginia county. Since 2000, the program has fledged 42,739 birds, including 21,267 bluebirds.
Loudoun Wildlife joined with other organizations to form the Loudoun Transmission Line Alliance, which helped reroute the proposed Western Power Line.
Nine of the bills we supported and advocated for were signed into law at this year’s General Assembly.
Loudoun Wildlife successfully campaigned against plans for data center construction at the former Westpark conference and hotel site in Leesburg, leading the applicant to remove “data center” as a use for the property.
Raising awareness of the connection between salt and stream health, our Salt Watch Program now provides 12 percent of all the national Salt Watch Data reported to the Izaak Walton League of America. The program’s 60 sites are maintained by 70 volunteers who’ve collected 725 data points this year and identified 14 salt pollution hotspots.
Loudoun Wildlife’s “Securing Clean Water for Lucketts” project prompted an EPA mandate for a new wastewater treatment plant, inspired community outreach to increase local awareness of bacterial pollution, submitted 176 Level 2 E.coli data points to the Department of Environmental Quality, and provided water filtration systems to 17 homes in underserved communities.
We’ve conducted 177 free Educational Programs so far in 2024 (lectures, bird and butterfly walks, native plant talks, and much more), reaching 4,017 people, including many youths.
We’ve conducted 70 Citizen Science and Habitat Restoration programs so far in 2024, including stream monitoring, insect surveys, invasive plant removal and more.
Nearly 10,000 volunteer hours have been contributed so far this year from close to 500 volunteers for our varied Education programs, Citizen Science programs, and other events.
Loudoun Wildlife’s JK Black Oak Wildlife Sanctuary has supported over 960 species of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, insects, plants, and fungi this year.
Volunteers participated in eight workdays at our JK Black Oak Wildlife Sanctuary. That vital work included planting and protecting tree seedlings, planting native plants, removing invasives, maintaining vernal pools, restoring a meadow, and more.
Partnering with the Northern Virginia Bird Alliance, our Wildlife Sanctuary Program reached its 1,000th certification in 2024. During the year, 21 site visits were completed and 11 were certified as wildlife sanctuaries. The goal of the program is to inspire property owners and managers to become better stewards of nature in their own spaces.
Loudoun Wildlife’s Amphibian Monitoring Program made the first sightings of Eastern Spadefoot populations in over 10 years. Further, the program added the Marbled Salamander and Red-spotted Newt to the Virginia Herpetological Society and the Department of Wildlife Resources databases as two species now present in Loudoun County.
Loudoun Wildlife’s “LWC Reptiles and Amphibians” project on the iNaturalist app reached nearly 1,200 total observations in 2024. Started in 2022, this project is designed to enable Loudoun residents to contribute to the monitoring of reptiles and amphibians.
Held throughout October, our 2024 Walk for Wildlife event was the largest ever, recording 13,100 total observations logged in iNaturalist, 645 parks and wildlife locations visited, 2,906 miles traversed, and 2,910 species identified.
Loudoun Wildlife’s 28th annual Butterfly Count covered 174 square miles and recorded 44 different butterfly species. While the overall number of butterflies counted were among the lowest we’ve seen, the data gathered (submitted to the National American Butterfly Association) will help determine why.
