The Vermont Center for Ecostudies advances wildlife conservation with the combined force of scientific research and informed communities. Our biologists study birds, insects, amphibians, and other wildlife from Canada to South America. Enhancing our work is a legion of volunteer community scientists and naturalists.
What VCE discovers about wildlife and conservation we share with scientists, policy makers, conservationists, and the general public. We publish research in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Our project reports help inform public policy. And our growing body of knowledge about biodiversity is a free public resource for anyone who seeks to discover and enjoy wildlife – from school children to birdwatchers.
More than anything, VCE succeeds with action. Here are a few examples:
- When our biologists were the first to discover toxic mercury moving through the food chain to threaten forest birds and other wildlife in the Americas, VCE gave policy makers the science they needed to propose controls on mercury pollution.
- When federal and international wildlife leaders recognized the need for new ideas in the protection of grassland birds, they turned to VCE to develop strategies that work from Canada to South America.
- When VCE, with help from citizen scientists, discovered that bumblebees were vanishing from Vermont, we used science to support protecting the bees under the state endangered species law.
- And when conservationists across the Northeast wanted to map and protect vernal pools, they turned to VCE for leadership on a project now reaching from Virginia to Nova Scotia.
Far from being cloistered researchers, VCE biologists engage the public. We tweet, blog, write, lecture, live, breathe, and photograph nature. We even host a public radio show called Outdoor Radio. After all, as Emeritus Executive Director Chris Rimmer likes to point out, conservation is as much about people as it is about ecology. It’s one reason our motto is, “Uniting People and Science for Conservation.”
Interested in having a VCE conservation biologist speak at your event, or lead a field outing?
Please fill out our Speaker Request Form to start the process.
