Wild Virginia is excited to welcome Jessica Roberts, the new face of habitat connectivity in our state!

She has a background in endangered species population restoration and has many years of experience working in animal husbandry, community-based conservation initiatives, and environmental education program development. Her research with behavior-based management and conservation translocations has been developed to give direct, usable evidence-based information for other endangered species restoration specialists. Her hopes for Wild Virginia’s habitat connectivity campaign are to combine advocacy, wildlife restoration research, and community-based conservation to enhance wildlife corridors in our state.

Tune in to our newest episode of Wild Virginia Virtual Coffee Talk to learn more!

Jessica has over 10 years of experience in wildlife research and recovery, advocacy, and community-based conservation initiatives. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from American University, she began her career working with AmeriCorps as the Watershed Restoration Coordinator for a conservation nonprofit in California. There, she created and supervised watershed restoration and education programs in connection with California State Parks. Jessica was inspired to pursue a graduate degree after working in wildlife conservation at the Wildlife Center of Virginia and as the Red-Browed Amazon Recovery Program lead at ZooTampa. While reinforcing her skills in wildlife population management, captive-breeding, and species reintroduction, she noticed a gap in the research on captive management techniques for improved reintroduction success. Jessica helped fill that gap while earning her PhD at George Mason University in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy by providing more evidence-based information to conservationists for improving endangered species reintroduction programs. Jessica is passionate about wildlife recovery and excited to join the team at Wild Virginia advancing habitat connectivity programs and connecting with more communities in the state she calls home.

You can virtually meet her at our upcoming webinar on Raising Endangered Birds for Success, as she discusses habitat connectivity and her PhD research on bird behavior, breeding endangered species, and the release of these beautiful animals into the wild.

When birds are raised in captivity their survival rate in the wild is often low. To increase the likelihood of their success, some experts try to teach skills such as predator escape, searching for food, or familiarizing the animals with their release site. Learn more about these techniques and how well they are working to increase the success of these endangered birds in the wild!