Lightning Updates
Legislative Outlook in PA, MD, and VA
John Griffin & Warren Brown2022 is likely to be an unpredictable year during the General Assembly Sessions in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia for similar and distinct reasons. This is an election year in PA and MD. The Governors of both of these states are term...
Making Connections for Wildlife
Warren BrownCrossing the Road Imagine motoring down the road and being confronted by a very large animal with formidable antlers. This might seem like the opening scene for a story about nature’s revenge for all the little creatures that have been flattened by...
Beach Week: A Quest for Sandy Toes that Was So Much More
At Beach Week 2021, Beach #20, Gloucester Point Beach Park on the York River, Gloucester Point, Virginia, I met Louis, another avid fisherman. It was his first time at the park. This landscape, once known as Tsenacomoco, was home to some of the tribes in the...
Pushing Boundaries
Written by Jonathan L. DohertyAfter writing weekly Lightning Updates for almost three years, I’m about to enter a new post-full-time-job phase of life. Perhaps you will pardon my using this and next week’s updates for some personal observations. Here’s part I. I’ve...
A Poem on Earth Day
On Earth Day 2021, we offer these words from the poet Julie Cadwallader-Staub. Praying In the garden early, I'mtransplanting echinacea while robins and flycatchers confirm that our winter--complicated and compoundedby COVID--has succumbed to spring at last. I'm...
A Vivid Illustration
How many birds are killed by vehicles along a single stretch of rural highway? (Photos: above -- Janet Griffin/Shutterstock; below -- Jay Falstad)From time to time, these updates share information that may not be the best of news, but does shed light on the importance...
Public Access & Democracy
News and images of this week’s closures of the National Mall and its memorials, the U.S. Capitol, and public streets in Washington are arresting. And yet, there have been so many dramatic images from public open space in the past year. Park closures from the...
Conservation Resolutions for the New Year
As we start a new year -- following one that was so many things, but above all eye opening -- it seems like a good time to think about how we make 2021 an improvement. Yes, new year resolutions can get tiresome, but they’re really just setting out some goals. Things...
One Simple Act
Senator Paul Sarbanes, second from left, launching the first Chesapeake Gateways in 2000.By Jonathan DohertyPaul S. Sarbanes, United States Senator from Maryland from 1977 to 2007, died on December 6. Much is already being written about this effective, kind, and...
A Remembrance
John Maounis, with his beloved wife Margaret Bursaw, early this year at Tomales Bay in California.By Jonathan DohertyJohn Maounis, former superintendent of the National Park Service Chesapeake Office, and original co-convener of the Chesapeake Conservation...
