>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia is one of the world's leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine, providing state-of-the-art veterinary care for more than 3000 wild animals each year.

The center draws on lessons learned from each patient admitted to teach the world to care about and care for wildlife and the environment.

>>Funding for "Untamed" is made possible by.

(birds chirping) (soothing music) >>20th century cultural anthropologist, Margaret Mead is quoted as saying "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world."

Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

And certainly it's true in this country that no important social or cultural movement has ever been led by the government.

Change comes from the people.

And if we're lucky, government will effectively reflect that change, but not always willingly.

Now the environmental movement is generally thought to have started about 1970 when former Senator Gaylord Nelson and his staff organized the very first Earth Day.

And back in 1970, they considered it a happening and Earth Day spawned a movement that recruited, motivated, and inspired people across the country.

Shortly thereafter, there was a long line of critical environmental legislation passed on the national level and many environmental changes embraced on the local and the state level.

Certainly at the federal level, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, all represented the people's commitment to protecting our environment and our increasing awareness that we had to be responsible for the world in which we live.

Well, indeed, all of these important pieces of legislation also shared one critical thing in common.

In crafting this legislation, the leaders of these various environmental movements all determined that to be successful, the legislation had to include a role for public participation.

Unfortunately, it seems to be a characteristic of human nature to wait until the last minute when something that we love or that we value is threatened or is endangered.

And sometimes by the time we get around to being motivated enough to act, it's too late but people try anyway.

And the truth is the environmental movement is often seen as being against everything.

They are against the dam, a road, a pipeline, a development, or some change that affects a habitat, a park, a resource that is important to people.

And that's because they've often waited until the last minute.

Now, I have to admit I was pretty much the same way early in my career.

It was not until I felt personally threatened that I decided to get involved in the public participation process.

Now for me it was a personal loss, 45 or more years ago that actually started my environmental awareness and indeed started my career.

It all began when I was in college and I had a favorite area in the George Washington National forest an area near Todd Lake.

It was close to the campus.

So without a car I could ride my bicycle out there to go camping or hiking or hunting or fishing, or hang out with friends, even take a date for a romantic campfire by the Lake.

Well, after I graduated, I didn't get back to this area for quite a while.

I ended up starting life, getting a job, but one day I thought, you know, I could use a dose of that spiritual renewal.

So I went back to my magic place.

And boy, was I shocked when I got there.

I found that my special place was gone.

The entire area had been clear cut.

The trees were all cut down.

The forest was hauled away.

My camping site had been bulldozed and the place that I love was no more.

I was so angry.

The place that I loved was gone, but the truth is I didn't know with whom I should be angry.

I didn't know who was responsible for this.

I didn't understand why a decision had been made to at least from my perspective, destroy a place that was so beautiful.

Well, I can tell you that over the last 45 years I've learned a lot.

A lot about forest management and a lot about public policy decisions that resulted in that circumstance for me.

I've learned as an example that it's a little hypocritical to sit in a wooden house, take out a piece of paper, sit at your wooden desk and then write a letter to the government saying stop, cutting down trees.

Well, that's part of the learning process, but I also learned that there's a right way and a wrong way to harvest natural resources to utilize what we have so bountifully blessed with and we need to participate to assure that resource utilization is sustainable.

And that is what effective public participation is all about.

(soothing music) >>I'm Ryan Brown.

I'm the executive director of the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.

I grew up in rural Virginia and I've had a career spanning natural resources protection here in the Commonwealth.

Today, I'm fortunate to head up the state's wildlife management agency which is my true passion in life.

Here at DWR, our mission statement is conserved, connect, and protect.

And what's meant by that is we can serve wildlife and its habitats for the benefit of all Virginians.

We connect the public with wildlife and outdoor opportunities and we provide public safety protection through our law enforcement division.

We manage wildlife in Virginia on a statewide basis.

That means wildlife is held in the public trust.

And that is according to the North American Model of Wildlife Management which is employed across the country.

However, we do interact with localities, local interest groups and even individuals on a daily basis and the development of our wildlife action plan, our species management plans for how wildlife is managed in the state according to scientific need and public expectation.

On top of that, our staff is out every day interacting with individuals and local representatives.

We manage wildlife according to scientific principles but for the benefit of the public.

And that certainly means with strong public input for everything that we do.

All of our board's meetings are public in nature, all of our regulatory processes and rulemakings include public comment procedures associated with them.

And we certainly take input from the public on a daily basis to make sure we're meeting the public's desires as well as the scientific need of the species here in the Commonwealth.

New wildlife regulations emanate both internally and externally.

First, our staff takes a look at what our species needs across the Commonwealth as well as the habitat that's necessary.

And so we can come up with regulatory ideas on our own.

Of course we will receive public input on those.

We also receive many great ideas from the public who either come to us at any given time through various mechanisms or participate in our regulatory processes, which run every other year.

With eight and a half million Virginians, there are a variety of viewpoints on every subject that we confront.

Our staff is charged with reconciling these viewpoints and the scientific needs of our species across the Commonwealth.

Public input is key to everything that we do.

We are a resource limited agency, we're statewide and the nature of what we do.

Knowing what's important to the public is extremely important to us, and setting priorities, setting rules and regulations, and also allocating resources across the Commonwealth.

Through our regulatory process, we began with a scoping period.

That's a couple months of us asking the public, "What kinds of topics do you think we should take on?

What issues are important to you?"

From that, our staff developed recommendations which go before our board of wildlife resources.

They hold public meetings, take public comment, propose regulations, those go out for a public comment period, which is a second opportunity for the public to write in and weigh in on their thoughts on our regulatory proposals.

It concludes with a final board of wildlife resources meeting, where they take a final vote on these regulations and take public comment before they take that vote to give the public and not yet another opportunity to let us know what they think.

If you have a passion for wildlife like we do, take the time to educate your friends and neighbors.

Wildlife's at a critical juncture here in Virginia and across the country in particular to the Commonwealth.

As the state continues to suburbanize, wildlife habitat faces unique threats every single day.

The real key to protecting our species and conserving it for future generations is public engagement and public value placed upon our wildlife.

And that begins at a grassroots level.

I encourage every individual who I encounter, who shares my passion for wildlife to take the time to educate others, show them what wonderful resources we have here in the state and why they're worth protecting for the future.

>>In my personal case, I waited too long to get involved.

You just can't wait until the chainsaws are running to try and protect an area that you love.

But if you step back and take a look at the legal environment in which we have the opportunity to get involved, you'll find that all of the major environmental laws, all of the management regulations open doors for you to participate.

They allow for public comment periods, they allow for written or oral or in-person or electronic comments and the government is legally required to consider the input it receives from the public.

But that input has to be received when the comment period is open.

you can't wait until the decision is made to say, "Yes, but I want you to do it a different way."

That's just not how it works.

You also need to figure out the level at which decisions are being made.

Over the years, I've learned that the Congress of the United States, as an example will sit in Washington DC and the Capitol Building and make decisions that affect places all across the United States.

If you have a favorite area or park or a refuge or someplace on federal land and care about it, you need to communicate with your elected representatives at the congressional level to tell them how you want that resource managed, how you want the land protected.

And then you need to stay involved to be sure that your recommendations are heard and implemented.

(soothing music) >>I'm a former member of the United States House of Representatives representing the sixth congressional district of Virginia which includes almost all of the Shenandoah Valley plus the Roanoke Valley and Central Virginia around Lynchburg.

The role that the federal government plays in conservation legislation is very large because about one third of all the land in the United States is owned by the American people through their federal government in the form of national forests and national parks and what's called BLM, Bureau of Land Management land particularly out West.

So the policies that the federal government has to establish for good conservation practices on those lands are what the Congress spends a great deal of time on.

And it also can set the precedent for how conservation practices occur on other lands as well.

A member of Congress will get involved in issues for a lot of different reasons.

One may be that their district has a lot of forest land or national park land.

In the case of the congressional district that I represented there is a tremendous amount of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest and the Shenandoah National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

So there would be lots of very natural reasons for me to be involved in issues that impact those areas that impact my constituents.

But in addition, you might get involved because you have constituents who contact you who are interested in protecting those things.

And you might get involved because you are serving on a committee that focuses on those issues.

For example, in the House Representatives there's the Natural Resources Committee but there's also the Agriculture Committee which has jurisdiction over all of our national forests.

And as a result of that, just by virtue of where you're serving in the Congress, your role can be very, very important.

Members of Congress are elected representatives of the people and therefore they really have two main concerns or lots of other things that might play a role in the decision they make.

But the two main ones are their own life experience, their conscience, if you will.

What guides them as an individual and what their constituents are telling them they want.

And lots of times you'll have different constituents with different points of view but members of Congress generally welcomed the opportunity to hear from their constituents because it gives them the ability to let them know that they care about their concerns, they're working to address them, and also gives them the opportunity to respond back to them.

We would hear from more than a hundred thousand people in a typical year by email, by social media, by telephone.

Some people still write handwritten letters to their member of Congress to tell them about their concerns but we hear a lot about them and we would hear a lot about issues related to conservation without a doubt.

So one of the things that I think it's important for people to understand is that this is a very basic constitutional right they have to contact their elected representatives.

It's in the very first amendment to our constitution, the same amendment that protects your freedom of speech, your freedom of religion, freedom of the press also protects the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to petition their government for redress of grievances.

So that's really what you're doing when you contact a member of Congress and let them know either that you're having a problem with a government agency or you need their help with a specific issue or you may simply be contacting them about a piece of legislation that you've heard about.

And you think you want your member of Congress to vote for it or vote against it because you think it's good or bad.

All of those things weigh in to what a member of Congress learns about an issue as they decide how to handle it and how to vote on it.

There was always the likelihood when I met with constituents and I met with them all the time that I was gonna learn something new.

Every day, I learned something new about some issue that we were dealing with in Washington because a constituent came and told me, "This is how this issue is affecting me, how it's affecting my family, how it's affecting my job, how it's affecting the environment around me."

In addition to contacting your member of Congress or your senator, you can also contact government agencies.

And this is also very, very important.

It's important for them as they're going about doing their work, whether it's in the department of agriculture, through the forestry service, or whether it's with the national park service or a whole host of other government agencies, it makes sense to find out who in that agency might be the one responsible for addressing the issue you're concerned about and contacting them.

They might have a local office in your community or they might simply have an email that you can write to but you certainly should not hesitate to contact them.

(soothing music) >>I was born in 1997, which means that during my life, the peregrine falcon is a common site across much of the US.

The alligator is returning to the Everglades and the American bison is slowly reclaiming the West.

There are many people that don't realize just how close we came to losing these species and many more like them, but that's not where it ends.

The air that I breathe, the water that I drink, and my continued access to protected public lands are all a result of past environmental policy.

Past legislation has laid the foundations of a country and a planet on which we can live harmoniously with nature.

Unfortunately, these past legislations simply aren't enough to guarantee a future with a protected planet.

We are living through a time of unprecedented environmental strife.

Climate change is without a doubt the issue of our time.

And it's a human issue as much as it is an environmental issue.

As we continue to learn about the effects that a changing climate can have on our living planet, it becomes very obvious how necessary it is to act now to change the way that we treat our planet.

Now more than ever, it is important for our global society to learn about the effects that climate change can have on our planet.

Especially the young people who are inheriting an earth which needs our help.

Now, these actions that young people can take could be anything from contacting your local representative or finding a ballot box to organizing a bike to work or school day or even starting a simple conversation at the dinner table.

Opinions aren't worth anything if you're not willing to work to back them up.

An educated and active public is a very powerful thing.

The more that we can learn about the world around us, the more we learn to appreciate it and gain a desire to protect it moving forward.

The more that we can understand about the effects of both individuals, but also industry and even government, the negative consequences that those actions can have on the world around us, the more that we can push votes and act to prevent those negative consequences in the future.

I grew up at the base of the Rocky Mountains, in a place where nature was all around me and I grew accustomed to it's easy and comfortable presence.

But as I grew older, I realized that this was a privilege not enjoyed by all.

I want that for my children and their children, but for all people all across the planet, from all different backgrounds and walks of life.

Destructive and wasteful human actions, climate change, ignorance, and stubbornness can irreparably damage our planets but we have the power to change it.

Buddy, the bald eagle is a living testament to the power of an idea and the determination to get it done.

Bald eagles were almost entirely wiped off the face of the planet.

So just his mere existence demonstrates the fact that like-minded groups of people motivated can get together to make a real change.

Right now, we have to continue to make decisions that are scientifically sound and environmentally beneficial for the future of our planet.

We have an opportunity to change the world.

Let's not miss our chance.

>>Over the last 45 years in the conservation movement, one of the most important things that I have learned is that each of us has a choice.

We can choose to make noise, or we can choose to make a difference.

Now, making noise, complaining, signing petitions, putting bumper stickers on your car, wearing slogans on your t-shirt, that may make you feel better but very seldom, does it change anything.

Decision-makers, they just don't care about that stuff.

You need to take your opinion and deliver it to them in a way that lets the decision maker know that you really care and you're really watching.

That's the important thing.

There are many ways that you can make a difference.

That's certainly the basic thing you can do is really learn the facts about the issue in which you have an interest.

Whether it's a piece of land you wanna protect, a wildlife species you want to protect, or some other environmental factor, really figure out what are the issues, what are the facts, who else is involved, and what are the true risks and implications of the decision that's about to be made.

Always basing your arguments on facts gives you credibility and influence.

Now, the second thing is to contact the decision maker at the right level.

If you're worried about the local stream in your community and runoff from a construction project, don't call your congressmen.

That's a local matter.

Call your city or county officials but find out who's responsible for that particular public policy and get in touch with them.

If it's about wildlife management in your state, your state wildlife agency is the one to contact.

If it's about our air and water, it may well be our federal representatives or our federal agencies.

Find out who is responsible.

And then the bottom line is show up and speak up.

It doesn't matter what your opinion is, what you care about if nobody knows.

You need to participate either in person or in writing or by telephone or by email and engage the decision maker.

Let the person or the group deciding know that there is a constituency that holds your point of view.

If you have an opinion, you have to share it.

Ask to be kept informed.

This is so easy to do.

If you're worried about wildlife management, contact your wildlife agency and say that you wanna be put on the notification list for regulation changes or meetings or opportunities to participate in public comment periods.

And finally find an organization that shares your interest and get involved.

Whether it's a local organization or a national or international organization.

Find a group that can help you amplify your voice and increase your impact.

Getting involved really can give you the ability to change the world.

>>Funding for "Untamed" is made possible by.

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