Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve

Our Staff

Our world faces complex conservation challenges. Meet the people who are working on creative, lasting solutions here on Virginia's Eastern Shore.
 

Media Inquiries:

To schedule an interview with a member of our VVCR staff please contact Chelsea Bowers, Media Relations Manager, by phone at 804-728-0588 or email chelsea.bowers@tnc.org.

Visit

The Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve is home to the longest expanse of coastal wilderness remaining on the east coast. Brownsville Preserve and the barrier islands offer visitors unique natural experiences. 

Want to learn more? Discover all of the incredible resources that this region supports and learn about the partners dedicated to managing and protecting these coastal treasures.

Brownsville Preserve

Birds and other wildlife abound at Brownsville Preserve. The William B. Cummings Birding and Wildlife Trail offers a round-trip hike of three miles through memorable coastal Virginia scenery. Explore wooded uplands, take in expansive marsh views and enjoy the variety of life all around you.

Visitors can also enjoy a treasure hunt in nature through one of our six geocaches. Or download our self-guided audio tour—it's like having a naturalist in your pocket!

Leashed dogs are permitted at Brownsville on the William B. Cummings Birding and Wildlife Trail. Dogs on the trail must be leashed at all times.

Dogs are not allowed on any of the Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve islands.

Visit the Brownsville Preserve page for additional information to help you plan your trip.

Barrier Islands

Most TNC owned islands at the Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve are open to the public for low-impact, recreational day use, such as hiking, bird watching, surf fishing and photography. These include Smith, Myrtle, Mink, Cobb, Rogue, Sandy, Parramore and Revel Islands and the TNC owned portions of Metompkin, Cedar and Hog Islands. 

Seasonal restrictions are in place to protect nesting birds—all areas above the high tide line are closed April through August. 

Little Cobb and Ship Shoal Islands are CLOSED to visitor use at all times for scientific research and safety reasons.

Visit the Barrier Islands preserve page for additional information.

Our Key Partners

We work closely with Federal, state and local partners to achieve our conservation goals.

• University of Virginia Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)
• College of William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS)
• Virginia Marine Resources Commission
• US Fish and Wildlife Service
• Virginia Departments of Environmental Quality, Wildlife Resources and Conservation and Recreation
• Local government and private landowners

In addition to domestic partners, our work at VVCR has global reach as well. The Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve is a member of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program, dedicated to establishing a scientific basis for enhancing the relationship between people and their environments.

VVCR is one of 701 sites of excellence in the World Network of Biosphere Reserves spanning 124 countries and including 21 transboundary sites. The network promotes collaboration and represents a unique tool for international cooperation through sharing knowledge, exchanging experiences, building capacity and promoting best practices.

Coastal Resilience

Virginia's Eastern Shore lies within one of the U.S’s most vulnerable coastal regions. Sea levels are rising at three to four times the global average and storms are intensifying. But natural solutions can provide a first line of defense.

The Nature Conservancy is working with leading coastal scientists and community partners to explore and document the resilience inherent in the Eastern Shore's natural systems. We are using this living laboratory to better understand how nature can make coastal communities here—and everywhere—more resilient in the face of a changing climate. 

• Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission
• University of Virginia’s Long-Term Ecological Research Project 
• Virginia Institute of Marine Science’s Center for Coastal Resource Management
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Randolph-Macon College
• Duke University
• University of North Carolina-Wilmington
• Natural Capital Project
• The Brosnan Center for Risk Reduction
• NASA-Wallops Flight Facility
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge
• ARCADIS US, Inc.
• Warren-Pinnacle Consulting, Inc.

Education

VVCR’s education program aims to connect public school students in Accomack and Northampton Counties to the natural world through experiential field trips. The curriculum-based trips have been designed for 5th, 7th, and 10th grade students. The field experiences were collaboratively designed with local educators through participatory workshops to ensure they are aligned with Virginia’s Standards of Learning (S.O.L.’s.)  

• Northampton County Public Schools
• Accomack County Public Schools
• NOAA B-WET
• Volgenau Foundation

Land Protection

Through the Virginia Eastern Shore Conservation Alliance, we work with local, state, and federal partners, as well as private organizations, to conserve land in Accomack and Northampton counties. 

Over the years TNC has assisted Virginia’s departments of Conservation and Recreation, Game and Inland Fisheries, and the Coastal Zone Management Program, to identify and conserve natural areas for wildlife and public access. 

We have partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add property to the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge, and helped develop the Cape Charles Bike and Hike Trail. 

One private partner, Virginia’s Eastern Shore Land Trust (VESLT), was established in 2003 to protect local farms, forests and wetlands. VESLT holds 76 conservation easements on 14,000 acres of land, including 1,037 acres that are co-held by The Nature Conservancy. TNC and VESLT also partner in outreach and education efforts, including an annual 2nd grade field trip to VCR's Brownsville Preserve.

Marine Habitat Restoration

We worked with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in 2015 to build two oyster reefs at Man and Boy Marsh. Three additional reefs were constructed in 2016 at two sites at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge that suffered serious damage from Hurricane Sandy. These projects were funded by both the U.S. Department of Interior and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through funds established to support Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts. Other partners in our oyster reef restoration efforts include the National Park Service and Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources.

A decades-long partnership with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) has resulted in the largest and most successful seagrass restoration project in the world. We’re working together to build on this success by returning bay scallops to Virginia waters. In 2017, we released 12.3 million bay scallop larvae that were spawned by VIMS and Cherrystone Aquafarms into the eelgrass in South Bay. The hope is to eventually restore a self-sustaining population of bay scallops.

Migratory Bird Conservation

We work closely with many different partners to understand how bird populations use and depend on the Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve for survival. We use that information to understand range-wide conservation needs and guide local management actions to protect and build resilient migratory bird populations both in coastal Virginia and throughout the hemisphere.    

• Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary
• Virginia Tech Shorebirds Program
• US Fish & Wildlife Service
• Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
• Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation
• Virginia Marine Resources Commission
• Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program
• NASA/Wallops Flight Facility 
• Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory
• National Park Service
• USDA Virginia Wildlife Service

Long Term Ecological Research (LTER)

The largest and longest-lived ecological network in the United States, LTER brings together a multi-disciplinary group of scientists to study, document and analyze environmental change at sites across the country. The LTER program at the Virginia Coast Reserve began in 1987, and is administered through the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. Research projects include studying how climate change, sea-level rise and more—and more intense—coastal storms affect both human and natural communities on the Eastern Shore.

US Navy

We have worked with the US Navy since 2016 as part of their project to assess the winter population status of harbor and gray seals in the area. A group of approximately 50-80 seals routinely use TNC property at the Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve to haul out. We also assist the Navy in deploying satellite tracking tags, successfully tagging 7 seals in 2018. We have learned a great deal about how the seals are using the area and the weather conditions that impact their behavior.

In March, 2019 VVCR staff assisted two members of the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Stranding Response Program with the release a young gray seal at a known haul out site on TNC property. The team had cared for the animal for several days after it was found in a weak condition in the Back Bay area. The tagged seal was later observed in South Carolina at Myrtle Beach State Park and on the beach on Hilton Head Island.

Surveys initiated in November during the 2019/2020 season yielded a high count to date of 39 individual seals using TNC property as haul-out locations. TNC played an integral role during this survey season in initiating the use of trail cameras to monitor seal activity and investigate factors influencing behavior at haul-out sites. 

Volunteers play an important role in all our programs. 

Help support our work while connecting with nature in a meaningful way. 

Join the Brownsville Stewardship Crew

Stewardship workdays are typically held 1-2 times a month to complete projects such as trail maintenance, cutting and hauling limbs, building or repairing boardwalks and cutting brush and overgrown vegetation. 

Gardening and Landscape Help

2-3 volunteers are needed 1-3 hours per week from mid-March through September to work in the garden at the Brownsville house. This will consist of weeding the kitchen garden and flower beds, trimming vegetation away from the house, mulching and removing invasive Italian arum. Tools provided on-site. 

Bluebird Box Monitoring

This is a great opportunity for birders! Volunteers are needed to check bluebird boxes, fill out data sheets and take photos as part of our bluebird monitoring at Brownsville Preserve. Volunteers will work as a team (monitoring individually) to ensure the bluebird boxes are monitored once a week (preferably the same day each week), starting the first week of April and running through August. It typically takes 2 hours each visit. 

For information about these or other volunteer opportunities, please contact Jen Dalke, volunteer program manager, by email at jdalke@tnc.org or cell 540-335-1302. 

Program Milestones and Achievements

• UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program
• Audubon Global Important Bird Area
• U.S. Department of the Interior National Natural Landmark
• National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research site
• Western Hemisphere International Shorebird Reserve Network site
• Protection, with partners, of more than 115,000 acres on Virginia’s Eastern Shore
• Ownership of some 40,000 acres of barrier islands, marshes and uplands
• Partnership approaches to protecting and managing 50 miles of barrier islands for thousands of nesting shorebirds and colonial waterbirds
• Partnership approaches to restoring more than 50 acres of oyster reefs; the management and monitoring of more than 100 acres of oyster reefs; and the restoration of more than 9,500 acres (and counting!) of seagrass and the re-introduction of bay scallops in the coastal bays
• Numerous contract awards for a ground-breaking conservation and restoration projects