The enthusiasm jumps out immediately if you ask Jason Applegate to talk about his work, and you can’t help but smile at the fervor and passion he brings to his career in supporting Army natural resources conservation.
That’s perhaps not surprising. In many ways, Applegate’s education and work history are, as they say in Hollywood, straight out of central casting. After earning a degree in forestry at Penn State University, he’s spent 23 years in natural resources roles, first in land management roles and then moving into environmental posts, most recently serving as Natural Resources Branch Chief at Fort A.P. Hill.
All the while, through changes in the regulatory environment and in the training and equipment needs, he’s worked hard to strike the balance between protecting and preserving the landscape, plants, and animals on military lands, while retaining focus on support for the training mission and the land resources needed to support it.
“Just because you see a tank rolling by, doesn’t mean we are destroying large swaths of land. It’s our role to create the right conditions to preserve the natural environment, protect endangered plant and animal species, and at the same time create the best possible training conditions,” he said. “The challenges we face are more complex than ever, including the need to mitigate the impacts of climate change. To continue to succeed, we have had to adapt and innovate in many ways.”
Protecting endangered species and their habitat is one of the most difficult, evolving challenges faced by Army environmental land managers. Fort A.P. Hill’s natural resource program employs a variety of management approaches to support species diversity, including timber harvests, forest thinning, prescribed burns, and delayed mowing of open areas to benefit pollinators and ground-nesting birds.
In addition, Applegate and the team are taking special care in monitoring and taking steps to support eight threatened and endangered species – including crustaceans, plants, and four different kinds of bats.
“How do we make that balance work for the Solider? We have a specific need for this land, and we must keep that in mind, but we can adapt and innovate in our management to meet the challenges and protect the environment,” he said.
Applegate pointed to ongoing efforts to identify locations of the threatened small whorled pogonia orchid, which included Applegate and his team partnering with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to test the use specially trained dogs to use their keen sense of smell to find the plant.
The testing was successful in many ways. For example, the dogs were very good at ignoring large fields of the large whorled pogonia – a closely related but separate plant – and were shown to be able to detect the small whorled pogonia at Fort A.P. Hill where they are known to grow.
Applegate added that not only did the dogs show proficiency in finding the plants, but by working together USFWS and Army environmental teams gained a greater understanding of each other’s needs and goals – and formed even better working relationships. (see the report on the testing: https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2022%20VA%20Small%20Whorled%20Pogonia%20Report_0.pdf )
The team, based on its expertise in finding the often difficult to find orchid also partnered with the Smithsonian Environmental research center on a project studying the importance of fungal abundance in species management.
“We have become quite proficient at finding the small whorled pogonia and for our other work in endangered species, and as a result have continued to be both a resource and a partner to regulatory agencies and scientific teams around the country,” he said. “This expertise gives us a lot of credibility about the work we do and creates easier and more efficient partnerships in our overall environmental programs.”
Because of these successes, including proactive work to support protected species that are at risk of population declines, the Fort A.P. Hill team was awarded the 2022 Northeast Region Military Conservation Partner Award from the USFWS. The award noted the team’s work to support species that are at risk of population declines, like the Kenk’s amphipod – a tiny freshwater shrimp-like crustacean. USFWS cited the team’s proactive work to conserve habitat for this elusive amphipod which contributed to the USFWS finding in 2017 that it did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.
“It’s critical to share how we manage our efforts in an integrated fashion, share ‘these are all of our endangered species’ and ‘this is how we manage’,” Applegate said. “We try to show every conceivable thing we can do, and to specifically show how the activities we do will not affect the endangered species in an honest and clear way.”
Another area of emphasis in endangered species is the number of threatened and endangered bats found at the installation. Bats across the country are falling prey to white nose syndrome, which is also taking its toll at Fort A.P. Hill, Applegate explained.
The team supported efforts from state and federal environmental officials to use an acoustic-based system that uses sound to monitor for the endangered Indiana bat and the federally threatened but proposed endangered northern long-eared bats. Applegate said at Fort A.P. Hill there are also concerns about bat mortality due to wind turbines and nearby wind farms.
The acoustic system is an attempt to replace the decline in efficacy of mist-net captures and is hoped to provide more accurate counts for scientists to monitor the bat species.
“It is critically important that the environmental community of scientists, regulators, agencies and our Army environmental teams work closely together, share what we know and what we learn,” he said.
As if this were not all impressive enough, Fort A.P. Hill is also a scientific leader in the use of wildland fire as a conservation tool for swamp pink, a Federally threatened plant. Their research has been published in scientific journals and is well received by the greater scientific community.
Applegate recently accepted a promotion to a new position with Army National Guard G-9, Conservation Branch, after serving in Fort A.P. Hill’s environmental programs, most recently as the branch chief and natural resources specialist.
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