PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release – October 6, 2023
Contacts:
Rosalind Renfrew, rosalind.renfrew@vermont.gov, 802 461 8387
Joshua Morse, joshua.morse@vermont.gov, 802 261 0335
Montpelier, VT – The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) is pleased to announce this year’s Sally Laughlin Award recipient, Dr. C. William “Bill” Kilpatrick.
The Sally Laughlin Award for the Conservation of Endangered and Threatened Species is selected annually by the Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources based on recommendations from Vermont’s Endangered Species Committee. The award is given to a person who has shown leadership in advancing knowledge, understanding and conservation of endangered and threatened species and their habitats in Vermont.
Bill will be honored at the Dead Creek Wildlife Day on October 7, 2023 at 12 pm. Dead Creek Day is a day-long public festival held at the Wildlife Management Area in Addison by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.
“As a steward of Vermont’s biodiversity, lands and waters the Agency of Natural Resources is thrilled to honor Bill for his five decades of work which has contributed to our understanding of our State’s most vulnerable wildlife,” said Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Julie Moore. “Not only has Bill’s research and advocacy directly benefited the health of many of Vermont’s species, his willingness to teach and share his knowledge has been invaluable to the wider scientific community.”
Since 1974, Bill’s research and teaching work at UVM has been crucial to the betterment of Vermont’s wildlife and ecosystems. As a specialist in small mammals, Bill is the force behind the Vermont’s first official catalog of small mammals—many of which call the state’s most delicate ridgelines, bogs, and forests home—and was generous enough to lend his expertise to the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department on the conservation of these animals before they had their own small mammal biologist. Bill even has his own mouse species named after him, the Kilpatrick’s Deer Mouse, though one would have to travel to Mexico to see this species first-hand.
Bill has been a stalwart of the Vermont Endangered Species Committee since its inception 42 years ago and is often called upon to provide both expert testimony and public interviews with media including National Public Radio, USA Today, Science News, Vermont Public, and Burlington Free Press.
As a researcher, teacher and lifelong advocate for threatened and endangered species, Bill continues to leave his mark on wildlife in Vermont and beyond. The Agency is pleased to present Bill with the Sally Laughlin Award for the Conservation of Endangered and Threatened Species.
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