Anthony Ciancimino—2024 Shelda Taylor Awardee
Each year the Shelda Taylor award is presented to a teacher who, like Ms. Taylor herself, has made a sustained and substantial impact on educating students in the field of natural history. The recipient of this year’s award is Anthony Ciancimino. A Staten Island elementary school teacher, Anthony has extended his classroom through science-based field trips, taking students out into the natural environment so they may develop an appreciation of the ecological wonders of the world around them.
In addition to working with his own students, Anthony leads nature walks for NYC Audubon. He also devotes time to a local non-profit organization, the Children’s Aid Society, where he established a science program that introduces youngsters, some still in elementary school, to the study of birds and the joy of birding. Through these activities, Anthony is helping young people to develop a connection to nature that, ideally, will last a lifetime.
As both a formal teacher, an Audubon guide, and a volunteer educator, Anthony Ciancimino has significantly impacted scores of students and young people. In these roles, and through his commitment to broadening the ecological education of so many, he has carried on Shelda Taylor’s legacy; he clearly deserves the award that bears her name.
— Eric Mathern
Chris Allieri—2024 Natural History Awardee
This year’s Linnaean Society’s Natural History Service Award recipient is Chris Allieri. In March of 2021, while observing federally threatened and New York State-endangered Piping Plovers that were nesting on a crowded New York City beach, Chris was struck by the threats to these shorebirds from both humans and off-leash dogs. As a child growing up on the Jersey Shore, Chris had seen signage and beach closures associated with the arrival of plovers each year, and he wondered why these birds had been left to fend for themselves in New York. The day following that discovery, having decided that it was his responsibility to do something about it, he established the NYC Plover Project. The first order of business was to create an Instagram account, and the second was to build partnerships with the very agencies he had been critical of for their lack of action.
What initially started as an attempt to recruit a few friends to assist in the tiny bird’s survival eventually evolved into a broader mission. Using social media, Chris attracted a large team of volunteers to help ensure the birds’ safety as they breed along the shorelines of New York State and nearby areas.
Today, the organization has grown to a staff of four and a force of 250 volunteers who have performed some 10,000 hours of service since the organization began operation. Each spring and summer, they monitor the nesting plovers and their chicks on the crowded beaches of the Rockaways in Queens. Using conflict de-escalation training, members of the Plover Project engage beachgoers, alerting them to the nesting sites’ presence and the birds’ vulnerability. Because of their efforts and Chris’s resolve to help the Piping Plover, stretches of beach where the shorebirds had been nesting are now becoming sanctuaries for the them, protected by an army of volunteers out on the beaches, from sunup to sundown. The individuals monitoring the beaches serve as diplomatic voices for the small birds, thereby greatly increasing the odds of a successful nesting season.
Nevertheless, while plover nest productivity has recently surged on National Park Service beaches, such as Breezy Point Tip and Fort Tilden, birds on NYC Parks beaches, including Far Rockaway, Arverne and Edgemere, haven’t been as fortunate, due to nest vandalism by humans and vitriol against temporary closures. So, there is much more work to be done. The NYC Plover Project is doubling down on education efforts. In 2024, the group expanded its work in NYC public schools and will reach primary grades through high school, with arts programming and citizen science initiatives for high school students. Additionally, the organization is expanding the volunteer programs and community engagement efforts on the NYC Parks’ beaches.
While it’s impossible to calculate exactly how many chicks have survived since Chris Allieri’s NYC Plover Project first took flight in the spring of 2021, there’s no doubt that he has had a profound impact on the future of this fragile species, if only because Piping Plovers—once invisible to most—are now a part of the New York City conversation. For that he is truly deserving of the Linnaean Society’s Natural History Service award.
— Eric Mathern
