One advantage of working as naturalists on the deck of the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming, is meeting some of the young visitors who come through on vacation. While many people bemoan the deterioration of today’s youth, we witness first hand some of the dedicated and caring folks of our future. Many of the …
“You can come and help out, but I hope you don’t get bored. There might be a lot of down time.” After inviting us to a bighorn sheep capture and collaring, Desert National Wildlife Refuge biologist Lindsay Smythe warned us in advance that we could be disappointed. “Sometimes the sheep don’t come down,” she said. …
You don’t stop learning because you grow old; you grow old because you stop learning. When we spotted this slogan in a café in a remote town in Colorado years ago, we realized that one key to youth is continuing education. Influenced by this objective, we recently purchased a small home near Tucson, Arizona, where …
A visitor approached me as I was setting up my skulls for display and interpretation at a visitor center one morning. “Can I ask you a question?” she asked breathlessly. “It’s about a bird we saw. Can you help?” I turned and faced the woman. “Sure. What’s the question?” She opened her mouth to continue, …
“I just came across a carcass,” my friend Gaylia told me when she called from a trail she was hiking near Grand Teton National Park, “and I’m wondering what it is.” As she described the large skull with no upper front teeth, I pictured an elk. “But check the length of the nasal bones,” I …
Letters and emails from teachers and students please us immensely. We have received posters created as thank yous by students we’ve visited. We have received picture books produced by teachers and students of our programs at school or field trips to a refuge. We have even received a Power Point program put together after a …
Reports show that kids these days don’t get outdoors enough and explore nature. So when we were asked recently to take two boys on a hike in the remote desert, we were glad to oblige. Terry and Diane Moilanen, whom we met through our Wednesday interpretive hikes at Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, host their …