Audubon in Action

 

movers & shakers

One Step Ahead

If anyone is primed to face the 21st century's environmental challenges, it's Jerry Secundy—Audubon California's new executive director—because of his background, professional experience, and passion. We talked to him recently at his Los Angeles office.

Question: When did you and the environment connect?
Answer: I grew up in segregated Washington, D.C. My father was white, an electrician who became president of a contracting firm. My mother, a black woman, worked for the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, printing out dollar bills all day. The only beach open to us was Highland Beach in Maryland, and I got my first experience with nature there—running around in the woods and swamps, crabbing and looking at birds.

Q: They say oil and the environment don't mix, but you made the combination work for you.
A: Atlantic Richfield was a leader in environmental awareness. They wanted a lawyer to oversee compliance at every refinery, and so they hired me. I was able to get a secondary waste-treatment plant in my refinery, then remained with ARCO for 28 years. I did everything from soup to nuts—president of the pipeline division, manager of long-range planning, legal representative in Latin America. ARCO respected my advocacy for progressive environmental policies. Meanwhile, in California, I had a leadership role on a number of environmental organizations, trying to develop sound policy on air and energy issues. I just knew there had to be a better solution than industry and environmentalists suing each other all the time.

Q: Why Audubon?
A: I thought something should be started in Los Angeles to reach out to diverse groups. Then a Latina woman told me, "Audubon is already here in East Los Angeles—and doing a great job in education." That interests me, so I came aboard.

Q: Politically, the outlook for the environment doesn't look good.
A: It's really different in California. Ecotourism is big business, and the feeling is a healthy environment leads to a healthy economy. Democrats won every statewide office in the last election, and the legislature is decidedly liberal. Some people say we're out of step. But I believe California is one step ahead of the other states.

—Frank Graham Jr.

 

Audubon Center

Giving Audubon the Boot

Photo by Katherine Lambert

Reinecke Fuchs Farm, the exclusive preserve of the late financier William duPont Jr., has morphed into something he might never have imagined. But considering his deep love for the outdoors and nature, it seems certain he would be pleased with what it has become: the Jean Ellen duPont Shehan Audubon Center and Sanctuary.

Six years ago duPont's daughter, Mrs. Jean duPont Shehan, donated the entire 952 acres of private forest, field, marsh, and jagged coastline on Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore to Audubon, on the promise that the land would be converted to a public nature center and sanctuary. She still spends part of each year there in a leased riverside house. But now when she steps outdoors, she's likely to witness activity unseen in her father's day: a group of hearing-impaired students from Gallaudet University, perhaps, learning basic paddling skills in a calm cove; senior citizens studying birds or wildflowers with a naturalist; or a chattering gaggle of local schoolchildren taking a nature-based field trip aboard a unique sort of public transit—a wooden cart pulled along the site's extensive paths by a pair of resident mules.

"My father loved this place. I think he would have been delighted to see the land here become this sanctuary," says Shehan. "It pleases me, too, to see school groups and summer campers—all kinds of kids, of all different ages—down by the water, learning."

There is plenty of water to be found at the site, which is stoutly boot-shaped and stretches about two miles into the bay. The peninsula is, in fact, composed of many small peninsulas, and the shoreline is so convoluted that fully eight miles of coast surround the sanctuary. The property includes eight houses, one of which serves as headquarters for both the sanctuary and Maryland-DC Audubon, plus several barns, stables, outbuildings, boat docks, and a pier for canoe launches. Farm fields and meadows make up about 40 percent of the land; forests of loblolly pine, holly, willow oak, and sweet gum account for another 40 percent. The balance is ponds and wetlands.

Wildlife, it seems, finds this enticing. A recent survey identified 200 kinds of resident animals, ranging from wild turkeys and great blue herons to deer and foxes as well as turtles and salamanders. Every spring and fall the sanctuary, which lies directly along the Atlantic Flyway, becomes a green stopover magnet for migrating birds, including ducks, hawks, and warblers. An early-morning summer stroll yields glimpses of eastern bluebirds, grasshopper sparrows, and blue grosbeaks—flitting and tail flicking in a meadow like indigo jewels.

Photo by Katherine Lambert

The center is on the Choptank River, which leads to the body of water the Algonquins called Chesepiok, or "great shellfish bay." The current state of the Chesapeake speaks volumes about how precious a gift the duPont Shehan sanctuary really is. More than 15 million people already live in the Florida-size Chesapeake watershed. Landowners have been subdividing and selling the increasingly scarce land along the bay's shores, and vacation and year-round homes seem to spring from the soil. The sanctuary may well prove to be one of the last large tracts of green space preserved anywhere in the area.

Rick Leader, executive director of Maryland-DC Audubon, calls it "the hub to the spokes of Audubon nature centers around the state." Other centers with day programs will soon feed campers to duPont Shehan for overnight stays, made possible by the upcoming addition of two dormitories. In the meantime, the Shehan center offers a smorgasbord of its own activities. In one program, high school students collect spotted turtles from vernal pools with a naturalist; weigh, measure, and photograph them; and then endow them with identifying marks. In another, middle schoolers interact with naturalists and a children's-book author to produce a work of their own.

This spring, for a program integrated with classroom work in regional schools, students will study the ecology of individual species of birds or fish, and then go birding or fishing for their species in its natural habitat. "The hope is that they'll learn the science, but also find a great hobby that can connect them to nature on the Chesapeake Bay for the rest of their lives," says Amy Bourque, project coordinator at duPont Shehan.

Photo by Katherine Lambert

Bourque suggests that hands-on experience at the center can excite kids to become good stewards of the environment. "Our long-term goal is to have middle and high school students assist with the restoration of habitat—from wetlands and freshwater ponds to forest ecosystems and grassland meadows, which are in decline all over the eastern seaboard.

"We want kids to get involved, get outdoors, maybe feel like they have permission to get a little wet and dirty," she continues. "And then be able
to walk away and say, 'Wow, look what we can do to help animals and nature.' "

—Jon R. Luoma

For information: The Jean Ellen duPont Shehan Audubon Center and Sanctuary is located about 15 miles east of Easton, Maryland. To learn more about the center, call 410-745-9283 or go to www.audubonmddc.org.

 


© 2003  NASI

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State of the States

ALASKA
The United States and Russia recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of the signing of the U.S.–Russia Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Birds and Their Environment, which involves the protection of more than 200 shared avian species. Last September, at a North Pacific Migratory Bird Conference in Vermont, more than 20 Russian ornithologists and representatives from leading bird-conservation organizations, including Audubon, met to discuss the treaty's status. One topic on the table was establishing new Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in the Bering Sea region. Audubon Alaska, in cooperation with the Russian Union for Bird Conservation and BirdLife International's Asia Council, had previously identified 133 IBAs in the region. These IBAs, 41 of them in Russia and 92 in Alaska, are expected to significantly benefit bird conservation in the area stretching from Kamchatka to Wrangell Island in Russia and from the Aleutian Islands to Barrow in Alaska.

MISSOURI
Audubon's Wildcat Park, in Joplin, is renowned for having the last chert glades—a dry, rocky habitat with dwarf plants—in the world. Now scientists from the New York Botanical Gardens (NYBG) suspect that the park might also contain a previously unknown species of lichen. "Wildcat Park sits on chert bedrock, the only place on the globe where it comes to the surface," says Tony Robyn, executive director of the Wildcat Glades Conservation and Audubon Center. Lichens and other small plants thrive on this dry prairie habitat. So, too, do waxwings, painted buntings, bobwhites, and red-shouldered hawks. NYBG researchers Richard Harris and William Buck took samples from the lichen mats back to New York for further study. Although lichens produce a wide array of chemicals, this plant category is largely unexplored. Recent studies suggest that one chemical derived from lichens may slow the onset of HIV. A nature center at Wildcat Park—expected to open in 2005—means more visitors to the chert glades, but measures will be taken to ensure the lichens' survival.

NEW YORK
The shores of Long Island Sound will soon boast a 520-acre state park, the result of a collaboration between Audubon, the KeySpan corporation, and the state of New York. This KeySpan property, in Jamesport, is the largest underdeveloped open-space project on the sound, and it provides habitat for many species, including herons, egrets, and other shorebirds. Kingfishers and waterfowl nest at the site's interior pond. The new park, New York Audubon's number one land-protection project for 2002, will also support the establishment of the Long Island Sound Stewardship System, in cooperation with neighboring states. "This will be the diamond in the necklace of open spaces around the sound, providing more than a mile of shoreline access for people and a critical habitat for shorebirds," says Carole Nemore, Audubon New York’s director of conservation.

VERMONT
A great blue heron rookery in Weathersfield has been restored using artificial tripods in place of the trees that once housed the birds. Since the rookery was discovered in a beaver pond in 1985, concerned citizens and the Ascutney Mountain Audubon Society (AMAS) have monitored the growing number of fledglings each year. However, in 1993 the trees around the pond began to drown from flooding caused by a beaver dam. As the herons' nests began to dwindle, the AMAS took action. With the help of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it constructed tripods in the lake during the winter months by drilling through the ice. "Although there was no other instance we could learn from, the experiment proved a success," says Wally Elton, publicity chairman for the AMAS. Since the first three structures were built, two more have been added as the trees around the pond continue to fall. "The rookery is now entirely artificial," says Elton. "None of the herons are nesting in trees."

NEW MEXICO
In January David Henderson, executive director of Audubon New Mexico, was appointed by Governor Bill Richardson to serve on the New Mexico State Game Commission. "This is a volunteer position but perhaps the highest honor that can be bestowed on anyone who cares about wildlife and desires to be in a position to make a difference in the management of a state’s wildlife heritage," says Henderson. One of seven commissioners, he will remain as Audubon New Mexico’s executive director. "I look forward to elevating the importance of the management of nongame resources," he says, "increasing the protection of endangered species, using good science as a criteria on wildlife-management considerations, developing alternative funding sources for the management of nongame wildlife, and furthering the department’s commitment to wildlife-focused environmental education." In addition, Jennifer Montoya, a longtime Audubon activist, has been named to one of the other commission positions.

 

 

Programs

REFUGE CENTENNIAL
Audubon and its partners in conservation are planning events and family activities to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the National Wildlife Refuge System, which includes more than 500 refuges across the country. To find out about activities at a refuge near you, call 800-659-2622 or e-mail audubonaction@audubon.org.

TAKING ACTION
Audubon’s advocacy, coordinated by its policy office in Washington, D.C., ensures that national and state lawmakers support policies that are created, funded, and implemented in a way that protects the best bird habitat across the country. Audubon focuses on the budgets, laws, and regulations that add to and protect the ecological value of these places. The 108th Congress, with its almost evenly divided House and Senate, offers both opportunities and challenges, and every vote will come down to the wire. Your lawmakers may cast the deciding vote. Audubon continues to educate policy makers on the environment, and it remains vigilant in the fight against proposals that jeopardize the quality of air, water, and critical habitat. Audubon needs your help more than ever to ensure success! To join our efforts, visit www.audubon.org and click on “Take Action.” Your support and help will go a long way toward delivering the strongest possible message to lawmakers.