Audubon: Audubon in Action

William Yellowtail has cut a wide swath across the western landscape—as a Montana rancher and state senator, as regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and as an acclaimed fly fisherman and wilderness guide. But no matter the endeavor, he has stayed steadfast to his roots in the Crow tribe. Not long ago, we caught up with him at a meeting of the Audubon board of directors, which he recently joined.

Question: Can you discuss what your background brings to Audubon?
Answer: If Indians are about half a percent of the country's population, the question is why Audubon should bother expending energy and resources engaging them. I think the native community offers something that we have lost track of in our environmental work. We've had to reduce the environment's value to a cost-benefit analysis. What we lose is the intrinsic worth that we all know in our gut really motivates and mobilizes us: a yearning for some spiritual articulation we don't have the contemporary words for.

Q: Can you please give an example?
A: Well, there's the creation story. A duck dove to the bottom of the ocean and brought up mud from which the land was formed. This was a concept articulated by Black Elk, an Oglala Lakota, and others who think we are foolish to believe we can own real estate when, in fact, we merely borrow it from our great-grandchildren.

Q: How might this sentiment inform your Audubon work?
A: When we go and argue in front of congressional committees, we can ground our work in this notion of sacred trust that we have in our land.

Q: Is there any other mythology you can share with us?
A: For every bird, I bet you there's a story. From my own Crow tribe, Plenty Coups had a dream in which he was shown that it would be wise for him to adopt the behavior of chickadees, which survive well, in modern parlance, by adapting to their environment. They're very inconspicuous birds that emerge from bushes to sing and be seen on rare occasions. Most of the time that they're out, they watch and listen first. The real lesson for this guy, who became a great political leader, taking his spiritual guidance from the chickadee, is that he, too, should watch and listen first.

Photos by Silvia Otte

The tiny green inchworm undulated slowly over 10-year-old Ari Kay's index finger. She leaned forward over her half-tied galoshes to observe the worm's progress, as did three of her buddies—from Camp Kinderland in Massachusetts—who were seated nearby. Although folksinger Bill Staines had taken center stage at the Sharon Audubon Center festival in northwestern Connecticut, at the moment the worm was the main event, at least for these kids.

The Audubon center, which is situated on 1,150 acres of pond and forest, field and marsh, offered plenty of opportunity for nature to mesmerize attendees that day. Though it had been a rainy morning, the festival's programs were going full steam. Ari and her friends had already seen their first owl up close; now they were off to build terrariums.

"It's nice to see so many young people here," said Marjorie Hackbarth from Meridan, Connecticut, who is old enough to remember David Allen Sibley fondly as "a nice boy." Dressed for action, her white hair peeked out from beneath a blue baseball hat, and her Nikes pointed in the direction of Ford Pond.

Four-year-old Shannon Herman, barefoot, with her purple pants rolled up to her knees, was already there. She was well into the afternoon program, Exploring the Pond. "Look what I caught!" she squealed, tripping along the shore with outstretched hands. "You have a beetle!" her mother, Barbara, said. "Should we do this with our pond at home?" The Hermans were visiting the center for the first time from just over the state line in Hillsdale, New York. They would certainly be back, said Barbara.

So would John Potter, who actually had come to listen to Staines but whose two-year-old daughter, Isabella, was dictating the rest of the day's activities. She dredged an eyedropper through a plastic tub of pond water, pursing her lips as she watched the detritus intently for signs of movement. Molly, her five-year-old sister, was still standing ankle-deep in lake water, catching critters in a coffee can.

Photo by Silvia Otte

"People tend to forget what they have right in their own backyard," said John James Audubon, a.k.a. Fred Baumgarten, associate director of foundation relations for the Audubon Society. With a felt hat on his head and a sketch pad under his arm, he was Audubon's official impersonator for the afternoon. "Sharon is one of the best examples of what a nature center has to offer," he said. "There's something happening here just about every weekend."

The center's education programs reach more than 11,000 people each year. Attendees range from adults and students to families and Boy Scouts, and they come from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York. The raptor program travels to students as far away as the Bronx. The center recently tailored its environmental education to meet the needs of a local school that caters to children with dyslexia.

The staff plans five annual events as well: a fall Kids' Day; an Enchanted Forest night walk; a Winter Wildlife Weekend; March's Maplefest; and, with the help of Housatonic Audubon, the August festival. On Sharon's grounds are a nature store, a wildlife-rehabilitation facility, a children's adventure room, and a natural science library. A committee of local community members works hard to preserve property adjacent to the center, and has doubled its size.

Just down the road is the Miles Wildlife Sanctuary, which is owned and managed by the Sharon center. It is used for adult education courses, such as ornithology and animal tracking, and houses research interns, who monitor migratory birds. The centerpiece of its 1,500 acres is a serene, mile-long wetland area.

Its atmosphere was much calmer than that surrounding the center that day. "The annual festival is the culmination of the entire year," says center manager Scott Heth. "It represents what we do—connect people to nature in a fun and interactive way." It is a strategy that worked on him. Heth, who is 44, has been to all 35 of the summer fests.

—Jennifer Bogo

for information: The Sharon Audubon Center is located in the town of Sharon, in northwestern Connecticut. Call 860-364-0520 or visit www.audubon.org/local/sanctuary/sharon.