Several months previous to the GE&S workshop in
New Jersey, I traveled down to
Smyrna, Delaware to the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Aquatic Resources Education Center & Mallard Lodge – a rustic, functional, and well-weathered building located amidst a vast stretch of wetlands along Route 9.
I was there to interview Gary Kraemer - the Training Administrator for AREC and one of the originators of GE&S. Gary and I are sitting in the conference room surrounding by posters, models, educational paraphernalia, learning modules, photos and all manner of things aquatic.
This is where teachers gather periodically throughout the year to attend workshops, listen to aquatic experts, and bone up on some of the latest research to enhance their science curricula.
Gary is nothing if not passionate about the value of the Green Eggs & Sand program.
When I ask him to sum up the GE&S program in 25 words or less he replies, “That’s a hard one to answer - but it’s certainly to provide an awareness of the phenomenon at the first level.
You know, the crab and bird connection; the significance of each animal, how it has come to be so important to humans, and for the different bait, biomedical and ecotourism values.
It’s also because of the birds and the esoteric connection for environmental use, for fish use, and for the biomedical uses.
Really where we hope to get them is to give them an awareness - at a deeper level of understanding - of the animal, and the challenge and the controversy of managing a resource like this.
It has multiple uses, many different stake holders, and lots of scientific data.”
As I’m listening and recording the conversation, I’m also taking notes using words like “passionate.” “thoughtful,” “animated,” and “absolutely engaged.”
A conversation with
Gary is like two old friends chatting at a bar on a Friday night.
The only thing missing here at the Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Aquatic Resources Education Center & Mallard Lodge is a couple of “cold ones,” a basket of stale pretzels, and some loud and obnoxious country music on the jukebox.
At this point in the conversation
Gary brings out a small tub of newly hatched horseshoe crabs.
I’m trying hard not to use words such as “cute” and “adorable,” but these guys look like tiny aliens scuttling across the bottom of the pan.
“These guys hook you in,” he say with his typical passion.
“Whenever we go and do events – you can have the fanciest looking exhibit in the whole world – but if you have something that introduces the public to these little guys…it’s amazing how strongly that grabs the people and gets them interested in learning more.”
“It sucks them right in?” I inquire.
“Yeah.
The kids certainly do, and this really connects them at any age, you know.
Most people are like, have no idea.
They seem to have this idea that horseshoe crabs are these big ugly things that come up on the bay beaches and are left behind to die and stink up the place .
That’s what they see, and they have no idea it takes them so long to get that age, so seeing them in little hatchlings that will take at least another 8-10 years to become the adults they see on the beaches gives them a whole other outlook.”
As is often the case in a comfortable conversation the topics shift back and forth.
Gary and I talk about adaptive resource management (“How many horseshoe crabs does it take spawning in the Delaware Bay to produce the superabundance of eggs that support adequate population levels of red knots?”), shifts in horseshoe crab populations over the last several years (“…you’ll see a lot in the media that horseshoe crabs are declining.
They’re not!”), restricted horseshoe crab harvesting for eel fishermen (“It’s been especially hard on eel fishermen in
Delaware where a small male-only horseshoe crab harvest is now in place, since eel fishermen require female horseshoe crabs for bait.
I mean, these guys have to go out of state to get their bait.”), to conservation issues (“…I have to say I have felt like the fishermen have moved more to the environment than the environmentalists.”).
No comments:
Post a Comment