Jim Conrad Interview- Naturalist and Hermit
Monday, July 13th, 2009Jim Conrad, naturalist. An interview.
First, I’d like to thank Mr. Conrad for agreeing to this e-mail interview and taking time away from nature to sit at the computer and type in his replies.
1. What projects are you currently working on?
The Web sites mentioned [in "About Jim Conrad" at the end of this interview] are evolving constantly, being added to on a daily basis. Mostly it’s adding info for new ecotour hosts wanting to be on the Posterboard, plus every time I find a new bug, mushroom or whatever, I scan it and add it to the nature site. Beyond that, my main project is personally to continue evolving spiritually and philosophically, and to learn how best to help others do the same.
2. What made you want to study nature?
Several people in my family are and were exceptionally close to nature, so maybe my predisposition for being a naturalist always was there. However, I didn’t make the decision to seriously study nature until I was in college during the late 60s. At that time there was a new awakening among educated people worldwide to social injustices and environmental problems. There was the war in Vietnam, the fight for civil rights, and the dawn of an environmental movement. I knew I wanted to be an activist, I knew I couldn’t work in every field needing attention, and I knew that my own tendencies were more in the field of natural history. So I began work on a degree in biology, though I also have very strong social and political beliefs. In my early days I thought that if I could explain “why nature is important” clearly enough, I might get people to drop some of their destructive attitudes and practices. So, my urge to know about nature was always there, but my decision to study it seriously arose during the ferment on college campuses during the late 60s.
3. You’ve led many nature hikes and tours. What was the funniest thing that ever happened during one?
One year I worked as a naturalist at a “jungle lodge” in Belize. Each night I’d take a group on a night hike through the tropical forest. The highlight of each walk was when we’d climb to the top of a small ruin of an ancient Maya temple, and I’d tell stories from Maya legends. Naturally this was a good spot for telling ghost stories. To me it was funny to see how my listeners, mostly well-to-do and highly educated North Americans, could be so unnerved by hearing a good ghost story told on an old ruin in the jungle.
4. What advice regarding the Earth would you give parents bringing up children today?
The greatest contribution any parent can make today is to limit the number of children produced. After that, they should provide good examples to children already on hand by practicing sustainable living patterns. Parents should project a sense of pleasure and enthusiasm as they set about discovering all the ways they waste energy and other resources, and consequently change their behavior. A child should see that making the effort to live sustainably is fun, and the child should feel that he or she is an important participant in an important undertaking.
5. Phenology is the science dealing with relationships between climate and periodic biological phenomena. Why is this important when studying nature?
For some of us, keeping phenological records is simply fun. Making the observations needed to maintain them requires us to pay attention, and that is rewarding in itself because then we see interesting things we might otherwise have missed. At this time in human history phenological records are important because they contribute to our understandings about global warming and other environmental challenges. For example, if we see that trees are leafing out and wildflowers are blossoming much earlier than in years past, that supports the theory that global warming is taking place.
6. When a person starts looking at the Earth as a whole, it can become overwhelming. Are there any baby steps they can take to become more aware?
The best way to begin discovering nature in a serious way is to begin focusing on one special corner of nature. For example, if you decide to become a birder, you soon learn about the species concept, and that certain species are rarer than others. You find that the deep forest has one community of birds and an abandoned field a completely different set. You see that in a tree one species may specialize in finding bugs among the leaves, another in finding them on the trunk’s bark. One can learn a lot about nature in general just by looking at birds. The same would be true if you decided to focus on, say, trees or wildflowers, mosses, insects…
7. You weren’t always a vegetarian. Was there a defining moment that caused you to switch?
When I left the small tobacco farm I grew up on in Kentucky to attend college, I entered an entirely new world. One thing I quickly discovered was that many of my old assumptions and beliefs were not appropriate in the broader world. I went through a period when I angrily rejected most of my “inherited beliefs,” despite having few insights with which to replace them. Gradually, one step at a time, I began making conscious decisions about what I would believe and not believe (a process still going on). When the time came for me to examine my eating habits, I realized that my farm-base diet had been unhealthy. Therefore I studied nutrition and developed my present eating habits. Also I asked myself if I would kill the animals I was eating. When I realized that I would not, then I decided that it would be hypocritical for me to eat flesh from the bodies of animals I was paying other people to kill. Once I had that insight there was no longer any question about my vegetarianism. Later in ecology class I learned what an enormous waste of land it is to grow cattle, when you could grow much more food on the same land for direct consumption, and that added an ethical dimension to my decision.
8. Do you agree with the the criteria that removes a species from the ‘endangered’ list to the ‘protected’ list?? Why, or why not?
Instead of debating the subtleties of the process I would prefer to focus on the fact that the entire program is vulnerable to politics. If enough politicians vote that preserving endangered or protected species is “bad for American businessmen,” as our President said with regard to international regulations for slowing global warming, regulatory nuances will be quite moot.
9. There is currently a lot of discussion, activity, and actual practice of non-native killings. This is done under the auspices of “nuisance control”. In as much as it seems no amount of protest, sponsorship, or outright pleading to stop this activity will be effective; and along with the increased decline of habitat and illegal killings of native animals, how do you see Earth in the future as far as Wildlife and Nature is concerned? Could we become “nature sterile” as the futuristic movies depict, or do you believe nature will right itself through necessity and evolve in a manner that allows the continued development of species other than man?
I have no idea what it will be like in the future. If computer projections of trends resulting from global warming are correct, vast parts of the world will change drastically as the world’s climate patterns alter. The US’s “Bread Basket,” the Midwest, will become too dry to consistently produce corn and wheat. The Southeast’s pine forests will become scrubland and grasslands. Extended droughts will cause monstrous forest fires like those now in the West. Such changes will occasion an enormity of suffering. And what of the Ozone Hole? In ten years will cancerous growths begin appearing on most living things exposed to sunlight? One can almost guess that within ten years terrorists will have managed to explode dirty, radioactive bombs. If they explode enough, then what will be the consequences of raising the level of background radioactivity worldwide? “Nature sterile,” at least in terms of Life on Earth, is a real possibility.
Sometimes I comfort myself with the thought that even if all life on Earth should be destroyed, clear down to the lowest organism in the deepest hot-water vent on the ocean floor, the Creator’s obvious delight in producing life will remain intact, and I’m sure that life will start all over again, and evolution will proceed as exuberantly as ever. Maybe the next time life evolves for about 4.8 billion years the resulting dominant thinking species will be a little less self-centered and arrogant than the human species.
10. There are a lot of illustrations in your books. Do you think an artist’s eye gives you a better appreciation of nature?
The more one sees at any level, the more one appreciates nature. By the way, this question begs a definition of “nature.” I have gradually come to conceive of everything as nature. If you believe that humans are animals who have evolved the same as other living organisms, then Manhattan must be seen as not entirely unlike an anthill - all quite natural. Maybe it’s bad psychology to even refer to nature. We should think of forests and oceans as being part of our own living space, our own personal environment, not as something set apart.
11. As new species are being discovered (ex. the monkeys in the paper recently), should they be protected from capture for the supposed purpose of studying them?
You must make this call on an individual basis. It should depend on how rare the species is, how endangered its habitat is, and what benefits can be derived from studying it. It seems that the California Condor may have been saved because of enlightened study and effort on its behalf. On the other hand, sometimes it seems that many in the scientific community have become obsessed with generating publications while paying too little attention to the disappearance of the worlds they are disappearing.
My default attitude is to oppose capture for study, but if the investigator can convince me that the benefits of more knowledge will outweigh the negatives, then maybe I’ll support the effort.
12. What has been the most rewarding part of your job?
If my “job” is “hermit working for free to produce educational web sites,” the most rewarding part is being exactly what I am. I craft words and web pages and send them into cyberspace, like the members of certain Buddhist sects who spin their prayer wheels. This is my meditation, my way of spending this time in a human body on Earth, and that is reward enough.
13. If an animals is in danger of death. Do you take the animals in and care for it? Or do you let the animal die as this is the natural thing? If the cause of death is caused by human interference with the natural state, do you care for the animal or do you make the assumption that even though it is caused by humans it is still natural?
If I find a bug drowning in my water bucket I will pick it out. If I find a nestling or baby squirrel whose nest has been blown down, I just leave it. I don’t think much about whether humans are at the root of the problem, but rather I recognize that all animals have very specialized needs, and that by intervening in a young animal’s life, probably I won’t be able to save it and, if I do save it, it will still face the problem of reintegrating into its species’ community. I tend to think that the damage done by setting free an animal poorly equipped for survival is uglier than just passing by a young animal in distress. Often there are no comfortable solutions. On the other hand, if, say, I find a deer caught in a fence, if I can free the deer and the animal looks unhurt, I’m very happy to do so.
14. Do you think we’ll ever solve the mystery of animal communication, or do you think it’s best that we don’t.
I don’t think in terms of “the mystery of animal communication.” I think that all animals have their own ways of communicating. The more we know about them, he more we can feel awe for their manner of being and the more beautiful they will be to us. Ignorance as a policy is seldom a good idea.
15. Next, is in regards to the theory of evolution…Now if we truly have evolved from Apes and Monkeys, why are there still Apes and Monkeys around as well. What stopped them from evolving further, the same goes for all the micro organisms that supposedly started it all…why did some go on and some not? Did some have the “Evolve” Genes, while others didn’t?
I’m not aware that anyone seriously concerned about the matter is saying that humans evolved from apes and monkeys. We shared common ancestors. The diagram of primate-species evolution is a tree, not a chain (as implied by the phrase “missing link”). Apes and monkeys are at the tips of their own branches, as are humans. Some branches of the primate tree develop faster than others. Some branches branch more than others. The number of branches between branch tips (current-day species) varies tremendously, depending on where you are on the tree, and what your branch is like.
This is the first time I’ve heard the suggestion that monkeys and apes have ceased to evolve. It can be assumed that all living species are evolving, always have and always will. The phenomenon of convergent evolution shows that for any given niche in any natural environment, a certain form or manner of being may be optimal for exploiting that niche. Thus once a species has assumed a specific narrow ecological niche and exploits its resources at a high rate of efficiency, there would be little pressure, all other factors remaining the same, for the species to change in conspicuous ways. That doesn’t mean that evolution stops, however. The species may look exactly the same for millions of years, but inside at a molecular level it can be assumed that sometimes certain chemical pathways, perhaps those associated with metabolism or respiration, alter in order to get the job done more efficiently. Just because something looks like it did millions of years ago doesn’t mean that it’s stopped evolving.
16. Many of us wish we could live the life of a hermit. What are the pluses and minuses of doing so?
I would prefer to live in a land-based community of mutually supporting individuals. It just turned out that I can’t find any such community and probably because of the heat, mosquitoes, ticks, mildew, fire ants and cultural ambiance of this part of the world (southwestern Mississippi) I doubt many others would want to come here. I am too involved in my work and studies to go looking for communities, and I don’t have the money to do so, anyway.
Nonetheless, being a hermit has its attractions, such as the peacefulness, the pleasure of seeing wild plants and animals up close every day and watching them change through the seasons, being able to do things at my own pace, and being able to order my time according to my own priorities.
I really can’t say that I find many negatives to being a hermit, other than that sometimes I need someone to look at a cut or itching place I can’t get to. During the day I am so active on the Internet, exchanging email with so many people, that by day’s end it’s really a relief to turn everything off and be alone.
During most of my life I’ve dreamed of finding a woman to share my life with, but that hasn’t worked out and I’m tired of looking.
17. Are there any further thoughts you’d like to leave us with?
If anyone knows of a park or reserve needing a “naturalist in residence,” I might be interested in the position. I would want to continue living as I am, very simply and close to nature, but I would welcome becoming more involved in a community. I would like to lead fieldtrips, workshops and such. In any position I’d need enough free time to continue my work on the Internet. Unfortunately I just can’t stand cold weather. Just for a laugh you may be interested in taking a look at my at “EarthFoot’s International Headquarters”:Jim’s Home http://www.earthfoot.org/jimscamp.jpg
About Jim Conrad
A fascinating man! I was hooked the minute I read his book “Discover Nature in the Garden.”
Main field of interest: Teaching nature-study techniques, and philosophizing about why understanding nature is so important.
Education: M.Sc. in Botany, B.Sc. in Geology
Languages: English, Spanish and German
Background: Born in 1947, Jim grew up on a small tobacco farm in western Kentucky, in the southeastern USA. He has spent most of his adult life as a freelance writer focusing on topics relating to natural history. For his work he has traveled in about forty countries. He has published over 200 magazine articles and stories, and six books.
He has served as a naturalist at a “jungle lodge” in Belize and on archeological ecotours in Guatemala’s Petén region.
Most recently he has developed EarthFoot’s Free Ecotour Posterboard, plus three other sites, Backyard Nature Study , Loess Hills of the Lower Mississippi Valley , and Traditional Mexican Markets. Also, he provides an online children’s book, Walks with Red Dog. Currently Jim lives a hermit’s life (with Internet access… ) in the forest south of Natchez, Mississippi.
He offers nature tours and his fee, as stated on his website is “Let’s barter. Maybe just a ride to town so I can buy groceries, or maybe a book, or something for the computer.”
Each week Jim issues his free Natchez Naturalist Newsletter, a page or two about the plants and animals around his forest home and in his organic gardens. If you would like to subscribe, just send an empty e-mail to natnat-subscribe@earthfoot.org . You can review all previous newsletters on the Web. If you haven’t seen his Natchez Naturalizt Newsletters, you are in for a real treat! It’s usually the highlight of my week! The previous newsletters are indexed according to topics. (Don’t miss his thoughts on pickle juice!!) http://earthfoot.org/znatnat/index.htm
His books include:
* Discover Nature in the Garden: Things to know and things to do, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 1996
* Mexico A Hiker’s Guide to Mexico’s Natural History, The Mountaineers, Seattle, Washington, 1995.
* Yerba Buena: Word-Snapshots from a Missionary Clinic in Southern Mexico’s Indian Territory, Southern Missionary Society, Poland Springs, Maine, 1994.
* The Maya Road: Eastern Mexico, Belize, Lowland, Guatemala, BRADT Travel Guides; (1992)
* No Frills Guide to Hiking in Mexico, Bradt Publications, England, 1992.
* On the Road to Tetlama, Walker and Company, New York, 1991.
I just want to thank Mr. Conrad again. He is an inspiration to me and if you haven’t checked out his newsletter, you really are missing something!