backpacking - The Environment Report

Birder Connects With Nature

Anya Dale (pictured above) says being in nature "forces you to look at your priorities." (Photo by Kyle Norris)

Here’s the latest installment in our
occasional series about people’s connections to
the environment. Producer Kyle Norris has been
asking people if they feel close to nature. Today
she hikes with her friend Anya Dale,
an amateur bird-watcher and nature enthusiast:

Transcript

Anya and I are walking through a shady, hilly forest. And birds are
chirping everywhere. Usually when Anya hikes, it’s just her and nature.
Microphones and reporter friends usually don’t make it into the
equation, so I think Anya’s a little nervous:

“See um, yeah, that’s where it is (bird sounds) I don’t know if you can
see it. Sorry I’m totally getting distracted. Do you see, it’s like
through that tree, the one tree behind it, now it’s flying back. I
think they’re red belly woodpeckers. Let’s go down closer.”

Anya is little and feisty. She buys almost all of her clothes from
second-hand stores. I always see her in earth-toned corduroys and
fleece vests. She’s this eco-groovy chick walking down the path:

“Well, right now, we are walking through Bird Hills. Checking out the
trails. I partially try to just zone out a little bit. Coming out here to a
certain extent is an escape to do much of anything. But I also just
find myself listening to all the birds and trying to figure out what
kind they are and where they are. It’s usually not too successful, but it’s
still fun just listening and paying attention to what’s around.

Anya says that when she doesn’t spend time outside, she gets grouchy.
She recently visited New York City. Even though she had a fun time, she
says the city just doesn’t move her the way spending time in nature
does. Like the time she went backpacking with her friend:

“It forces you to look at your priorities and what does, it really
matter you don’t like your hair cut you got, does it really matter that
you don’t do all of these things. Or do you have time to focus on what
is important that you accomplish in your life? Or the people in your
life. And it forces you to slow down.”

As we walked through the woods, Anya pointed out tons of birds. We
listened to one that sounded like a monkey. Anya said that bird always
make her laugh. In fact, a lot of birds catch her attention. We
couldn’t walk for more than a few minutes without her stopping mid-
sentence to track some bird:

“Part of what the awe I have in birds is that they’re really tough. And
also just being able to survive the winters or even just the cold
nights, they essentially go into torpor, it’s sort of like a type of
hibernation not quite as deep. But they go into this every night and
lose fifty percent of their body weight and they have to shiver and
shiver and shiver to wake themselves back up. And it’s a huge stress on
their body and they truly, what they eat during the day is what’s going to keep them
alive at night. But you just hear their pretty songs and they’re flying
around playing and they’re incredibly tough.”

They’re not just tough. They have a bird’s eye view of life, literally.
Anya told me that she admires how birds can really see the big picture
of things. That’s because they migrate thousands of miles. She says
that larger view is something she strives to see in her daily life:

“And I think about them, they can just, not that there’s an infinite
number of place they can fly to, but they sort of get this more
regional or global view of the world than most other species or other
animals. So, sometimes I think that’s got to be amazing to see things
on a bigger scale like that…Sorry I always get distracted as soon as I see
a bird, so it’s hard for me to focus!”

I’m not a birder and I don’t really spend a lot of time paying
attention to birds. But after Anya and I went hiking I started to
notice them. Like the other day a cute little bird with a cherry-red
splash on its head stood next to me on the sidewalk. And I heard
woodpeckers during my morning run through the woods. Birds are
everywhere. And maybe you’re like me… you didn’t even notice them,
until somebody pointed them out.

For the Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

Bear Activity in National Park Increases

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore plans to step up its education campaign about the do’s and don’ts of living in bear country. Park officials hope that will end this past summer’s encounters between campers and bears. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike Simonson reports:

Transcript

The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore plans to step up its education campaign about
the do’s and don’ts of living in bear country. Park officials hope that will end this past summer’s encounters between campers and bears. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mike
Simonson reports.

With about 30 bears on Stockton Island, some of them decided to swim for a less-
crowded scrounging area. So, this summer, campers reported bears rummaging through
their food on neighboring islands – forcing the Park Service to close a couple of
campsites.

Apostle Islands Resource Specialist Julie Van Stappen says the bear population may be a
little crowded. And even though there has been an annual hunt of bears since the mid-1990’s, she doesn’t expect much help thinning out the bear population from hunters.

“Very few people do it. You have to get out to the islands and there’s no motorized equipment allowed, so it would be a very different hunt.”

Next summer, Van Stappen says instead of moving bears or closing campsites, the best
bet is to educate campers about storing food, and not attracting bears in the first place.
She says that would be the simplest way to end the close encounters of the bear kind on
the Apostle Islands.

For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mike Simonson.

Wilderness Survival

There’s been an increasing interest in wilderness survival classes recently,
sparked in large part by Y-2-K doomsayers. But survival training isn’t
new – for years, hikers, campers and other outdoor enthusiasts have taken
these classes to improve their skills…and along the way, often realize a
deeper connection with the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Wendy Nelson reports:

Adirondack Man

As in so many rural areas, the culture of the Adirondack Mountains is
in decline. The days of hunting and trapping have given way to
condominiums and convenience stores. At one time, the Adirondack
pack-basket was a emblem of this culture. But the number of people who
make them has dwindled. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly
visited one of the few residents keeping this tradition alive: