The Call of the Wild

Walking along the boardwalk trail at Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge in New Orleans East with naturalist Bob Thomas reminded me of the “Impress your friends…with MAGIC!” advertisement that used to run in the old DC comic books I read when I was a kid.

The ad showed a smiling, clever boy dressed in a cape waving a wand over the opening of a top hat as other kids looked upon him with awe.

Thomas pointed to a leaf hanging on a sweet gum tree. “You know what this is?” I didn’t answer. Neither did any of the group of quizzical souls vying to earn “Master Naturalist” credit.

I was thinking, “It ain’t nothin’ but a leaf;” but I kept my mouth shut.

“It’s a bagworm moth,” Thomas said. A bagworm moth begins as a larva that, upon birth, builds itself a mobile case made from environmental materials such as lichen or plant debris and woven together with silk. When the caterpillar has had its fill of eating, it attaches its case to a tree or other anchor, hanging by a thin sliver of connective tissue. The caterpillar pupates and will metamorphose into a flying moth. It’s seems miraculous that something that looks like a dead leaf could become a living, breathing organism, but it’s true. I looked it up. And that’s the whole purpose of the fledgling Louisiana Master Naturalist program.

Of course, nature is not magic; but it still involves learning the craft, knowledge, techniques, and nomenclature that professionals use when studying the environment.

Doc Thomas, the director of the Center for Environmental Communication at Loyola University New Orleans, came by his magic … uh, knowledge … the old-fashioned way; he’s been a student of nature for nearly all of his sixty-seven years. And he’s still learning.

He directed us to observe a hard, shiny material lying upon a tiny branch of the tree. The chitinous, segmented sheath looked otherworldly, like something out of the H.R. Giger sketchbook. “It’s a praying mantis egg casing,” Thomas said. “All mantis species make a similar type of casing.”

The master naturalist candidates, hanging on every word Thomas said, had looks of utter amazement upon their faces, stunned that he spotted the telltale remains of the mantis’ crypsis (hiding ability) and astonished that he knew what it was. “Cool,” one said. And it was cool.

Thomas is the creative force behind the Louisiana Master Naturalist program in New Orleans, recruiting budding nature lovers with the hope that they will metamorphose into “master naturalists.”

The requirements to attain master naturalist ranking are simple but require a level of dedication.

Rick Gupman, a park ranger who earned his master naturalist status last year, reviewed the process:

The New Orleans program is comprised of nine classes on various aspects of nature such as mammalogy, ornithology, or ecology, Gupman said. Experts in biological and natural history fields serve as the mentors.

Most of the group sessions are conducted outdoors at locations in and around the Crescent City, like Bayou Sauvage; but trips are also made as far afield as Grand Isle and Elmer’s Island. They’ll even do a night trip to Jean Lafitte National Historical Park’s Barataria Preserve to study frogs, alligators, spiders, and other creatures of the night. Seven of nine group sessions must be completed, and a pre- and post-examination is conducted.

Many students complete the initial class participation work. But the program is designed to propel participants through a process that continually engages them, requiring eight hours of continuing education and twenty hours of community service in order to achieve and maintain master naturalist status.

“Most folks that are in the program are usually participating in other existing projects relating to environmental stewardship,” Gupman said. As of now, spring and fall master naturalist certification classes are only available in the New Orleans area; but Thomas thinks chapters in Lafayette and Shreveport will be coming online soon.

The main thrust of the program is to teach curiosity.

“The one thing we want to pass on to y’all is that intrigue of nature; how to dig into it, how to find people that know what you’re talking about,” Thomas said. Thomas speaks with the fervor of a Sunday church minister. Like ministers often do, he held himself up as an example.

“I looked at some tree bark, and I peeled it away. Only then did I realize it was a sweet gum and not a winged elm,” Thomas explained. “I’m getting old as dirt, and I still see things I’ve never seen before in my life that I’ve looked at a thousand times. It drives me nuts. Nothing is more embarrassing to a biologist [than] to see things that he should have seen—like a red light blinking—twenty years before.”

Thomas wants every person in the master naturalist program to become part of the natural knowledge base. But he also wants his students to add to the knowledge base so that they, in turn, may teach others about the environment.

“The master naturalist program is trying to create an entryway for an average citizen to gain and continue to gain knowledge about their environment and share their knowledge with others in some meaningful way,” Thomas said.

So what is a naturalist? (Thomas loves answering this question. He’s excited that I asked it.)

“A naturalist is very curious about the way the environment works around him or her and goes to the next level to answer the questions nature poses,” Thomas said. “Once they start asking questions, they’ll start looking at nature very closely. Naturalists are always curious about the way the system works and always expanding their knowledge base so they’ll understand it in a better way.”

Thomas said the program draws from every age group and profession.

“The program takes people from all walks of life that are looking at nature and the environment. We teach them what to look at.”

It’s hoped that the program, now in its second year, will grow exponentially.

“We’re putting out twenty to thirty people every year and encouraging them to stay involved. The hard part is getting them certified and putting in the time to maintain certification,” he said.

Of course, naturalism goes back to the pre-European Louisiana societies; but formal naturalism in the Bayou State dates back to the time of John James Audubon, Thomas said, and as recently as Percy Viosca, a famed New Orleans naturalist who died in 1962.

“In the early days, the first target was South Carolina because the first scientists who came to America disembarked there,” Thomas said. “They traveled and frequently ended up here because of the importance of New Orleans, the Queen City. That’s why it’s a natural for us to have a program like this.”

Karen Eberle, one of the participants, gets what Thomas and the other naturalists are trying to convey. She feels the passion.

“Three things drive me: nature, culture, and travel; so I decided to become more passionately involved,” Eberle said. “We have a responsibility to spread the passion of the things we love to other people, but it has to be done in an educated manner. You need to have some education as you try to transfer that love. You can’t just say ‘we have coastal erosion’ without having some knowledge about it. I hope that I can teach what I learn to others.

“I hike and camp and enjoyed nature so much that I wanted to become more educated, so I don’t ask every person what insect or what bird this is or what plant it is.”

Thomas understands; and he hopes Eberle will ultimately become a disseminator of natural knowledge.

“When you find somebody with really broad knowledge about this stuff, it’s like you want to etch that person’s name into your brain and never forget,” he said. That’s the person he wants the students to be. Nature etched upon the brain … Eradere natura in cerebrum, as it were.

Details. Details. Details.

LouisianaMasterNaturalistGNO.org

Center for Environmental Communication 
(504) 865-2107 
loyno.edu/lucec