American Naturalists & Quotes Tony Russell, Karen Mulder May 2020
First Naturalists: Native Americans Early European Explorers (Coastal and land expeditions in the east) (1500s-1600s Verrazano, De Soto, Ribault, Raleigh, Champlain, Hudson) Thomas Harriot A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia c.1588 Early English-born Naturalists in Virginia John Banister 1654-1692 John Clayton 1694-1773 Flora Virginicus by Gronovius c.1643 Mark Catesby 1682-1749 18th-Century American Naturalists John Bartram 1699-1777 Jane Colden 1724-1766 Thomas Jefferson 1743-1826 Lucy Meriwether Lewis Marks 1752-1837 (Meriwether Lewis) Alexander Wilson 1766-1813 Andre Michaux 1746-1802 Alexander von Humboldt 1769-1859; in U.S. 1804 John James Audubon 1746-1802 19th to early 20th-century American Naturalists Thomas Say 1787-1834 Asa Gray 1810-1888 Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 Mary Treat 1830-1923 John Burroughs 1837-1921 John Muir 1838-1914 Theodore Roosevelt 1858-1919 Gifford Pinchot 1865-1946 20th and 21st-Century American Naturalists Aldo Leopold 1887-1948 Lucy Braun 1889-1971 Marjory Stoneman Douglas 1890-1998 Mary Theilgaard Watts 1893-1975 Loren Eiseley 1907-1977 Rachel Carson 1907-1964 Richard Evans Schultes 1915-2001 Eugenie Clark 1922-2015 Eugene Odum 1913-2002 E.O. Wilson 1929- Sylvia Earle 1935- Mary Oliver 1935-2019 Bernd Heinrich 1940- Barry Lopez 1945- Other Writers: Annie Dillard, Diane Ackerman, Scott Weidesaul, Barbara Kingsolver Bird Guide Heroes: Roger Tory Peterson (1908-1996); David Allen Sibley 1961- Jim Brandenburg 1945- Rick Bass 1958- Joan Maloof 1956- Locals: Bess Murray 1933-2017; Tom Dierauf 1930-; Robert Llewellyn 1945- Robin Wall Kimmerer 1953- Jon Young 1962- Jennifer Ackerman 1959- Drew Lanham 1965- Flora of Virginia published 2012; first update of Flora Virginicus/Gronovius in 250 years QUOTES “Some day the earth will weep, she will beg for her life, she will cry with tears of blood. You will make a choice, if you will help her or let her die, and when she dies, you too will die.” John Hollow Horn, Ogala Lakota
On transmission via engravings, from The Botanical Magazine of 1790, about the Purple Coneflower, also known as the source of echinacea: “This plant grows spontaneously in Virginia and other parts of North America, from whence, as Miller informs us, it was sent by Mr. Banister to Lord Compton, Lord Bishop of London, in whose curious garden he first saw it growing the year 1709. “It is figured by Mr. Catesby, in his Natural History of the Carolina, among the natural productions of that country…”.
“Observe climate as characterized by the thermometer, by the proportion of rainy, cloudy and clear days, by lightening, hail, snow, ice, but the access and recess of frost, by the winds prevailing at different seasons, the dates at which particular plants put forth their flower, or leaf, time of appearance of particular birds, reptiles or insects.” Thomas Jefferson, to Lewis and Clark Expedition
An Audubon Footnote: In 2014 the National Audubon Society issued the “Birds and Climate Change Report.” Using hundreds of thousands of citizen science observations and sophisticated climate models to predict how birds in North America will react to climate change, they concluded that 314 U.S. bird species are imperiled as climate change shrinks or shifts their habitable ranges.
“We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed, and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” Henry David Thoreau
Failing to summit Maine’s Mt. Katahdin in 1846, he exclaimed, overwhelmed by the ‘savagery’ of the land: “This was that Earth of which we have heard…Here was no man's garden, but the unhandseled globe. It was not lawn, nor pasture, nor mead, nor woodland…Man was not to be associated with it. It was Matter, vast, terrific…rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! ” [Thoreau’s Spring is on Mt. Katahdin, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.) Henry David Thoreau
“Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.” John Burroughs
“Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth. There are no heretics in Nature's church; all are believers…” John Burroughs
“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” John Muir
“It is…vandalism wantonly to destroy or to permit the destruction of what is beautiful in nature, whether it be a cliff, a forest, or a species of mammal or bird. Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds, and mammals…but at last, it looks as if our people [are] awakening.” Theodore Roosevelt
“Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.” Theodore Roosevelt
“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources ... But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted.” Theodore Roosevelt
“We abuse land because we see it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” Aldo Leopold
“The United States government has, by the establishment of national parks and monuments, taken a foremost position in the preservation of one of our great economic and social assets: unusual and superlative natural scenery.” Lucy Braun
“Be a nuisance when it counts. Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics—but never give up.” Marjory Stoneman Douglas
“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.” Rachel Carson
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” Loren Eiseley
“The Indians’ botanical knowledge is disappearing even faster than the plants themselves.” Richard Evans Schultes
“Those of us who love the sea wish everyone would be aware of the need to protect the sea.” Eugenie Clark, Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida
“Appreciating the beauty of nature is wealth, and it’s all non-market. But market economists are telling people that they should only give value and deal in human-made objects. That’s what the free market system is good at. It’s good at allocating human-made goods and services, but it isn’t worth a damn at allocating nature’s goods and services…”. Eugene Odum, first college of ecology at University of Georgia
“Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it ‘the environmentalist view,’ as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the ‘real world’ view. E.O. Wilson
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” E.O. Wilson, via Linda Fink
“I wish you would use all means at your disposal—films! Expeditions! The web! More!—to ignite public support for a global network of marine protected areas, hope spots large enough to save and restore the ocean, the blue heart of the planet.” Sylvia Earle, Mission Blue
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting—over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” Mary Oliver
“Nature is the foundation of wonder.” Bernd Heinrich
“…what we’re trying to do now is to wake up to what humanity has known for longer than 10,000 years…that you can’t direct the play. The play is not directable.” Barry Lopez
“I have tried to project the miracle as I saw it. A translation of the unknown gift we often don’t understand or even see.” Jim Brandenburg
“We’re being called upon to respond, respond, respond—less downtime, less leisure time, less thinking time, less—no processing time. And when you’re tired, you don’t have energy for passion. When you’re tired or overwhelmed, you don’t have the resources to dream a big life, live a big life, and that can present itself in the form of loneliness.” Rick Bass
“I want to preserve forests filled with old trees not only so you and I can walk in their presence, but to keep the whole web intact, alive.” Joan Maloof
“You can predict how a forest developed and how it will develop by how it was used by the people who lived on it.” Tom Dierauf
"I wanted readers to understand that Indigenous knowledge and Western science are both powerful ways of knowing, and that by using them together we can imagine a more just and joyful relationship with the Earth.” Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
“The natural world is a culture of vigilance based on carefully tended relationships and connections, maintained through recognition, mutual respect, and ‘jungle etiquette’ that in the end preserves the baseline and conserves energy.” Jon Young
“Birds are facing change on a scale unknown in their evolutionary history. This is a result of the Anthropocene—the new epoch of man-made change that is contributing to what has been called the sixth mass extinction.” Jennifer Ackerman
“My plumage is a kaleidoscopic rainbow of an eternal hope and the deepest blue of despair and darkness. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored.” Drew Lanham
Reflections and Summary from Tony Russell The Facts Human population has tripled since 1940 Old growth forests and untrammeled wilderness are disappearing Human driven climate change threatens biodiversity, water, & food chains Oceans are at risk from heating, acidification, declining oxygen Human beings in general are less connected to nature than ever before Therefore… Our roles as educators and advocates have become essential to the salvation of a livable planet.
The Response Naturalists have become aware more of what is being lost than what is being found The naturalists’ toolkit now extends beyond the pencil and sketchbook to include satellite GPS, digital, and imaging technology Naturalists have migrated from the vanguard of exploitation (18th C) to a role of advocating for conservation Naturalists have become ’wholists’, trying to understand the myriad relationships and interactions that comprise ecosystems Have we come full circle yet? Have we returned to the quality of reverence, respect and wonder of the first naturalists…the Native Americans?
John Muir: “The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”