02-16: Birding while Black with Drew Lanham

The American Birding Podcast

naswick

Science, Birding, Hobbies, Travel, Birdwatching, Leisure, Aba, Ornithology, Nature, Birds

4.7 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2018

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One of the issues that the birding community has been reckoning with for the last several years is our relative lack of diversity, at least in terms of black and brown faces in the field, and how we can encourage a broader coalition of nature enthusiasts to join us and to share the joy of birding. It's an issue that Dr. Drew Lanham has given a great deal of thought. Lanham is a distinguished professor of wildlife ecology at Clemson University, he sits on the boards of both National Audubon and the American Birding Association, and his memoir, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair With Nature was published in 2017. Drew was recently profiled in the August/September issue of Garden & Gun magazine and he joins host Nate Swick to talk about his experiences as a black man who loves what he calls one of "the whitest things you can do".

Also, news from the border as birders are given another opportunity to make their voices heard on the proposed border wall that will cut off several great birding locations.

Thanks to our episode sponsor, Land, Sea, and Sky. Since 1940, the optics experts at Land Sea & Sky to purchase just the right pair of binoculars for their birding adventures. This shop has hundreds of binoculars and spotting scopes in stock, an industry-leading 90 day return policy, and experienced staff to lend you a helping hand.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode of the American Birding Podcast is brought to you by Land, Sea, and Sky.
0:04.3	Since 1940, birders have turned to the optics experts at Land Sea and Sky to purchase
0:08.5	just the right pair of binoculars for their birding adventures.
0:11.5	The shop has hundreds of binoculars and spotting scopes in stock, an industry-leading 90-day
0:16.1	return policy, and experienced staff to lend you a helping hand.
0:20.1	Stop by their shop in Houston or visit them anytime at Lanskyskyco.com.
0:28.7	Hello and welcome to another episode of the American Burning Podcast from the American
0:32.6	Burning Association.
0:33.7	I am your host, Nate Swick, and I want to start this episode off with sort of a throwback to an issue we talked, a fair bit about at the end of last year, and that is the proposed border wall in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, and how it stands to impact birding opportunities in that part of the ABA area. Certainly one of the most fascinating and
0:55.3	exciting birding locals in the United States. And I know we have a lot of Canadian birders that
0:59.5	travel there and love it just as much as well. You may remember that one of the original plans
1:04.5	for the region was for the federal government to construct a border wall across the levee at
1:10.5	Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge.
1:12.3	The location, I mean, it's known as the crown jewel of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
1:16.9	It's one of the best remaining patches of native valley habitat in an area that has seen so much of that habitat lost in recent decades.
1:24.5	The construction would have blocked off, probably blocked off the entire refuge to
1:29.4	birders. It would have been very bad for a wildlife movement in general. Certainly some birds
1:33.3	can fly over the wall, but many, many cannot or won't, actually, more likely. And there are, of course,
1:39.0	a lot of special mammals and reptiles and whatnot without the ability to fly that this would
1:43.2	have impacted.
1:49.0	And as such, the ABA adamantly opposed this policy, this border wall, at this spot,
1:53.9	and we encouraged a lot of birders to contact their representatives and make their voices heard.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from naswick, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of naswick and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.