Steve K. Sherrod, PhD

Executive Director, Sutton Avian Research Center

Today’s Date: 7-26-06

1. What interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

As a child (I am 58 now) at a time when nobody cared nor did laws regulate, I raised all kinds of wild animals from coyotes to squirrels, from snakes to lizards, and from mourning doves to red-tailed hawks. While I was always interested in everything, raptors and other predators really captured my obsessions, and I became a falconer. I am still a falconer today, a passion that has kept me in the field and taken me all over the world, but my interest in raptors and their declines due to DDT during the 60's led to my interest in wildlife conservation, and consequently, habitat conservation, and then to human population concerns, and finally to the problem of a world economy based on a U.S. economy ultimately failing the world's ecology due to the need for continued growth.

2. Did you have a favorite place in the great outdoors during your childhood?

During my childhood, I loved spending time in the Wichita Mountains of southwest OK, and also the mountains and streams around Red River, N.M.

Now? I love the arctic most of all; followed by the high plains, scrub deserts, and grasslands.

3. As a former zookeeper, I would love to know what your favorite animal is, and why?

Although least suited for life in a zoo, after raptors, I really love the cheetah (with what you might find to be an odd description), but what I will call all the grace and beauty of predatory swan.

4. What do you think is the greatest environmental challenge facing us now, and what do you think will be the greatest challenge in the future?

As already stated, a U.S. economy based on continual growth, one that dominates and drives a world economy based on same.

5. If you could give everyone one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources, what would it be?

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Vote for environmental candidates and help educate those candidates regarding what reasonable steps can be taken to conserve habitat geographically, temporarily, quantitatively, and qualitatively. (and encourage your friends to do likewise).