Steven J. Saffier

Science Associate, National Audubon Society

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?

Having birds come to my feeder, identifying them with a field guide and recording their visits. Finding salamanders under logs. Watching a spider weave a web and catch prey...that one is Zen.

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

The woods behind my house, and the nearby preserve, Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia.

Now? Pennypack, Muir Woods, Mt. Tamalpais, Cold Creek Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains, Shawangunk Mountains in the Catskills, Moab Utah, just about any deep deciduous forest in the east, and the million places I have yet to see.

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

American Crows. True thinkers, clowns, strong, graceful, clever, agile, vulnerable. I think I may have been one in a previous life.

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?

Land use, development, paving paradise...and how we view our needs (i.e. the new mall) as equally important to preservation of natural resources. The mindset that leveling a forest, desert, or prairie is the best way to build a structure has to be challenged. Green buildings and ecologically-minded development must be considered. Everyone, especially children, must have encounters with nature daily...and so it must be preserved or re-created around homes, schools, and commercial properties. Development will continue, there's no getting around that...but how it's practiced will have profound effects on the environment and how "we" view it.

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

If you ask me tomorrow, I might have a different answer. But today I say support your local (and national) land trust organization. These are the people who buy up tracts of land, postage stamps in some cases, so that others can have some green in their lives. All of these postage stamps add up and do contribute to the sustainability of birds and other wildlife.

Another would be to GET OUTSIDE! Enjoy the natural world. Observe silence, even for a minute or so, in nature. Inhale what it has to offer.