George Hammond learned early on that finding really cool, compelling nature doesn't have to involve malaria pills or mountaineering equipment. When he was a little boy growing up in Pasadena his babysitter would take him into the backyard and turn over rocks so they could check out what was wiggling around underneath them.
Hammond was hooked.
Now 43 - a biologist by training and website editor and content master by trade - Hammond has become the one turning over the rocks – helping others share the wonders of the natural world. By day he manages the University of Michigan Zoology Museum's Animal Diversity Web, an interactive online database of some 3,000 species of mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles and other members of the animal kingdom.
In his spare time he helps the city of Ann Arbor's Natural Area Preservation office as a sort of uber-volunteer – both taking part in surveys that inventory the area's frogs, toads and salamanders and helping the 60 or so other volunteers who do those surveys get more out of the experience. He's also helped the Huron River Watershed Council and Pittsfield Township with similar projects.
"We have 600-700 volunteers a year, and our staff isn’t able to solely do all the oversight," said NAP volunteer and outreach coordinator Jason Frenzel. "Having peer-to-peer mentoring is really important. George has set up and moderates some Yahoo discussion sites and associated websites that house the information those volunteers use during their volunteering."
Theirs can be a lonely task. Volunteers in the frog & toad surveys are assigned a certain section of town, where they listen for a chorus of frogs at different locations. Salamander survey volunteers are assigned a vernal pond in a city park. On a select cool, clammy night they hike out to the pond in hopes they'll hit the jackpot and see 100 salamanders having sex. But after the March organizational meeting, volunteers don't see each other again unless they happen to make the annual volunteer recognition banquet in October, four months after their surveys are done.
"It's a more positive, more fulfilling volunteer experience if you get more interaction with your fellow volunteers," Hammond said. "[The groups] give people a chance to share photos. It gives them a chance to chat and say 'Hey, we went out to Black Pond Woods and saw 120 salamanders in one pond.'"
Last winter Hammond volunteered to help city herpetologist Dave Mifsud with what they hoped would be the city's first-ever mudpuppy survey. Mudpuppies are salamanders that spend their entire lives underwater. In some places they move to shallower water during the coldest months, so Hammond and Mifsud went out onto the frozen Huron River and augered through the ice to set minnow traps on some of the very coldest days in January.
"I didn't make that mistake more than twice," laughs Hammond, who was named NAP' s volunteer of the year in 2008.
But as a biologist he enjoys looking at systems and the way they interact, and peeling back the natural history of a place. Over the years people adjust to the changing environment, he points out, and they forget there was a time when elk roamed Ann Arbor and there were black bears on the diag.
"In 1875, two University of Michigan undergrads walked a four-mile circle around Ann Arbor and cataloged all the mollusks," Hammond said, recounting a piece of research stored in the U-M Museum of Zoology's archive. "That's remarkable in a lot of ways. For one thing, they walked all the way around Ann Arbor and only walked four miles. For another, they were undergrads – 19-year olds, and they published (their findings). That doesn't happen as often as it should.
"And mollusks, snails and clams are very tied to certain kinds of habitat and certain conditions, so tucked in there is a lot of information about what the natural environment of this place looked like some 100 years ago."
And as fascinated as he is by the area's biological heyday, Hammond can't hide his enthusiasm for the diversity of critters and plants that persists here.
Take the Skyline High salamanders, for instance. The site of Ann Arbor's newest high school was loaded with vernal ponds and home to a couple different species of salamander, along with a few populations of hybrid salamanders. Hybrids don't typically survive or reproduce. But here they do.
"These kinds of things exist here and there, but these are right here in our backyard," Hammond said. "From Southeast Michigan there's sort of a line southwest into Indiana where a bunch of these hybrid populations exist. It's something special and unique and biologically interesting, and you don't have to go to the Amazon rain forest to find these things."
Amy Whitesall is a Chelsea-based freelance writer. Her work has appeared in The Ann Arbor News, The Detroit News and Seattle Times. She is a regular contributor to Metromode and Concentrate. Her previous article was Real Kidz In Ypsilanti.
All Photos by Dave Lewinski
Photos:
"BatGeorge" at the Leslie Science Center
More of George at the Leslie Science Center
George Hammond and A Reptilian Friend-Leslie Science Center
Turtle Power-Leslie Science Center
George Gets a Closer Look at a Tiger Salamander-Leslie Science Center
A Spotted Salamander-Leslie Science Center
Dave Lewinski is Concentrate's Managing Photographer. He LOVES reptiles, amphibians and all types of aquatic life. Especially Steve Zissou.
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