Northern Pintail. ©Ed Bustya
"Sometimes teachers are the most nervous," agrees Laurel Harrison, a Visitor Services staffer at Patuxent Research Refuge outside Washington, DC, "especially when we’re doing a program where we have a snake. The teacher will be cowering in the back of the room, and after all the kids touch the snake, they come forward and say, 'Okay, okay. I'm going to do this.' "
Getting visitors to reweigh perceived threats is an art. Once, while Jenna Mendenhall was leading two dozen visitors on a tour of Tualatin River Refuge, a coyote started howling. "Immediately, the whole group just came around me," recalls the Friends Conservation Lead Coordinator. "They were scared and wanted to go back to the visitor center. I had everybody howl back. I told them, 'The coyotes are across the river. We are a very large group of people. They're not coming near us.' As we kept walking, people became more comfortable, slowing down instead of standing right next to me."
Some visitors want to challenge old fears. Mary Stumpp signed on this winter as a volunteer at crane-filled Bosque del Apache Refuge, an odd choice for someone with a lifelong fear of birds. Her task: using a tractor to mow corn for feeding sandhill cranes. Slowly, she grew accustomed to seeing flocks overhead. Writes Stumpp, "I began to see the cranes not as a threat but as beautiful creatures. To my surprise, I began to care about them …"
But only from a distance. Then she watched a duck banding exercise. Says Inslee, "She was apprehensive at first. I held a duck. I let it hold my finger in its bill, and showed her it didn't hurt. She got to the point where she was banding them. She was really proud of herself. In the end, she was calling herself 'the duck whisperer.' To help anxious visitors, refuge staffers share some proven tactics. Visitors may be surprised to hear refuge staffers aren’t all fearless. Snakes and spiders don't faze Mendenhall, at Tualatin River Refuge. "I actually don’t care for raccoons," she says. "I’m trying to learn more about them." Bosque del Apache Refuge’s Deputy Manager Aaron Mize owns up to a fear of heights, snakes and — he admits this is a weird one — "bottom-feeding fish: suckers and carp with their nasty little mouths. There's a reason I'm not a fisheries biologist."
Find out what they know. At Patuxent Refuge, Harrison meets students on familiar turf before a refuge visit. She throws them softball questions: Do you spend any time outside? What’s your favorite animal? Then she moves to the hard stuff: Are there any animals you’re worried about? She invites students to confide fears in writing "so they don't have to worry about being embarrassed in front of their classmates."
Don’t dissemble. To a child nervous about snakes, Harrison offers, 'Just so you know, there are snakes at Patuxent, but I almost never get to see any. That's because they're shy, and they can feel the ground tremble, and they go and hide when they hear people coming."
Never feed a wild animal. Says Westland, "If fed, they lose their fear of humans, so we do a ton of education about not feeding alligators." Also ill-advised: getting too close, crouching at the water's edge (you look smaller), turning your back or challenging a basking gator for rights to a path. Even if you were there first, go around the gator. Says Westland, "People joke, just as they do with bears, 'You just have to run faster than person with you.' You shouldn’t be running at all."
Contain nervous adults. Says Sagan, "I allow the adults to be nervous if they like but not to show it in front of the kids so they do not develop the same fear for no reason."
Let kids adjust at their own pace. In classroom demos, Harrison lets kids decide if they want to touch a live frog or snake. "I have sometimes had parents take a child’s hand and say, 'Touch it, touch it.' And I have to say, 'Remember, we want to empower kids to say ‘no.' So when they say it, we have to respect it.'"
Appoint a helper. At Assabet Refuge near Boston, Visitor Services Manager Kizette OrtizVanger watched an intern calm an anxious young visitor by asking, " 'Would you like to be my assistant for the day?' The kid said, 'Yeah.' The intern would say, 'Do you know what this is?' or 'Can you hold this for me?' He was being more supportive of the kid without singling him out."
Show enthusiasm. "Students pick up on that; they see that you’re not afraid," says Sagan at Great Swamp. "We take kids on a boardwalk above the swamp. I tell them they're going to see cool things like spotted salamanders and turtles. Someone will say, 'Oh gross.' And I say, 'No, they’re so cool. Wait til you see one.'"
More Articles
- National Institutes of Health: Common Misconceptions About Vitamins and Minerals
- Oppenheimer: July 28 UC Berkeley Panel Discussion Focuses On The Man Behind The Movie
- Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library
- Scientific Energy Breakeven: Advancements in National Defense and the Future of Clean Power
- The Beige Book Summary of Commentary on Current Economic Conditions By Federal Reserve District Wednesday November 30, 2022
- A la Frank Sinatra: "Come Fly With Me", U.S. Department of Transportation Airline Customer Service Dashboard
- Center for Strategic and International Studies: “The Future Outlook with Dr. Anthony Fauci”
- Kaiser Health News Research Roundup: Pan-Coronavirus Vaccine; Long Covid; Supplemental Vitamin D; Cell Movement
- Shhhhhh by Ferida Wolff
- Veterans Health Care: Efforts to Hire Licensed Professional Mental Health Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists