Episode 51: Roger Smith talks about bears, raptors, and life as a field biologist

Today’s episode features field biologist Roger Smith, the founder and chair of the Teton Raptor Center, a rehabilitation facility in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that annually cares for more than 130 injured birds.

Roger and his wife, Margaret Creel, who also is a field biologist, established the Teton Raptor Center in 1997 as a facility committed to rehabilitating birds of prey.

Both Ken and Dawn have visited the center, which has an education outreach program that reached nearly 37,000 people in 2016. “For our listeners who have never been to the Teton Raptor Center, I can honestly say that a visit to the center and the Grand Teton National Park would be well worth your time,” says Ken at the end of episode 51.

Roger has spent his entire professional career in the natural sciences and environmental education. After high school, he headed off to the University of Montana and started his life as a field biologist researching grizzly bears in northwestern Montana in 1977.

He continued to study grizzly and black bears in Alaska, Maine and Colorado before completing his secondary science degree in 1984. After teaching high school science in Montana, he moved to Jackson Hole in 1985 and joined the resident faculty at the Teton Science School. At the school, he designed and implemented a field-oriented natural science curriculum for adults and children. In 1987, he joined the field staff at the National Outdoor Leadership School and led courses in Wyoming, Texas, Mexico and Kenya. In 1994, Roger completed his Master’s degree in Wildlife Biology and Physiology at the University of Wyoming.

Roger’s research has focused on raptors and ravens of the Grand Teton National Park. His research and papers have been published in a number of peer-reviewed professional journals.

In 1994, he helped initiate and manage the professional residency in environmental education program at the Teton Science School, and was on the faculty there until 1999. He managed all aspects of independent research, including grant and proposal writing.

Roger founded the Teton Raptor Center in 1996 and became the Resident Naturalist at 3Creek Ranch in 2002.

Links:

Teton Raptor Center: http://tetonraptorcenter.org

Raptor Center video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdTB9hcF02k

Roger's IHMC Ocala lecture: http://www.ihmc.us/lectures/20170308/

Show Notes:

4:26: Ken and Dawn welcome Roger to the show.

4:40: Dawn asks Roger where he grew up and what kind of childhood he had.

6:56: Dawn discusses how Roger went to the University of Montana to study wildlife biology and as a freshman volunteered for a grizzly bear project, where he spent time in the wild analyzing grizzly bear scat.

8:54: Ken recalls a story Roger told him about him working on a black-bear project in 1979, which involved trapping and tagging bears in northern Maine. Ken comments on how this was an interesting time to be in the Maine woods as a young person. Ken then asks Roger if there are any adventures he would like to share from his time in northern Maine.

12:46: Ken comments on how bears are also found in the Tetons and throughout the Yellowstone ecosystem. He discusses how we often see warning signs posted to alert hikers and campers in areas where bears have been active. Ken then asks Roger if we have seen changes in activity in recent times, and if so, what drives those changes.

15:15: Ken discusses how he read a story about a grizzly bear breaking into someone’s garage to eat an elk carcass.

16:22: Dawn says that the grizzly bear is a reclusive animal and asks Roger what we know about its lifecycle.

18:07: Dawn comments that bears are opportunistic omnivores, eating a lot of berries and plants. She then asks Roger to discuss a grizzly’s diet.

20:18: Ken asks Roger to discuss bear hibernation and how it is different than other hibernators.

24:43: Ken discusses his amazement with the management of waste and kidney function,