What led to your investigation at Whitehorse Bluff?
Yes, that’s an interesting thing. At that time, in the place where we had offices at Park Headquarters, we had a flower display. There were a whole series of vases lined up and labeled. That is something that nowadays they wouldn’t even allow. They wouldn’t allow you to go out there and pick any kind of flowers in the park. Each morning, so that exhibit was nice and fresh, it was necessary for one or more of the rangers to go out and get the plants. You had to get these plants from a place that was out in the wilderness because you wouldn’t want to be picking anything where people would see that the flowers were being removed. Whitehorse Bluff became an area chosen to gather plants for exhibition. It was Don Farner who guided us to those Whitehorse Ponds that turned out to be so interesting from the standpoint of the salamander eggs.
Did you also see the clams and shrimp in that area as wells?
The fairy shrimp were there in those ponds. I believe an article by Warren Fairbanks had some information. I don’t remember clams! Did he get those, too? We were always searching around for anything to do with natural history that could be included in the publication.
Did having a longer season allow you to get the articles for Nature Notes and compile them?
No, I don’t think the length of stay had anything to do with it. I was sort of the logical person to tap to do that job, and I liked it. I enjoyed it very much.
You had publications experience before that?
Oh, yes. I had published papers in my field of research. I wasn’t all that similar to Nature Notes, however.
You mentioned Don Farners’ connection with the University of Kansas. Did he continue that connection when he published the bird book?
Yes, that was the background behind how the bird book got published there at U of Kansas (10). They have a very active publishing unit, so it was easy for Don to get them to consider his manuscript.
Did you help him with his bird observations?
No, I had nothing to do with those. I’m not a ornithologist. I just don’t know enough about birds to be of any help at all there.
