I admit it. I’m as
guilty as anyone else when it comes to admiring top sports teams and appreciating
the skills of world-ranked athletes.
I love seeing them
work together as a team to win championships or close games. And I enjoy
watching individual professional athletes perform extraordinary feats.
Certainly, as a
sportswriter for more than 20 years, I have seen my fair share of
record-breaking performances, met some exceptional athletes and seen history
made in athletics that will forever be on instant replay in my mind.
But in recent years,
I’ve met some new superstars who work in virtual anonymity and deserve far more
attention than any of them would ever want. Their names are not well known and
they don’t reap lucrative benefits for the long hours of plying their craft
even though they are among the world’s best. There’s no confetti, headlines or
applause from thousands of adoring fans for these people.
In fact, most of the
time when they perform their best work, they are alone, dirty, bloody and in
environments where even their best friends might decline to go. Their incentive
is not fame and fortune, but rather, an intrinsic curiosity to answer
questions, solve problems, and detail those findings in documents that can be
used by others.
Who are these people?
They are scientists.
And these scientists
are everyday people who are committed to research often involving specific species
and specific habitats. They regularly deal with evolving changes that affect the
living organisms they study and they are unabashedly passionate about the focus
of their studies. Their fist pumps are cerebral, at most.
For example, I
recently reached out to the scientists at the Smithsonian Marine Station in
Fort Pierce, Fla., to inquire about a blue land crab (cardisoma guanhumi) that was
showing up in my neighborhood in Central Florida. Scientist Sherry Reed kindly
responded and informed me that Hurricane Irma had spawned a migration of these
crabs as they move from salt marshes to the ocean at this time of year.
Reed provided the
information I wanted, and in a follow-up email, she called these crabs
“beautiful creatures” (they are!) and admitted they were “especially near and
dear to [her] heart.”
That kind of passion
for a species and commitment to understand their existence is exactly why I
believe we should thoughtfully consider who our real heroes are -- and why.
Scientists most often
specialize in a focus area and spend countless hours and years documenting
their species. Both when things go right and when things go wrong, they still seek
answers to questions.
How many times have I
listened to Lori Morris of St. Johns River Water Management District
passionately discuss the importance of seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon? And
when an algal bloom in 2011 killed 47,000 acres of precious seagrass in the
estuary, why was I not surprised that Morris was out in the water with other
scientists, hand-planting grasses and later snorkeling to monitor its progress?
How can I not get
excited about oysters and shoreline restoration when Dr. Linda Walters of the
University of Central Florida starts talking about the work she has done with
oyster-shell recycling for nearly two decades? If you ever work with her on one
of these shoreline projects, it’s like spending a day with the Johnny Appleseed
of oysters.
I’ve also logged time
on the water with Wendy Noke of Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute looking for sick
and injured dolphins. I’ve watched Wendy suspend her great affinity for
specific animals she had monitored for years when it came time to perform
necropsies to determine what had killed them. A few years ago, when a deadly
virus swept the offshore dolphin population, I knew I could find Wendy with a
scalpel in her gloved hands, harvesting tissue for pathology results –
sometimes twice a day. Maybe even Wendy wanted to cry at the loss of so many
magnificent animals, but there was too much work to be done in the name of
science.
If you want to get
excited about sharks, listen to George Burgess talk about his favorite species.
Burgess is the director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the
Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, Fla. He has spent his career
following these animals and documenting their behaviors and statistics. He can
tell you where not to swim in New Smyrna Beach, based on shark-bite statistics
and baitfish prevalence, but he can also espouse the miracles and mysteries of
these animals from a lifetime of research.
A few times, I’ve had
the privilege of walking at the elbow of Dr. Jane Brockmann, a professor emeritus
at the University of Florida, who has studied horseshoe crabs for more than 30
years. Once I was with Dr. Brockmann when we found spawning horseshoe crabs on
an atypical shoreline. These animals are thought to have been in existence for
more than 445 million years, so to observe the surprise and delight of a
veteran scientist who was seeing something new after three decades of study was
better than witnessing a half-court buzzer beater.
Sometimes I have
dinner with another professor, Dr. Hyun Jung Cho, who teaches integrated
environmental science at Bethune-Cookman University, and I find myself
marveling at her commitment to study wetlands and aquatic vegetation at all times
– even if she’s wearing a dress on her way home from church and happens to spy
a retention pond with interesting grasses. “That’s why I keep rubber boots in
my car,” she said matter-of-factly, when I asked if she really waded into these
ponds in her Sunday clothes.
Research ecologist
Gina Kent, of the Avian Research and Conservation Institute, monitors the
nesting habits, migratory patterns and the habitat challenges of swallow-tailed
kites. When these magnificent raptors return to Central Florida from South
America to nest each year, Gina is collecting data. And with the information I
have learned from her and shared with others who live where these birds nest,
now my previously uninterested friends are excitedly offering regular reports
to me about “those birds with the interesting tail feathers.”
Even away from the
institutes and universities, the scientists among us help shine a spotlight on
our world and its living organisms that really should be valued and cherished
more than any homerun, slam-dunk, 60-yard field goal or ace in the hole.
Michael Brothers, of
the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, Fla., for example, can look at a gathering of 10,000
seagulls on a beach and identify several different species with one quick
glance. Chad Truxall of the Marine Discovery Center in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., can lead a group to a
sandbar and suddenly unveil a host of creatures just under the soil’s surface that
could otherwise easily be overlooked.
Maybe I’m slowing
down as I round the bases in life, but I can “see the pitches” better than
ever. These scientists clearly demonstrate skill, knowledge, experience,
commitment and passion – asking for nothing and giving everything they have
every single time they perform.
That’s why I say, if
you want to applaud someone for a genuine superstar performance, save it for
our scientists. They do their excellent work for the species they study, but
more importantly, for the roles their species play in the world.
Scientists are looking at history, the present and the
future with the hope their respective work can help us better understand our
world and what we can do to assure a viable planet.
And the passion they show for their work is contagious –
kind of like that wave that starts in a stadium and brings true fans to their
feet.
- Lisa D. Mickey, Oct. 8, 2017
