Audubon volunteer reflects on last 40 years
Published Oct. 7, 2022, in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.
By Barb Gorges
Forty years ago this month, October 1982, I attended my first Audubon meeting—as president.
My husband of one month, Mark, had been the first president the previous two years of a new chapter, the Rosebud Audubon Society. It covered Miles City and southeastern Montana.
Mark and his friends wanted to start an environmental club and Audubon appealed to them, especially birdwatching field trips.
Miles City in 1980 had 9,600 people (2020 census, 8,300). The closest other incorporated town is Forsyth, 46 miles west, population 1,600 today. The closest big city is Billings, 146 miles west, population 66,000 then and 117,000 today.
We were very creative in finding programs for our monthly meetings. We had natural resource professionals to call on from the offices in town: Custer County Conservation District, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department, U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Fort Keogh Research Station and the Natural Resource Conservation Service, as well as Miles Community College.
We could also borrow films from Audubon’s Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Boulder, Colorado. First it was those big reels in metal cans, later VHS cassettes.
Our early newsletters were typed, duplicated, folded, stuffed into envelopes with address stickers and stamps applied. Later, we did without the envelope.
Mark took me on my first Christmas Bird Count two months later. We were covering some area near either the Tongue or Yellowstone rivers which converge outside town. It was zero degrees. Because Mark, the wildlife biologist, was better at bird i.d., I got to keep the list—with pencil and paper. I couldn’t manage them without taking off my mittens and it was soon painful. A few years later we took our older son along, using snowdrifts as diaper changing tables.
The chapter got involved in local projects, city parks, if I remember. I don’t have the old newsletters—but we used to mail a copy each month to the state archives.
Then in 1989, Mark took the fisheries biologist job with BLM’s state office here in Cheyenne, a big city which presumably would have a big Audubon chapter where we could simply volunteer for a committee or two.
Cheyenne High-Plains Audubon Society was founded in 1974 and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2014. But in 1989 it was at a low point. The founders were tired. We finally met them at the 1989 Christmas Bird Count tally party.
To revive the chapter, Mark volunteered to be vice president, I volunteered to be program chair and 10 other people stepped in to fill other positions. In the 33 years we’ve been with Cheyenne Audubon, Mark has been president 9 years and me 7.
Cheyenne is a great location for finding speakers for monthly programs. In addition to all the county, state and federal offices corresponding to the ones in Miles City, we are less than an hour’s drive from the University of Wyoming and graduate students looking for audiences.
National Audubon’s regional office was still in Boulder in the 1990s and staff would come up to visit. Later, it was abolished and we had our own state office in Casper. That’s gone now and we work with staff at the regional Audubon Rockies office in Fort Collins.
We have members who can do travelogs of their nature-based trips. And there are staff from several other environmental organizations in town to speak about issues. We host speakers seven times a year.
I started writing this column in 1999 and thanks to Cheyenne Audubon, I’ve never lacked for topics beyond the birds in my backyard.
The chapter has grown. We now average 150 dues-paying members per year with another 300 friends on our email mailing list (see www.CheyenneAudubon.org).
We’ve lobbied local, state and federal governments on environmental issues. We add our expertise to city park and conservation district plans. We offer educational and conservation grants. We invite the public to join us for our programs and monthly birdwatching field trips. We are planning our ninth Habitat Hero workshop in February.
After 40 years, newsletters are digital, programs can be offered in-person and virtually, field trip bird lists are entered on the eBird phone app and grant money seems to be attracted to us. We work hard to get it spent on worthwhile projects that support our view that what is good for birds and other wildlife will be good for us too.
What hasn’t changed is the need to speak up for the welfare of birds, other wildlife and people. New threats to our mutual health and safety seem to show up every day. But at least watching birds gives us mental health breaks. Those birds and the people who love them have taught me a lot these last 40 years.
Cheyenne Bird Banter 