Commission is an ardent champion of the arts. Coowner of cap pilot coffeehouse in gulfport. Thank you very much. Welcome to our session this morning on nature and the environment. For most of my life my entry to American History was to the biographies of our founding fathers. Washington, jefferson, franklin, then through to lincoln, frederick douglass, theodore roosevelt, Martin Luther king, shirley chisholm, henry enerplex, james baldwin, Dwight Eisenhower among many others. Objectives is the bald eagle. In a whole new world open to me. I miss upon which our country was founded and without which they would be no United States of america. Our naturales resources, land, water, flora and fauna. How we obtain a profit from it. The stories in the lives of jack davis, patrick dean, Ryan Fitzgerald bring us understanding of our society or culture and our future. And that natural resourcesand ts recounted by the four authors a heartbeat in a context to our American History. In depth a dramatic and deeply emerged in the delicate splendor of the Natural World these books will discuss over the next hour explore humanitys connection to nature. The history of conservation and heroes to pave the way. Please enjoy our panel discussion. Ill introduce our four authors first and will hold up the books. Jack davis is a pulitzer prizewinning author of the gulf the making of an american see an everglades providence Marjory Stoneman douglas and the American Environmental century. Professor of environmental history at the university of florida he lives in florida and New Hampshire inc. He is here to discuss his book the bald eagle. Patrick dean writes on the outdoors and the environment has book make is both a teacher political media director presently the executive director of a rail trail nonprofits. As an avid mountain biker he lives with his wife and dogs of the Cumberland Plateau in tennessee he is thees author wet up to heaven he is also here today to discuss his latest book natures of messenger and his adventures in a new world. Hotel is a writer teacher who lives in newhe orleans hes the author of three previous books. Driveby truckers southern block opera the one true barbecued fire, smoke, the pit masters who cooked the whole hog and imagining the clean old city arise in literary culture at 19th century new orleans is here today to talk about his book on the Brown Pelican. Our fourth authors awardwinning author of 10 Nonfiction Books including skeletons of the sahara, unbound Patrick Obrien a life revealed in the future. I was writing has appeared in garden and guns National Geographic adventure, outside new York Magazine and the new york times. Hes a chief storyteller into History Channel documentaries and the producer of a series hatfield and mccoys white lightning. Internationally known speaker appeared on npr top of the nation. Abc world news tonights, pbs American Experiences and also x. Here today speak about his book guardians of the valley. Please welcome our four authors. [applause] i would like to start mike will have a discussion among the authors and as we approach the end of this hour we will take questions. And for those questions there is a microphone and a podium in the center of the room. So pleasee, as we get closer or around the 40 minute mark step up there and wait patiently and we will take your questions. First though idea like to start enough each of our guests to give a three or four minute overview of thehe book. The premise of the book and talk in general a little bit about it. Ryan i would like to start with you. Tell us a bit about Brown Pelican. How you found it, how you got into it pretty quick sure. I think what will become evident over our virtual time together thats not already evident his compelling stories about nature and the environment require compelling characters and by characters i mean people we are all telling stories about people and how they have operated print how they have lived within what they think of as nature and the environments. That is not to say the Brown Pelican the subject of my new book is not a compelling character l in and of itself upr if you live along the gulf coast. If you live along the southerly end of the atlantic or pacific you likely love the Brown Pelican like iit do. You love watching it divebomb from 60 plus feet from on high to catch fish. It is so graceful it is also so awkward that pouch they call it is kind of not only dangles but it wobbles as it walks. It is an awesome bird. But the story i tell is the story of peoples relationship with this bird the Human History of the Brown Pelican. The character that leads off the book is one whos probably known to a lotot of us i imagine in ts audience today that Walter Anderson a Famous Artist who was a resilient board in new orleans which i live now. Of course looked up the majority of his labor up on the coast of the mississippi. If we know him we know him as the painter, the artist whose works are highly valued on the market. Like to see him and i see him in this book is a documentarian. He lived many years, many decadents on several Barrier Islands to camp out on along the coast of louisiana than mississippi. Painting a wildlife, sketching a wild epic documenting in a series of journals what he was seeing. His favorite saying i would say his favorite bird was the Brown Pelican but he loved to describe Brown Pelican and all of theirir glory. He talks about living like the Brown Pelicans and sleeping among the Brown Pelicans and building a nest like the Brown Pelicans fishing and bathing like the Brown Pelicans. He loved this bird. He was also toward the end of his life you witnessed the extinction of the Brown Pelican in the gulf of mexico by the Brown Pelican was extinct along the coast of louisiana and the Greater Gulf Coast the upper gulf coast by 1968. And he was documenting it. He was writing aboutnd a p did t quite understand it he hady guesses we very soon knew it was due to pesticides like ddt. Its Walter Anderson that launches this book i talk aboutd about why we have Brown Pelicans in louisiana and along the gulf coast is largely due to a crazy plan that was developed to assure that it was almost hollywood asked. It was a plan so crazy it had to work pretty came down to a pair of alligator scientists who did not know a thing about birds they were tasked with rescuing and bringing back the Brown Pelican to louisiana. This also involves a series many years of bird happenings across state lines. Learning the pinpointing of that day to bird naps a baby pelican, the exact day but to feed that baby turning into a teenage pelican over months. It works. I grew up in the 1980s talking to my parents and other people from older generations now. They did not see Brown Pelicans. But as soon as i started to understand what they could identify what that bird was i am lucky to have Brown Pelicans in my life. Now we have around 10,000 breeding pairs estimate of Brown Pelicans in the upper gulf of mexico. Very healthy population. Is due to two things. The strange plan that works. Also addressing an up the bp oil spill and left the state of louisiana many nonprofits the state federal government with a lot of money to restore the Barrier Islands of louisiana. Ad under the seas, the gulf and through many, many millions of dollars. We have over the past decade plus, we have been restoring these islands which are major bird habitats and i was able to visit many of these islands are off limits to tourists. I was able to go some pelicans, scientists and take in documenting to take part in documenting the revival. That is my book indifferent by the stories with many compelling characters within. Thank you. Patrick, tell us about mark. As ryan said characters an interesting time to drive the deer did like the ones that were going to talk about today, the 18th century artist explorer certainly qualifies and is definitely a fascinating time. We are going from the present with extinctions and some resuscitations recoveries and landed in charleston almost no one in Great Britain had any idea of what they look like for a magnolia tree and largely responsible for the fact that many of them solve his images for the very first time, mastereded piece published betwn 1731 and 1746 and the story of how we got to america what he did while hes here going back and crating aty masterpiece prey much the story of my book he is a landmark and will have time to talk about today. He was exceptional for many reasons and had many first to his name is definitely worth talking about and he finds himself in the shadow, looking forward to talking about that. You have a wonderful book tell us about it. I think its essential story by john and when i started looking into writing about who immigrated to the United States from scotland in 1838 i was born in 1830 immigrated in 1849 to wisconsin he had an interesting life and a a lot of the details have been forgotten in manufacturing and shovel handles out of wood and he forgot he had a real practical side and i wanted to figure out where there wasnt much we remember them why is important in Yosemite National park with inspiration that is so magnificent i just realized i wanted to be there and talk about it in the editor Robert Underwood johnson when youre getting into the mere story these two guys came together in the most dynamic editor dual in the u. S. English literature and johnson is the sentry magazine and two articles of Yosemite Valley and the National Park and im going to publish a midcentury magazine and take it down to washington, d. C. And put them on the desk ol every congressman and a little skeptical politics at the time but he trusted it andon he did t and sure enough he put those stories on the desks in the National Park was created in the beginning of the problem what they had done that created a National Park around the state park that abraham liggett had said with the valley during the civil war. It was the beginning of a rich partnership where they would also bringe it back the nationl storage system and create the sierra club and influence theodore roosevelt. This is against the backdrop of industrialization in the civil war up until the beginning of world war i and the voice of the Sierra Nevada to protect the mountain and the giant sequoias literally getting mowed down the United States had just swept across the country and the 3000yearold trees were gettinn cut down like no realization that they wouldnt just pop back up again and that was a valuable thing to remember today when you have them telling us we need to Pay Attention to environmental condition. I also tried to cover the history, he left a great description on the road magnificent stories he had hundreds and hundreds ofer letts and im able to look into that relationship and try toin bring that alive as well and that is the just amount trying to make john come back alive and understanding him in hisfa nuane life not just the National Club but a real living breathing explorer venture scientist and inspirational character. Tell us about their bald eag. Is a great pleasure tova be here in miccosukee as well i live in miccosukee in the early 90s and my first two books are ony miccosukee and i dont have verye good friends that le here in jackson and it feels like coming home i live in Gainesville Florida now but it feels like coming home its always such a delight in my literary career began in miccosukee and as you know exist powerful sense of place in the physical environment and the cultural environment there is so much as a writer there is so much you could take away from miccosukee and its people and its national surrounding. In the bald eagle the book is a history of american relationships with the bald eagle, the species and the symbol as we know very powerful symbol and in 1782 and as rhinomac colleagues suggested that they see nature as an animating force in the course of Human Affairs and an agent in the course of Human History. In our work the nonhuman denizens of nature become characters. And it might tell stories about those nonhuman of nature in the relationship. And a great story there is conflict and while a lot of americans the bald eagle is similar to other countries but around time they hated the species and posted to the brink of extinction twice but this is the story that also includes an wonderful story of restoration and redemption in you know ten or 15 years ago we did not see bald eagles we saw them in alaska or northern minnesota all eagles were a rare sight now we see them all the time and we could not imagine harming that bird now. Anytime you see that bird we have seen a Success Story we deserve a pat on her backs for doing something right by nature the bald eagle story is a big conservation Success Story and part of the genre and intends to focus on the doom and gloom and i want to write a positive story to some degree in the 21st century. And the bald eagles as many people have and refused to admire it was the right symbol for the United States. If you could talk a bit about the establishment and the republicanta murders, talk about conflict this is interesting not only around pelican but the larger conservation in america, Pelican Island is a very small island off the Atlantic Coast of florida near Cape Canaveral and it had been a long time pelican colony as well as other coastal bird species in the Brown Pelican throughout florida was being hunted around the turnofthecentury in the early 1900s. Out were brightly colored and the beautiful stark white the feathers of the pelican were abundant and easy to accumulate. Pelican island and many other spots in florida and president roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt was presented with an idea by Early Institute higherups and to create the First National wildlife and that is what Pelican Island became it a sense grown from the small island that it originally was which is surrounded by citrus growth which is a larger Pelican Island complex if you could see most of it in the day and telling the story of some of the original game wardens who work there in the early 20th century and the men who were tasked with living among birds and this is included in the everglades and often these men would be hunted themselves in and out think people stopped collecting. You can read stories in a bit of a place to take a spot in the road trip to. What are the unique things that mark did in his work unlike audubon who often killed his subject before he h painted the, mark actually kept it in and around the floor in the sauna you not only saw the wildlife and what they were eating on can you explain that and see how groundbreaking. I was. And wanting. I will say ascot pointed out and i quoted on social media. Itsit not nice. With that said whenever possible, when you look at his artwork wonderful color insert, when you look at his artwork you will be amazed he could do such detailed specific renderings of animals he saw operating in that way. I caught up in the exterminator and chief. Its been well documented now, he not only killed all the birds and thatll lead to more birds to just toss it aside. That was when the distinctive thing the other one to place the birds that he described and that he painted on the plans for which they had a relationship and that sort of thing. In his book in the National History the book and description on the left side from his travels. He would often take it to describe his relationships in the descriptions on the left as he pretrade them on the right and he is considered by many a precursor of the humbles and the broad wins in the other oncologist who would bring that. What arehe the things that if ts is a lives in the people and i was reading your wonderful book, you became so vivid youve done such a great job in bringing into life, there are several sections in the book where you were actually describing two or 3inchf footballs climbing down to get to the waterfall and hanging on the