Maine Audubon chooses Educator of the Year

Ron Davis, creator of the popular Orono Bog Boardwalk, has been named 2006 Educator of the Year by Maine Audubon.

A former University of Maine professor of biological sciences, Davis, 75, taught courses on conservation, ecology, wetlands and the natural history of Maine for more than 40 years at the Orono campus and at Colby College in Waterville.

He also is known for his ecological studies of northern New England salt marshes and coastal spruce-fir forests as well as lakes, alpine tundra and peat lands.

Judy Markowsky, director of the Fields Pond Audubon Center in Holden, nominated Davis after working with him to develop the milelong bog boardwalk, which opened in 2003.

“I have taken a class with him at the university and I know what a great teacher he is,” she said. “The bog project crowns his career as an educator. It’s just a wonderful education project that reaches an amazing amount of people.”

Before the creation of the boardwalk, the peaceful beauty of the bog went unnoticed, Markowsky said. “You had to walk at thigh level in the muck. Now so many more people can appreciate it.”

Intended to educate the public about wetlands and provide quiet outdoor recreation, the boardwalk is a 1-mile loop trail that begins at the Bangor City Forest and crosses into the University of Maine-owned portion of the Orono bog, passing through changing vegetation and environments including the peat moss-carpeted center of the bog.

The number of visits to the boardwalk has grown each year, from 14,000 to 27,000. Last year, people from at least 57 Maine towns, 44 other states and 15 foreign countries visited.

“Ron and his volunteers have created a premier destination for people of all ages and abilities to experience the intriguing plants and animals of a Maine bog,” said Kevin Carley, Maine Audubon’s executive director.

Although Davis stepped down as director of the bog walk last year, he continues to be involved with the programs he developed. He conducts guided walks for students and organizes the volunteer docents who greet visitors and inform them about the natural history and ecology of the bog.

Davis said this week that he is delighted to be cited by Audubon. “For me, it is fun teaching the young and old about what you really love, and I love the out-of-doors and the ecology of nature. When teaching, I am always hopeful that my enthusiasm will be transferred to members of my audience.”

He has succeeded on that score. Hundreds of his students have gone on to careers involving the environment, according to Davis. Some have become managers in national and state parks, others have taken jobs at the Department of Environmental Protection, and still others are environmental consultants at private companies.

Since retiring from UM in 2003, Davis, an Orono resident, has been busier than ever, giving presentations at the Audubon Center and traveling the globe as a volunteer with Earthwatch Institute, an international organization that conducts research to promote conservation.

He has surveyed the wetland system in Brazil known as the Pantanal. In Peru, he researched the biology of the macaws, and in Sri Lanka he studied the toque macaque, a type of monkey. He also traveled to Nepal to analyze lake sediment.

Closer to home, he is helping preserve the ecologically sensitive Penjajawoc Marsh watershed in Bangor.

Although, Davis spent most of his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., he lived for a short time in a small rural community in the Catskill Mountains.

“That was the beginning for me,” he said. “I fell in love with nature. I can still remember lying on my belly at the edge of a stream, dangling a worm on a hook, catching a trout for the first time. I just loved the forest. I took care of the gardens and the peach trees. It was quite a stimulating experience for a city boy.”