Beach Watch Volunteer George Peterson

 

George works on tidepool charts with fellow Beach Watch volunteers.

George grew up in Ohio, where the local river was so polluted with sewage and industrial waste that even when it was hot the local kids shunned it and chose to swim in local swimming pools instead. "We didn't know better back then, that we should be taking care of our environment. That was before we started to clean up after ourselves, before we really thought about it."

The son of one of the first black police detectives in the area, George was known around town and couldn't get away with much roughhousing. Right on the Mason-Dixon Line, there was definitely still segregation, and the world was split up between black and white. "Everyone knew me so I couldn't really get into much trouble."

I asked George where he got his love of animals, as he received a minor in zoology. He couldn't put his finger on it, but later admitted that he was exposed to the outdoors and nature by his mother. Turns out his mother was the local caretaker of injured squirrels, raccoons, and birds. People would drop off birds that had fallen from their nests and raccoons that had broken a foot.

Did you have to take care of them?

"Sure, I had to feed them and clean up their poop," he responds laughing. When I interject that this is where his love of animals comes from, he agrees with a smile across his face, " I guess so." His mother was also a girl scout troop leader, so George was exposed to the outdoors during girl scout trips and learned an appreciation of animals.

Where did your love for the outdooors and the ocean come from? What's your personal connection?

"I grew up in the cold weather, slipping and sliding in the snow, but I belong in the Caribbean. I like the ocean. I've always been a beach person, I guess, I'd much rather spend time at the beach than say skiing. I just like to swim. Maybe it's a genetic thing." Not that his family is from the coast, but generations of land-locked Petersons produced a man who was determined to live by the ocean and escape the minor celebrity shadow of his father. He came to California and eventually moved from LA to the Bay Area. The Bay Area particularily appealed to him because of its diversity:"There's lots more interesting things out here. Like in Ohio, in my profession there might be one black psychologist in the whole state. It's a lot more cosmopolitan here, lots more things to do."

Why did you decide to volunteer with Beach Watch?

"I was interested in doing something with research. I've been off work for a couple years and needed something to do with my time, and I was burnt out on people. I was tired of helping people before, dealing with people's problems, so I figured animals might be cool." It's interesting to imagine George being burnt out on people, as he is very flexible and showcases a great sense of humor even when we are rained out of our cafe spot and have to continue the interview in the car.

I ask George to tell me about his typical Beach Watch survey. He gets up at 6:30 am on a Saturday to leave the house in Oakland at 7:30 and get to his beach (#405- St. Francis beach) at Half Moon Bay at 8:30 am to start his survey with his two partners.

"We get ourselves organized at the picnic tables, figure out who will do what. I've been the clicker, counter, and also the photographer. Our beach has a lot of live gulls, a lot of them. Evidentily, there used to be a dump at the end of the beach and the gulls still roost there, so there are anywhere from 5, 6, 7 thousand gulls sunning themselves."

What's the most interesting thing you've found?

"We did run into a dead California Sea lion. It was not quite as long as that car," he says as he points to a compact sedan. "It was interesting to find it, although it was a little funky, smelly. And it was the first sea lion we found on our beach, although we had seen one on our training. We saw bottlenose dolphins swimming along the surf when we first did a training run, and then we have nesting snowy plovers down the way which are roped off to protect them."

When I ask George whether it's helpful or hindering to work with new Beach Watch volunteers, he pauses to think. "It's helpful because we're all learning together and helping each other. A veteran might come in handy if they're very knowledgable about the birds, but other than that... it's not hard work, identifying. It's not rocket science. It gets easier and better over time."

George has a doctorate in mental heatlth and taught psychology at a University level for high school counselors in Los Angeles before moving to the Bay Area. He also volunteers at the Lindsay Wildlife museum, and likes learning new things - the best about volunteering. "Being helpful," is his concise answer as to why he volunteers his time, "I like being helpful."

The evidence that George is hooked on birding? A sun bleached copy of Pacific Birds lying on his dashboard, fairly new but thumb marks along the edges prove it's being used constantly.

The environmental and conservation movement are seen as disproportionately white, educated, middle-class movements. Why do you think that is? What can we do to draw more people into the fold and make the environment something everyone can care about?

"Well, black folks and other minorities have other things on their mind, and it seems like kind of a luxury to worry about animals and the environment when you need a job or better education. One place around here where it [enviroment and racism] really comes together is the fight over in Hunter's Point. They're really fighting the whole PG&E thing where they keep saying they're going to close the plant, but the community has heard that before.

I think the key is education, getting into the schools, getting families and their kids involved. The outdoors can be a foreign thing to a lot of kids, and if they get to experience it, it takes the fear away. You just need to have contact with it. You just need exposure. Not just getting information, but the opportunity to go to the beach. To be concerned about the environment you need to have some opportunities to be out in the environment. You need to be comfortable in the environment, and that means being out in open spaces. You'd be surprised at the number of kids who don't know how to swim, and adults too. You just have to be around water in order to get used to it.

Why is it important to care about the environment?

"Well, it's more like caring about yourself."

 

 

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