Aaron Haiman was six years old the first time he met an ornithologist, wandering the East Bay Hills near his childhood home. That was enough. Twenty-some years later, he's built an entire career, and a philosophy of science communication, on the idea that people only protect what they love — and only love what they already understand.
Aaron is a birder, naturalist, and environmental scientist with the California Wildlife Conservation Board, where he manages the state's Stream Flow Enhancement Program. He's also the author of a brand new book, Birds of the California Delta, and has run the blog A Birding Naturalist for thirteen years, born out of frustration that bird scientists and birders — two communities that should have been one — almost never talked to each other.
In this episode, Aaron and Scott talk about the disconnect between people who study nature and the people trying to teach it, what it took to write a field guide that reads like a story instead of a specimen list, and what it's actually like to take national political heat for defending California water policy, a wildlife crossing, and a monthly video series about queerness in the animal kingdom.
In this episode:
Growing up in the East Bay Hills and meeting the ornithologist who changed everything
Why "we protect what we love, we love what we understand" is the whole thesis of his work
Homeschooling, academic burnout, and "saving up" endurance for an advanced degree
Starting A Birding Naturalist to bridge bird scientists and birders
Writing Birds of the California Delta and working with illustrator Martha Espinosa
What actually gets people to stop scrolling — and why it's garden snails, not evolutionary theory
Drake's Beach Sanderlings, the longest-running youth bird-a-thon team in the country
Taking national heat over California water policy and the Wallace Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
Making the case, every June, that queerness is completely natural — and trying to do it without becoming a savior
ABOUT AARON N.K. HAIMAN Environmental Scientist, California Wildlife Conservation Board. Author, Birds of the California Delta (Heyday Books). Founder, A Birding Naturalist. B.A., UC Berkeley; two M.S. degrees, UC Davis (Avian Science, Animal Behavior). 🦅 [link TBD]
ABOUT YOUR HOST Scott Shepherd is the founder of Wildward Institute, based in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. 🌿 wildwardinstitute.net
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