Beakuency welcomes Erik Kiviat, a lifelong Hudson Valley resident, executive director and co-founder of Hudsonia, a not-for-profit research, education, and environmental science institute founded in 1981. Hudsonia provides scientific data, habitat maps, and technical assistance to help the community make informed conservation decisions, balancing human needs with habitat preservation. Most of us are not trained naturalists, and when it comes to rural development, we may not even know the right questions to ask. Erik shares how Hudsonia bridges that gap, helping us protect bird and wildlife habitats while helping our community thrive.
This interview was recorded on September 13, 2023, and originally broadcast on Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7FM on September 23, 2023. The transcripts have been edited for accuracy and clarity.
Interview Transcript
Mayuko Fujino: Could you introduce yourself?
Erik Kiviat: I’m Erik Kiviat. I’m the executive director of Hudsonia. We’re a small nonprofit organization sharing space here in Annandale, New York, in the Bard College Field Station.
MF: This field station is very beautiful, I mean, the surroundings, and this whole building looks like a kid’s dream.
EK: Yeah, it needs some sprucing up, but we’re doing it little by little.
MF: Like a secret fort, a secret place.
EK: That’s a nice analogy. I like that.
MF: Hudsonia does a lot of things, so it might be hard to briefly explain it, but could you tell us what it is?
EK: Of course. We call ourselves a research and education institute in the environmental sciences. We do scientific research on plants and animals and their habitats and other phenomena related to those. And then we take the information from our studies and from other people’s research and compile and create information that we use and others use to educate environmental professionals.
So these are folks who either serve on municipal agencies, like planning boards and conservation advisory councils, or they work for land trusts or environmental groups or other entities that are involved with conservation and land use planning.
MF: But also the information Hudsonia collects and researches and archives, those are not just for professionals, but something that the community members can use as well.
EK: Yes, absolutely. We produce News from Hudsonia twice a year, which incorporates some of the results of our studies. And we, you know, we interact with people, we give presentations, and we get questions over the phone or by email. Yesterday, a local person sent me a photograph of a snake that she had found dead, and she wanted to know what species it was. And we’ve had a little exchange of emails about Milk Snakes and where they are and what they eat.
MF: Milk Snakes?
EK: Milk Snakes, yeah, they’re called — it’s a funny name — they’re called Milk Snakes because there’s a folktale, let’s call it that, farmers saw Milk snakes in cow barns because Milk Snakes eat mice. And they thought the snakes were milking the cows, so someone decided to call them Milk Snakes.
MF: Okay. So people just contact you and send you photos?
EK: Yeah. Through our website or through the college sometimes.
MF: I see. So there were habitat maps and reports and also natural resource inventories on Hudsonia’s website. Those are another source of information that communities can use. Could you tell us how you intend that information to be used?
EK: Yes. Well, I’ll tell you how those reports and maps actually are being used. There are land trusts like the Columbia Land Conservancy, Dutchess Land Conservancy, Greene Land Trust that refer to our maps and analyses when they’re considering accepting a conservation easement or acquiring a piece of property for a nature preserve. So that’s one very good use of our reports and maps. Municipal agencies use them when they’re reviewing development proposals, land use proposals. That’s also a very common use. And some of the maps and reports are used by private property owners in deciding how to manage their own land.
They’re also used educationally. In Dutchess county, a college faculty member has taken all of our maps for about two thirds of Dutchess county and joined them together and made an interactive website so that students and landowners and other people can refer to this very abundant ecological information about the county.
MF: I came across one of the reports that Hudsonia made through the news in, I think 2022. In Ancram, one landowner proposed a development plan for a resort. Some members of the town were against this idea, one of the concerns that they raised was how it would affect the water resource. A lot of people use wells. And also the habitats of wildlife, that there are a lot of meadowlarks and Bobolinks and those ground-nesting birds are often in Ancram. Those specific information were all put together in a report and I think the group from the town presented it.
And so I kind of became more curious since I moved upstate, how can people like me who don’t have a background in natural science have the understanding of such information, so we can collectively decide what our community wants to do and what our town wants to do. How do I want to vote — I mean, I actually cannot vote because I’m not a citizen yet, but at least I can voice my opinion. And to have an opinion, you need information.
EK: We want you and other members of the community to have better information. Because often in land use decisions and controversies, one side, often the side that is going to make money from a development project or a mining project or warehouses or something, has the ability to hire consultants and lawyers and, you know, engineers and so on, whereas the planning board and the citizens may not have that ability.
So one of the functions of Hudsonia is not to take sides, but to go into a situation and study what’s there and analyze the project that’s proposed and the kinds of impacts that it may have on a particular location and to give everyone that information. It’s not just this side or that side. The information is out there for everyone. And we think that leads to better decisions for the long term future. And even if you or a planning board member, for example, can’t have the knowledge to analyze the biology of a situation, we hope at least that our work will allow you to ask the right questions and to decide if you need an expert to help you. You might not, but certainly in some situations that’s a good idea.
MF: How could listeners support the work you do?
EK: Well, we have a great website, hudsonia.org and we certainly would start by referring people to the website to see our magazine News from Hudsonia. And all of our habitat mapping reports and natural resource inventories are available on the website for free. The website, of course, also allows people to ask questions or to ask for assistance if they need it.
And then it gives them the opportunity to learn how they can help us if they want to. So certainly the website, the magazine, News from Hudsonia, and we have a lot of other resources, many reports that we’ve done over 40 years, mostly about the Hudson Valley region and nearby areas.
And we have produced published books and journal articles and given seminars and lots of other things that people can take advantage of. And then we’re happy to have someone say, Gee, you know, we really like your work. How can we help you?
MF: Are there opportunities for people to volunteer?
EK: Yes, limited, because we’re a small organization. But yes, we do have volunteers and we have student interns and other folks who help us in various ways. And we’re happy to receive inquiries about volunteering or from a student who’s looking for a project during the summer or at some other time.
MF: I was looking at some of the projects that you listed that might interest the listeners of this show: the coffee plantation and the Cerulean Warblers project. Is that something people can donate?
EK: Yes. Hudsonia receives tax deductible donations as a nonprofit organization and people can donate through the website or they can contact us directly. The Cerulean Warbler project is actually in hiatus right now, but it’s something that we’re very interested in, because we’ve found over the years that Cerulean Warbler, which is potentially an endangered species, it’s under review by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for listing as an endangered or threatened species, usually nests in large trees, basically mature forest with large trees near water. But they’ve been able to nest in the large, fast growing trees like cottonwoods and silver maples on the shores and islands in the Hudson River, which were built from material dredged out of the shipping channel many years ago. They call these dredged spoil islands.
And it’s an unusual habitat for Cerulean Warbler because they’re usually associated with a very particular type of forest, low elevation, large trees and so on. So we think that these dredge spoil forests, some of which now are 100 or almost 100 years old and undisturbed during that time, may be helpful to the Cerulean Warbler population, perhaps as a substitute for old forests that have been logged or destroyed in some other way.
So that’s the kind of thing that we’re always looking for in our studies. What do these uncommon and rare wildlife and plant species need? You know, where do they live, how do they reproduce and so on. How are they affected by human activities? Are there ways that are practical for conservation of the habitats that they need?
In the case of the Cerulean Warbler, that may be a large forest with some large old trees near the water. But you know, it could be a plant like Golden Club, a very beautiful yellow and white plant that blooms in the spring in the freshwater tidal marshes along the Hudson in a particular type of marsh or mudflat. Or there might be an animal like the Bog Turtle, very small, very endangered turtle species that lives in a certain kind of wetland, a certain kind of spring fed wetland with certain kinds of plants in it.
That’s something that we’ve really become specialists at, analyzing the landscape and the habitats that the less common wildlife and plants need in order to thrive. And then we can help people who are managing nature reserves or parks or private estates, as well as the folks in agencies that are setting policy about protecting or managing land.
So that’s really where we fit in. Hudsonia doesn’t own land. There are a lot of things that we don’t do, but we specialize in developing this kind of information to provide technical support to people who are managing the land, who are conserving nature, who are trying to restore habitats, who are protecting rare species or streams or wetlands or forests.
MF: This question is a little bit more personal. Where is your favorite spot in the Hudson Valley to see birds in October?
EK: That’s a difficult question for me to answer. Because, you know, I go to a lot of different kinds of areas and enjoy many kinds of birds and bird habitats. But it made me think that where I live in the town of Milan in northern Dutchess county, I walk a lot on the local roads there. Milan used to be farmland, but now a lot of it is forest. Just like large areas elsewhere in the Hudson valley. And now those extensive mature forests support birds like Barred Owl and Red-shouldered Hawk that I never saw when I was growing up, you know, like 60 years ago when I started getting interested in birds. So that’s something that I enjoy, just anywhere where there’s enough forest, enough mature forest or swamp and I can see or hear birds like that. And if I’m lucky, maybe a Hermit Thrush or something that’s less common.
MF: Those are the birds you enjoy.
EK: There are some of the birds that I enjoy. Almost any bird, I enjoy. I even like watching pigeons.
MF: Pigeons can be entertaining.
EK: Oh, they’re very interesting. There’s a farm that I walk near almost every morning and there’s a flock of about 50 Rock Pigeons, you know, commonly introduced pigeons that eat the seeds from the cattle feed on the farm. And that’s true around here in the countryside where you see pigeons, it’s usually near a farm.
And the pigeons are very interesting. They’re beautiful to watch flying. They all fly up, they land on utility wires and they don’t all point in the same direction when they’re perching on the wire. I wonder what is about it, you know, what is it for an individual pigeon? Why does one face that way and the other faces the other way?
MF: Oh, really? I should look the next time I see them. Pigeons are kind of funny because I used to see them in Tokyo too, and would see them in New York City. They look the same.
EK: They have those two stripes on the side.
MF: Grayish with a little bit of a purple tint around the neck and…
EK: Yeah. Or other colors.
MF: I think they’re the same. I have a little love-and-hate relationship because they’re kind of annoying.
EK: Right. They can be troublesome. But there are not that many of them here in the countryside.
MF: Yeah, I don’t see them too often. Oh, that’s very interesting, I didn’t think we would talk about pigeons. But pigeons deserve some appreciation, too.
EK: Yeah, I’m interested in almost anything in nature. You know, some people want to know, am I an ecologist or a naturalist? What’s the difference? Ecologists generally focus on certain things and they collect a lot of quantitative data, a lot of measurements and data that can be used in statistical analyses. And that’s great. I do some of that. A naturalist is more — someone, could be a professional or an amateur, it doesn’t matter, who just goes out and looks at things. Just ask what’s there and which species of plants and animals, fungi and so on, what are they doing? How many pigeons are in that flock? Why are they here by this farm instead of somewhere else? And, you know, if you collect observations like that over many years, and in my case, I’ve been doing it for about 55 years, taking notes and photographs and measurements and so on, you build up a lot of data that can be turned into something useful.
Even though most of the measurements and most of the observations are qualitative or anecdotal, they create a picture eventually. Especially if one can combine observations that are made by many different people, like on the website eBird, which you may know, I know Larry (Federman) uses it a lot. There are observations by thousands of birders, maybe many thousands, all around the world. And as that platform becomes more sophisticated, we’ll be able to extract and analyze data. Some bird researchers are already doing that because it tells you which species of birds are here, when they are here, what they are doing, and that’s natural history. But it’s so much natural history that it has applications that one person can’t get in a year or two. So it’s great that we’re able to do that now.
MF: Well, thank you for taking time to do this interview with me today.
EK: Yes, you’re welcome, Mayuko. I enjoyed talking with you.
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