Member Spotlight:
Jim Elliott
by Elaine Ehman
Raised on a natural gas pumping station about 10 miles south of Grenfell, Jim grew up surrounded by bush and pasture. So, a lot of times growing up if he wasn’t going to hockey practice on Saturday morning, he was out in the bush looking, walking around, dipping for tadpoles, and all kinds of other stuff. His family had bird feeders in the winter and he was always out there feeding the birds – chickadees, woodpeckers, any one stopping by. He was curious and interested in the natural environment.
Jim Elliott has been a member of Nature Regina since 1985. Like many others, Jim got involved with Nature Sask in 1979 while he was a biology student. Jim got “pulled into” Nature Sask’s conservation committee where he joined other future Nature Regina members – Dale Hjertaas, Jim Jossey, Lorne Scott and others. At that time conservation efforts were focussed on creating the grasslands parks. Jim recalls Prince Philip visiting Saskatchewan in 1987 as part of the Canadian Wildlife Federation tour in recognition of the centennial of wildlife conservation in Saskatchewan and Canada.
Jim’s conservation interests came closer to home when he got involved with Friends of Wascana Marsh (FoWM). He was involved almost from the start of FoWM and served two terms on the board (a total of 12 years) along with the likes of Wayne Linquist, Lyle Benko, Lorne Scott, and others. According to Jim, at that time little or nothing was going on either with education or protection of Wascana Marsh. In order to support the work, FoWM paid for half the salary of the Wascana Centre park naturalist to support their activities. To this day, Jim still lends a hand for Wings over Wascana.
Jim was the vice-president for Nature Regina for two terms in the early 90s, president from 1994 to 1997, and over the years held other positions on the board including Conservation Director. Jim’s also been the editor of the newsletter for most of the past decade. He’s led many fieldtrips and also does Jane’s walks in the city, where he can connect history and nature in the discussion.
Jim volunteered at Hidden Valley working with Frank Switzer to get rid of the wild oats. He spent one summer going out to Hidden Valley weekly and would throw his little trans hoops and do counts to see how it was recovering. Three years later, all the wild oats had disappeared, poplars were rooting back in, and the wildflowers were coming back.
Jim said he didn’t know a lot about birds to begin with, but after working at Nature Sask’s Blue Jay bookshop for 5 years, he knew all the bird books. Nature Sask held workshops on how to identify birds using the 4-step process (size, colour, habitat, behaviour) and Jim has become quite a knowledgeable birder. He follows Sask Birders on Facebook and notices hundreds of people taking pictures and asking “what is this?” He enjoys the fact that it’s engaging and people are getting encouragement.
Jim is really committed to the environment. He is an avid cyclist and doesn’t own a car. He has the sense that nature slows you down. “I ride my bike and I’ll see things and hear things. See the rabbit cross the road. Happy to hear the chickadees and I’ll call back to them. Riding through my neighbourhood I hear blue jays. [There’s] a heightened awareness of what’s around you.”
Commenting on the animal hospice he ran out of his yard for 15 years, Jim noted “I’ve always had things in hand, looked after baby red wings baby squirrels, baby Merlins, racoons.” His main focus however was on raptors – (Burrowing, Great-horned owls, one Snowy, a couple of Red-tailed hawks); at one time he actually had five Great Horned owls in his backyard.
When asked about the recent selection of Regina’s city bird, Jim said that although his preference was the nuthatch, he was happy with the chickadee. What really amazed him though was that that campaign not only got people talking about birds, but also got 22,000 people to actually vote (almost 10% of the city).
Jim has helped out at Seven Stones Community School in Regina. They were looking for a naturalist to go out with them school outings and he seemed a fit for what they were looking for – a little bit about a whole bunch of stuff, but not necessarily the intricacies of a particular bird. That’s where he made the connection with the Regina Public School division and later helped with opening up Hidden Valley to their land-based learning program.
Jim is pleased to see more engagement with plants. He also credits Shannon Chernick (who developed Nature Regina’s Get Outside! Program) for expanding the breadth of discussion when it comes to nature. Not just here’s this bird and let’s look at this bird, but talking about its habitat – how do they survive the winter? He’s excited there’s a lot more kids that are out in nature, doing things like bird watching and planting trees in their communities.
Jim feels that this is a positive sign that more people are interested in what’s going on in nature. Events like the Regina Public Library July 1 Kids Zone with groups like the Science Centre and Nature Regina doing things with kids are fun and exciting. The interest will grow with families.
When asked where he thought Nature Regina will be in ten years as it celebrates its 100th anniversary, Jim’s first response is that he wants to be around. “We’ve built ourselves enough of a base and if we keep the strength there, it will be something that will over time fundamentally change stuff”. He feels the City and Wascana Centre Authority are tending to move in the same direction now.
“Overtime if enough of this keeps percolating, keeps around, we’re going to get to that point where nobody sells or needs to use pesticides. Most people will have at least part of their yard planted with native flowers and you’re going to a bird walk in the old Craig golf course site and 250 people will show up. With some very simple adjustments, we will change how you manage water on the land. We’ve got the potential for doing a lot more. “