Know Your Neighbors – David Nemerson
Thank you to Clark Semmes for this 5th installment of his 2,361 part series, Know Your Neighbors:
Growing up, David Nemerson was always that kid who spends hours in the local woods or swamp, and then comes home with a box turtle or salamander to be studied at length in the family bathtub. Today, David is a conservation biologist with the National Aquarium, and while his goal is to restore wetlands throughout the state, he still spends much of his day mucking about in the out-of-doors.
A child of New England, David never dreamed of living as far south as Baltimore until he met Glenn Page, then the head of the National Aquarium’s Conservation Department. Recognizing a kindred spirit, Glenn soon enticed David to move to Charm City. It wasn’t long before David and his wife Cindy had moved to an apartment at 2007 Sulgrave Avenue, and Cindy was teaching gifted and talented students at Mount Washington Elementary. Today David and Cindy are pillars of the community, with David serving on the MWIA board in a seat that Cindy recently vacated.
David’s work takes him all over the bay, from nearby Fort McHenry, to the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge on the Eastern Shore, and as far afield as Barren and Poplar Islands, out in the bay itself. Across these sites, David and his Aquarium co-workers mobilize hundreds of volunteers, from elementary students to retirees, planting native marsh plants in an attempt to establish thriving wetland ecosystems. For David, one of the best parts of the job is introducing city kids–many of whom do not even realize that they live near the Chesapeake Bay—to the great outdoors. Most of them have never been in a boat, and start “jumping out of their skin” when they get off their buses and begin smelling the salt air, he says.
Another interesting part of David’s job is his process for documenting the progress he and his groups make in restoring wetlands. In order to demonstrate his results, David launches a helium balloon with a dangling digital camera over the restoration site, and then guides the tiny dirigible over his target with a fishing pole while the camera snaps away. The balloon never fails to draw a crowd, he says. Anyone interested in volunteering to help restore the bay’s wetlands can visit www.aqua.org/conservation.
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Great article! It’s great to see the work that David’s doing! We need more people like him! Thanks!
That digital camera/helium baloon thing is really cool. Have you ever lost a camera?
Never lost a camera yet, although it is nerve-wracking. I did lose one balloon that was tethered overnight – with nothing attached to it – and a wind storm blew in and I woke up to no balloon!