Cat Tale by Craig Pittman

Author:Craig Pittman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hanover Square Press
Published: 2019-11-20T13:58:19+00:00

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When Maehr was sitting on the developers’ side of the table, pushing for a permit for The Habitat, there was a biologist from the US Fish and Wildlife Service sitting on the other side whom you could call “the anti-Maehr.” His name: Andy Eller.

A reporter once described Eller as “an introvert with a tendency to speak in a barely audible monotone.” He had dark hair, glasses, a mustache and, generally, a sheepish look. That look could fool you, because under that nebbishy exterior was a will of solid steel.

When Eller was growing up in Norfolk, Virginia, his closest friend was a kid who liked catching snakes and turtles, so Eller joined in.

“We kept them for pets,” Eller told me, “depending on how tolerant our mothers were.”

Some of his natural encounters were more unusual. He was fishing at a lake once and took a break to pee.

“I was standing there, urinating in the lake,” Eller told me, “and I looked up into the eyes of a grackle.” Rather than freaking out, he said, “I was struck by how yellow its eyes were.”

He became so enamored of nature that he collected first editions of classics of environmental literature, such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. He wound up studying forestry at Clemson University. After graduating he got a job at a national wildlife refuge working with red-cockaded woodpeckers, which are listed as an endangered species. He did such a good job he was transferred to the regional office in Atlanta and put in charge of acquiring land for all the wildlife refuges in the Southeast.

Then came 1991, and the turning point in his life.

Because of his real estate experience, Eller’s bosses assigned him to work with the chief of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge in drawing up a map of panther habitat that needed to be saved. Together they examined the suitability of more than a million acres of privately owned land across nine Florida counties, with an eye toward recommending the government buy some to expand the refuge.

Once they were done, Eller’s bosses in Atlanta assigned him the job of implementing the plan. Veteran biologists warned him not to get his hopes up. But for five years he attended development meetings and got to know all the landowners, chatting up local government planners about various projects. Somehow, nothing happened but a lot of talk.

“It turned out to be mostly a public relations job,” Eller said.

He cobbled together a proposal for a brand-new wildlife refuge and pushed and prodded the bureaucracy until it landed in Washington.

“It never got funding,” he said. “That was a huge disappointment to me. I thought that helping one of the most endangered animals in the country would rank pretty high.” He never even got a straight answer about why his plan got shot down, he said.

Eller’s habitat work is what landed him in the meeting about The Habitat, where he met Maehr the consultant.

“My initial and lasting impression of him was that he was intelligent and witty,” Eller told me.

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