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PROFILE: Biologist Nancy Douglass a booster of Florida’s beaches

BY MARCY SHORTUSE – When Nancy Douglass was a child and going to an all-girls Catholic school, she was surrounded by people who voiced an interest in becoming doctors, lawyers and accountants. She wanted to work with animals.

“No one shared my interest, I was a fish out of water,” she said. “My guidance counselor didn’t even know about wildlife biology. It wasn’t until I was looking through college catalogs that I found the name. I knew all along my dream was somewhere in there, but until then everyone thought I was from outer space.”

Now, looking back on 20 years of work as a wildlife biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, she realizes the job was always in her blood.

Nancy, who spends a lot of time on Boca Grande beaches analyzing the habits of shorebirds and counting their numbers, is originally from the other side of the state.

Coconut Grove is not exactly a wildlife-infested area, but Nancy’s interest in the topic was spurred when she was approximately 5 years old.

“I think my dad and aunt fostered my interest as a small child, through reading books and by taking me on wildlife viewing trips,” she said. “For instance, my father used to take me to see bald eagle nests by boat, or drive me to the Tamiami airport to see burrowing owls. My aunt taught me to read before I was in school, and we had all kinds of books about dinosaurs and animals.”

Nancy grew up in a culturally and physically unique part of the country. As she explained, the atmosphere in and around Miami at that time was “very Bohemian and environmentally tropical.”

“Wildlife is what intrigued me in life, but honestly, growing up where I did in that cultural environment, it was hard to find it,” she said. “We were always outdoors, though, I was definitely a water bug. The neighborhood kids and I all had pools, so the water was our park. We fished a lot with my dad on Biscayne Bay, or we’d go over to Goodwin’s and Marco before development destroyed it. Sometimes we’d go to 10,000 Islands.”

With her father working as a pilot for Pan American Airlines and her mother working part-time in real estate, the family was lucky to be able to make their own schedule more than some, and travel was always in the future.

When Nancy was 8, her family purchased a house in the Keys and they would spend weekends and summers there. She was finally around wildlife, and lots of it.

It was around that same age that she was able to explore another world that meant a lot to her – the equestrian world.

“Some little girls are infatuated with horses, but I loved them since I could speak,” she said. “Where we lived in Coconut Grove, of course I couldn’t have one, and I was actually about 30 years old before I got my first horse. But when I was old enough I got to go to summer camp, to riding summer camp, and we got our own horse for the summer. I was able to feed that mania a little bit.”

It wasn’t until about nine years ago, though, that Nancy took it even further by learning endurance riding. It is, as she described it, two sports rolled into one: endurance racing; and competitive trail riding. She explained that Arabian horses are often used because of their endurance, their extra-large lungs and thin skin that dissipates heat.

“I was mostly involved with the latter, long-distance riding, where you’re competing pretty much for the fitness of the horse,” she said. “That’s what you are judged on. I had to retire my horse two years ago, so I have not been actively competing. I am still involved, though, and mentor other competitors. I’d like to do it again in the future, but right now circumstances dictate that I only have one horse. He’s my partner, and I owe him a retirement.”

She continued.

“Essentially, though, it’s much like marathon running for people, with lots of long, slow, tedious training over many, many miles. Arabians do well in Florida. It’s a sport that can kill a horse not physiologically adapted to it.”

Like much of Florida, Nancy has watched her little corner of where she lives, Lakeland, go from “Old Florida” to a place that looks more like her hometown of Coconut Grove.

Which is why Nancy likes Boca Grande. Still relatively unspoiled by large-scale corporate development, it is an island that Nancy has no problem traveling to.

After graduating from high school, Nancy went on to Carrollton School in Coconut Grove, earned her bachelor’s degree in wildlife and fisheries from the University of Vermont, and finally a master’s of environmental management from Duke University.

She went to work for the FWC 20 years ago, and has been doing shorebird research, in particular, in Boca Grande for many years.

She will be able to share some of that research with the island on Friday, Feb. 19 at 2 p.m. when she will speak at the Boca Grande Community Center auditorium. The “community meeting” is being held to answer questions about beach-nesting birds and turtles on Gasparilla Island, and just about any local agency involved with sea life will be in attendance. The Florida Audubon Society, Charlotte County, the Florida Park Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coastal Wildlife Club and the FWC will all have representatives at the meeting and Nancy encourages even the hardest questions be asked.

“We had some anxiety over nesting season last year, and I think we need to be more in touch with the community,” she said. “We have had two programs out here before, but with this one we’re using a ‘broad brush’ approach to have people right there to answer any questions that may come up. We really want people to come to us with concerns and questions they may have.”

Nancy did her best last year to help when some people staying on the island were frustrated with large sections of beach being cordoned off in front of their residences, and she was heartbroken to find out that several least tern and snowy plover nests were disrupted and destroyed by all-terrain vehicles that were driven through those same sections of beach.

The true nature of the birds never ceases to amaze her. She explained how different Boca Grande shorebirds’ habits are, starting with a truly rare bird, the American oystercatcher.

“Oystercatchers have strong sight fidelity,” she explained. “They come back year after year, often to the same spots. We don’t know about the plovers but, in general, the snowys and least terns are two species that we have been focusing on at the south end of the island. They are very adaptive, and are more hard-wired to look for new nesting opportunities. Their life strategy is finding disturbed habitats, such as those that are made when storms wash out or over islands. Or land disturbed by beach renourishment. By creating unvegetated, beautiful white sand that mimics overwashes and accretion, it creates new homes for these birds. They don’t have that strong sight fidelity, they’re just looking for the best real estate they can find. In any one location you only get to experience and enjoy them for a limited period of time so they’re likely to move on.”

Nancy, who is married to another FWC biologist, Jeff McGrady, said she is hoping to see a change in Floridian’s perception of beaches as an important wildlife habitat.

“I hope to one day see people treat our beaches as national parks, not amusement parks,” she said. “I’m a beach-a-holic and I am most intrigued by these beaches on Gasparilla. With the north end of the island being a naturally-accreting area, it has supported many beach-nesting birds for years. Now, with the beach renourishment, many birds are being drawn to the south end, too. It’s a beautiful, amazing place and I hope we can preserve indefinitely.”