Memories - Art Rempel
IN MEMORIUM.
Dr. Arthur Rempel, a Life Member of National Audubon Society, and a founding member of Blue Mountain Audubon Society, died peacefully in his sleep on May 1st.
We will miss him. His curiosity, passion, and love of the natural world was not confined to his profession as a biologist. He traveled the world seeking out its wonders. When he was not teaching groups of students who were inspired by his dedication to learning of all things of our world and its wonders. His travels included visits to many family, friends, and former students he cherished through his long and gentle life. Despite many tragedies beginning with the disruption of his family in the Russian Revolution, he was a compassionate and gentle human being. He brought with him to America, his collection of bird nests his curiosity interest he discovered early in life. He continued to be curious to the end and enrolled in a college course only two years ago on the origins of man. He saw almost every animal he wanted to see, except a Mountain Lion. So, if you are ever fortunate enough to see one, think of our friend Art and smile for him. His legacy will live on in those of you who have shared his devotion to the natural world. We are all better off having known this gentleman with the suit and tie and binoculars around his neck.
Doug Morton
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Art Remple taken in 2003
All of us in the net, so to speak, have our own exciting stories to relate about unforgettable moments or whole days in the field, some hoped and planned for, some a surprise. We hope to read or hear about as many of these stories of our members as can be shared. Arthur Rempel, Professor of Biology, Emeritus, at Whitman College, perhaps our most elder and most knowledgeable member, who has been to all the continents of the world "at least twice," remembers his early interest in animals.
As a young boy in his native Russia he made a book, which he still possesses, of detailed drawings of animals from around the world. That early fascination resulted in years of academic study and teaching, yet the childhood fascination never faded, and today at 93 years of age Art Rempel speaks with ease and lingering delight about the birds and animals he's observed throughout the world.
His pursuit to discover the world's creatures resulted in two trips to Antarctica as recently as 1991 and 1995. Dr. Rempel saw there individual birds from about half of the world's penguin species, including the Rockhopper and the King Penguin--which he was able to photograph.
Other memorable and lengthy trips abroad were his two sabbaticals in 1964-1965 and 1971-1972. He was accompanied by his wife, Lucile, on the second sabbatical. Both trips included extensive travel in several continents, visiting family and friends, teaching and meeting with other scientists, and, of course, observing and discovering the land and its creatures.
In New Zealand he was shown a rare Tuatara at the Auckland Zoo. The Tuatara is a lizardlike reptile about 2 feet long; it can live over 100 years, and has been around since the early Mesozoic era. Dr. Rempel says, "It's like seeing a dinosaur, but it's even older than a dinosaur!"
Other memorable animal finds were the many Flying Foxes, or Fruit Bats, of Java that Art observed covering the trees around the museum in the evening, and the Colugo, or Flying Lemur, of Bogor, Java.
Not a true lemur, the Colugo is in a class of its own. Dr. Rempel says that rather than being a flyer like a bat the Colugo is "a glider, like a flying squirrel." He has a flat specimen of this rare animal in his home office.
The drawers of the cabinet where it is carefully laid are full of various mammals he has collected or been given over his years of travel and teaching at the college.
Of special interest to Dr. Rempel and often a focus of his travels are the differences in the zoogeographic regions of the world. He describes this with the example of an area in Kenya where the equator separates the North and the South Hemispheres and how the animals on each side have certain differences.
In the north the ostriches are blue skinned because they have melanin in their skin; in the south where they have no melanin, the ostriches have pink skin.
Dr. Rempel also points out that such differences based on geography occur in bird distribution. North America is the native home of the Wrens; only the Winter Wren has made the flight and colonized Europe. And the reverse is true of the Larks and Kestrels. We have in North America only one species of Lark and Kestrel.
Greater in significance than all his individual discoveries, however, is his awareness of a truth about the relationship of humans and wild animals.
Art says, "I had the realization that my definition of wild animals isn't correct. Because in Africa you can drive up to a zebra nursing its foal and it continues to graze. I didn't think of wild animals that way."
He describes his expectation that a wild animal would flee when a human approached, fearing harm, dating from ancient experience with human beings. But in some parts of the world animals have become "habituated" to our presence and they are not afraid. He points to a very large photograph of a gorilla on his wall. Dr. Rempel took the photo while with a small group of people in the forest of Rwanda.
The gorilla's enormous face is turned trustingly toward the camera which records a certainly wild animal, but one perhaps feeling connected benignly to the creature behind the camera.
Melissa Webster, 2003