Byron Murray
The Wildlife Adventures of Byron
Looking at wildlife in the Arboretum, reminded Byron of looking at porcupines a few years earlier and talked about his experience with the Arboretum. He loves walking in the Arboretum and has interacted with wildlife numerous times. Byron is happy that there is a space in Guelph where he can go and enjoy himself in Nature as other places he used to visit are in development.
Interview by Jingyi Long, CTS*3020 student, University of Guelph.
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Transcript
0:01 My name is Byron Donald Vincent Murray and I am a fan, I guess of the arboretum, I hang out here.
0:09 I walk through it all the time.
0:10 I visit a lot.
0:11 I run through here.
0:13 I’m working on some projects here I guess I see some,, Queen Lace on the side of the trail here and then some, looks like walnut and grape and, some taller shrubs that have seen better days.
0:32, we were on a road facing sort of north northwest.
0:41 One day I was walking through here with my partner and we were just talking on the way and I think she may have noticed first, the robins were alarming and I looked over and there was a deer.
0:57, it looks like a large doe sort of, if we were facing directly northwest down the trail, it would be sort of like two o’clock on the trail to our, our right.
1:12 And this doe looked at us and looked back in front of her, which was also sort of toward the northwest, but she was a ways away that she was looking down into the grass.
1:24 I’ve seen deer, which would be just as you cross College and step into the open grass area as we stood here and we watched the deer, the deer sort of kept walking just quickly that coyote was leaving our trail.
1:40 I see them as commonly as the deer.
1:42 I think the deer perhaps feel a bit more comfortable with us than the coyotes.
1:46 this is my route home.
1:48 If I’m on campus, I liked it a lot.
1:52 throughout the pandemic, I’ve been running here on and off and it’s just one of my favorite parts of arboretum and there’s lots of wildlife, like just to our right during the winter, you can often track the porcupines if they make their way
2:09 And I just sat with the porp, possibly my initial connection to the arboretum was coming here to just learn about trees at green space for wildlife and humans.
2:21 It’s, it’s a necessary part of life.
2:25 Those relationships in this space makes it possible and allows it to keep going when all sorts of developments happening all around.
2:33 I would say the most important.
2:35 And, because it’s this relationship building that humans are making space for and holding down the space and protecting the space as a gift or as a, as a way of just being in good relationship.
2:51 You know, with all, all the, all the neighbors, all the Russians in this area.
