Essays
Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero
Jim Henderson – Hunter-conservationist par excellence
October 24, 2010
One of my favorite memories is of a time I went hunting with Jim Henderson. Twenty by twenty, mourning doves whiffled over. He fired his .410 twelve times. In ten minutes, twelve doves fell with a thud, all within ten feet of where he stood. Which was good, for it would not be hygienic for them to fall into the sewage effluent of Odessa, Texas that runs down Monahans Draw. The draw is a riparian salt-cedar tangle created by the free-running tertiary-treated effluent. It is home to emigrant javelina, feral hog, deer, mountain lion, and for a decade, a population of Long-billed Thrashers, two hundred and fifty miles from their proper range in the Brasada along the Rio Grande.
Jim found the thrashers in 1981, and showed the birds to the late Frances Williams, then the Texas American Birds regional editor and a founding member of both the Midland Naturalists and the Texas Ornithological Society’s bird records committee. After long distance discussions with Dr. Keith Arnold of Texas A&M, Jim collected a specimen (he had the proper permits) and prepared the study skin. The mystery of the misplaced thrasher colony still puzzles serious ornithologists.
A steady stream of wintering ducks enjoy the shelter of the tule swamps at the upper end of “the big lake” of the draw, a habitat improvement created by a long earthen dam paid for by Jim and his hunting lease partners. Until he put on waders and mushed his way through the tules, the local ornithologists had no idea about the number of rails, bitterns, moorhens or ibis that have benefited from the effluvia of civilization.
Gary Paul Nabhan, in a book on bighorn sheep, quoted a Chemehuevi Indian saying, “For permission to use a hunting range, learn its song.” Sappy and mystical to some, the saying holds a good strong truth. A hunter should know the rhythms of the land – when the animals mate, migrate, and disperse, and the ecstatic crescendos of when and where the plants produce bounty for herbivores and seedeaters. A hunter should know the locations of the most productive ecotones, just as the animals do. An awareness of the bioregional gestalt makes a good shot into a good hunter. As a hunter becomes more aware of the secrets of the land, a hunter also has the responsibility to interact with the more academic monitors of the state of the local environment.
Henderson is this region’s grandpappy figure for dozens of hunters and conservationists. He is an activist, not a bad-mouthing and nay-saying agitator, but a doer, with decades of experience in the field. Jim Henderson is the quintessential role-model for this stage of maturation of a hunter-conservationist. He is an independent oil and gas operator, forever out in the field looking at prospects and overseeing drilling wells and meeting with landowners. As he goes about his job, his eyes drink in the biological wealth of the places visited, and often as not, he is invited back for a closer look.
“When I was young living things were divided for me by my elders into “good” and “bad” creatures – the “bad’’ ones (the predators) “needed” to be destroyed at every opportunity. I ceased to punish “bad” creatures without changing personal values. Education has shown me that all things have their place. Nothing “needs” killing. My parents, who considered books to be necessities, never hesitated to sacrifice to provide them for me. Craighead, Hornaday, Seton, Roosevelt, Ditmars, and others opened new windows to my world.”
“I watch more than I hunt. Each adds to the enjoyment of the other. The conservation of wild creatures and the environments they need is united to the protection of our rights to hunt responsibly. To me, they are too close to separate. When working toward common goals, landowners, conservationists and sportsmen constitute a potent force for good legislation and practices.”
“My hunting friends tease me by saying I am the shotgun editor for the Audubon Magazine. The Midland Naturalists ignore my faults. On their field trips there are usually members that can identify anything that flies, walks, runs, crawls, wriggles, scuttles, swims, or just grows. If I can serve in some small way to bring such groups together, I will have made a difference.”
I am deeply thankful for the many years of knowing Jim Henderson through his involvement with the Midland Naturalists and the Sibley Nature Center (many of his mounted bird and mammal specimens are at Sibley on long-term loan). His presence has wonderfully enriched the community of Midland, and yes, Jim, you have made a difference.
Join Sibley staff on Mondays and Fridays at 9 a.m. for guided walks along the trail.
Come to Sibley between 4 and 6 p.m. on Tuesdays for fresh produce and bread sold by members of the Downtown Midland Farmer's Market.