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3/26/2022 0 Comments

Jim Delahoussaye Wins 2022 Caroline Dormon Award!

Image from Riverlogue Blog, copyright Jim Delahoussaye.

Member and former board member of the Louisiana Folklore Society
Member of the Louisiana Archeological Society.
Board member of ‘Friends of Atchafalaya,’ Vice-President.

Jim Delahoussaye with his book Riverlogue. Jim Delahoussaye image and copyright.

Media Alert: For Release March 28th, 2022

Louisiana Master Naturalist Association Announces
2022 Caroline Dormon Award Winner

The Louisiana Master Naturalist Association recently selected Mr. A. James “Jim” Delahoussaye as the recipient of the 2022 Caroline Dormon Award. He will be formally presented with his award at a special plenary dinner in The Pineville Conference Center, April 2nd, where he will be keynote speaker. He was nominated for the award by Clifford J LeGrange and C. Ray Brassieur of Acadiana Master Naturalists chapter. The award is named after noted Louisiana naturalist Dr. Caroline Dormon and recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the understanding of Louisiana’s natural history over a lifetime of work. Previous winners include Dr. Charles Allen, Vernon Brou, Jr., Kelby Ouchley, and Bill Fontenot.

Jim Delahoussaye has worked as an environmental scientist, teacher, folklorist, and commercial fisherman in the Atchafalaya Basin. He has also worked as a zooarchaeologist, an adjunct researcher in the department of Sociology/Anthropology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where he analyzes animal bones from prehistoric Native American middens.

In addition to his scientific publications, numerous presentations to the public, and participation in videos documenting life on the Atchafalaya, Jim has chronicled the unique relationship between the people and the Atchafalaya River. He has collected life stories from descendants of houseboat families who lived in the Atchafalaya Basin, preserving a unique culture for posterity. His large collection of recordings and related materials from this project was recently gifted to the Library of Congress, where it is housed in the American Folklife Center.

Jim’s knowledge and expertise covers all aspects of the natural history of the Atchafalaya Basin, and the people who depend on it. He not only has the formal education and background, but he also has the lived experience of working and earning a living in the Basin. His familiarity with this vast swampland enabled him to assess the height of the tallest Bald Cypress tree in the Atchafalaya by eye within a margin of accuracy of just over 2 feet!

The committee that selected Delahoussaye from a shortlist of six powerful contenders agreed that he met and exceeded all the criteria for the award.

See Riverlogue Blog for Jim’s fascinating life, work and photographs,

"This Riverlogue blog originates on the banks of the Atchafalaya River, in Louisiana. It proposes to share the things that happen on and by the river as the seasons progress. As the river changes from quiet, warm, slow flow to rises of eighteen feet or more, there are changes in the lives of the birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles that use the river. And the mood of the river changes with the seasons. I propose to note and comment on these things." Jim Delhoussaye

SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS

Delahoussaye's Scientific Publications include the following:

Fouquette, M.J. and Jim Delahoussaye. 1966. Noteworthy Herpetological Records from Louisiana ; March 1966, The Southwestern Naturalist 11(1):137.
Delahoussaye, A. James, Thieret, John W. 1967. Cyperus subgenus Kyllinga (Cyperaceae) in the continental United States. Sida 3: 128-136. (John Thieret was the authority on Sedges (Cyperceae) in Louisiana. Jim discovered a new subgenus of sedges while working with Dr. Thieret. The discovery was validated by specimens from Kew Gardens, London, England.)
Fouquette, M.J., Jr., and A.J. Delahoussaye. 1977. Sperm morphology in the Hyla rubra group (Amphibia, Anura, Hylidae), and it’s bearing on generic status. Journal of Herpetology, 11: 387-396. (This publication was based on Jim’s academic findings for his Master’s degree.)
Bauer, Raymond T. and James Delahoussaye. 2008. Life history migrations of the amphidromous river shrimp Macrobrachium ohione from a continental large river system. Journal of Crustacean Biology. 28(4), 622-632. (The breeding migration of river shrimp was previously unknown. Jim and Raymond discovered that river shrimp required a transition from fresh to salt water in order to reproduce.)
Delahoussaye, A. James, Brad R. Moon, and Mark A. Rees. 2015. Zooarchaeology of the Portage Mounds site (16SMS in southern Louisiana). Louisiana Archaeology. 39: 5-31. Jim’s analysis of the archeological material at this location suggested that prehistoric Native Americans in south Louisiana were eating very large (5 pounds) bull frogs as part of their regular diet. These days large bull frogs weigh in at about 2 lbs)

JIM AS ZOOARCHAEOLOGIST: EXPLORING, COLLECTING, ANALYZING
& DOCUMENTING

Jim Delahoussaye in the field, photograph and copyright Brad Moon.

Jim volunteers his time as a research scientist (zooarchaeologist) in the Anthropology Program, Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Child and Family Services at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette.

He identifies bone fragments excavated from prehistoric Native American midden sites. Jim analyses vertebrate faunal remains (from fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds) that represent parts of the material record recovered during archeological excavation.

Particularly in Louisiana, invertebrate animal remains (like mollusks, crustaceans, and snails) also are associated with ancient human sites.

Faunal analyses require knowledge of faunal anatomy and taxonomy, but careful study of environmental and archeological contexts is required. Bone and shell remains also may show how past humans fashioned tools and artifacts used for everyday tasks and ritual occasions. He first determines if the bone fragment belonged to a bird, fish, amphibian, reptile, or mammal.
He next determines what bone the fragment came from.

A Snapping Turtle shell from an Atchafalaya Basin Shell Midden. Delahoussaye image.

He has been doing this as a volunteer since 2006. He has worked on bones from Poverty Point (World Heritage Site), Louisiana State University, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, the office of the Louisiana State Archeologist, and is currently identifying excavated material from a site on the Brazos River in Texas.

He works on these projects three to five days per week. The UL Lafayette anthropology program hosts active and well-respected archeological activities in prehistorical, historical, and public archeology. Jim’s contributions as a Zooarchaeologist add a specialized and highly regarded enhancement to this program. Expert Zooarchaeologist are rare in Louisiana, and Jim’s activities in this field have earned considerable attention. Major archeological collections of faunal materials from throughout Louisiana are sent to Jim for analysis. Jim’s work includes the systematic study of animal remains recovered from archeological sites.

Zooarchaeology is a "hybrid" discipline, combining the studies of archeology and zoology to better understand how past humans interacted with animals. The breadth of his work covers many topics including, but not limited to, environmental reconstruction, subsistence studies, and ritual use of animals in the past. At UL, Lafayette, Jim also provides occasional classroom lectures, and he works with individual graduate and undergraduate students and professional colleagues on projects generated from a wide range of disciplines across the campus. Jim’s work as a zooarchaeologist is supported by his remarkable collection of small bits and pieces of bone gathered in the Atchafalaya Basin.

Trained Zooarcheologists can tell what type of animal the bone came from, how old the animal was when it died, and how humans prepared the animal. Bones and shells provide useful information on past diets. Understanding what our ancestors ate means understanding their subsistence strategies and their relationship with the environment. Every observation can contribute to science.

JIM'S WORK as FOLKLORIST

Jim has published a large collection of Atchafalaya River Basin recordings now preserved in the Library of Congress. These include interviews with residents of the Atchafalaya River Basin, Louisiana, about their lives, traditions, and folkways, recorded from 1974-2010, as well as approximately 645 digital images documenting the same traditions. Interviews were conducted by Alphe James (Jim) Delahoussaye. Digital images were created by his colleague, Darlene Soulé, of many of the same subjects. Topics include fresh-water fishing and shrimping, other animals and animal husbandry, cooking, medicine, weather, logging, community gatherings, religion and churches, boat building, courtship, marriage, and education. These residents of the Atchafalaya River Basin, many of whom were elderly at the time of the interviews, recall traditions and events experienced from the 1880s and through the 20th century. Photographs are digital copies of original family photographs dating from the 1920s to the present. (Adapted from the US Library of Congress, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. LC The location of the catalog entry at LOC/AFC : https://lccn.loc.gov/2013655203
Cite or bookmark this finding aid as: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.afc/eadafc.af014002

Jim has collected life stories from descendants of houseboat families who lived in the Atchafalaya Basin. Currently, there are ninety-six recordings dating from 1972. Firsthand knowledge obtained by these interviews; supplements written research data for archives. Jim spent many years working on the ethnology of the Atchafalaya houseboat communities, many of whom he got to know while working and living in the area. His large collection of recordings and related materials from this project was recently gifted to the Library of Congress, where it is housed in the American Folklife Center. Delahoussaye described the events that led to his donation: “The material first came to the attention of Todd Harvey, Acquisitions Manager for American Folklife Center (AFC) in the spring of 2012. He asked if I could send some examples of the taped interviews to him, which I did. He also asked for a description of the location where the people who were on the tapes lived. It turns out that the AFC had nothing in its archives from the Atchafalaya Basin, not even music. After that we just worked out the language for the terms of the gift, copyright, rights retained, etc. and we packed the tapes and sent them. We digitized all the tapes prior to shipment and sent a digitized copy along with the original analog tapes. One feature of the agreement is that LSU and UL, Lafayette are entitled to a digitized copy of the complete set, if desired. My understanding is that processing of the collection at AFC is still ongoing. I have transcribed, in detail, about half of the tapes so far (48) and continue to work on that – several thousand pages of transcription. From the transcripts there are about twenty-five presentations varying in length from thirty minutes to two hours.”

For expert help with questions about the Caroline Dormon Award For Outstanding Louisiana Naturalist please contact:
LARRY R. RAYMOND, Chair Dormon Award, LMNA – ?lrraymond@aol.com 318-347-313

For expert help with questions about this Outstanding Louisiana Naturalist, Delahoussaye, please contact:
CLIFFORD J LEGRANGE – ?LeGrange@cox.net 225 776 2686
Author http://www.bayoupigeonbook.com/

Spam control: Please remove ? for the active email addresses

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3/22/2022 0 Comments

LOUISIANA MASTER NATURALISTS CONVENE IN PINEVILLE

Louisiana Master Naturalists exploring the rich biodiversity at Camp Hardtner in 2018.

Public invited to opening session

March 22, 2022, Alexandria/Pineville – Louisiana Master Naturalist Association will convene its annual statewide meeting called “Rendezvous” Friday, April 1. The public is invited to their opening session 7 – 8:30 p.m. at the Pineville Convention Center.

Area residents interested in the natural world and how to conserve it are especially invited to learn about LMNA and how to activate a local chapter. LMNA president Bob Thomas will introduce the organization, talk about its mission and goals, and provide information about how to get involved. LMNA president-elect Bette Kauffman will present information about nearby Camp Hardtner, a rich natural area and resource that is enrolled in the Louisiana Natural Heritage Program.

Thomas is a professor of biology at Loyola University and a herpetologist. His research in Belize led to a newly described species of snake being named after him. He is the founder of LMNA and its first president. Kauffman is a professor emerita of communication at the University of Louisiana Monroe. The material she will present is based on her Master Naturalist certification project, which was conducted as part of the process of enrolling Camp Hardtner in the LNH Program.

Day two of Rendezvous will be devoted to workshops and field trips, culminating Saturday evening with announcement of the 2022 recipient of LMNA’s Caroline Dormon Outstanding Louisiana Naturalist award. A press release naming the recipient and providing additional information about the award will be provided a few days in advance.

Notes to editors:

The Louisiana Master Naturalist Association (LMNA) is a 501(3)c umbrella organization that serves seven regional groups or chapters, throughout the state of Louisiana that are tasked with developing a corps of well-informed volunteers to provide education, outreach, and service dedicated to the beneficial management of natural resources and natural areas within our communities.

These Chapters are: Northwest, Northeast, Central, Greater Baton Rouge, Southwest, Acadiana and Greater New Orleans.
For more information about the organization, please see our website https://www.louisianamasternaturalist.org

2. Every year the LMNA members convene annually for a rendezvous weekend of environmental education and fellowship activities. Please see https://www.louisianamasternaturalist.org/rendezvous-2022.html for this year’s itinerary.

For more information and related photos please contact:

Charles Paxton
Communications Officer
Louisiana Master Naturalist Association
1-318-3311531
https://www.louisianamasternaturalist.org

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LMNA BLOG

Jim Delahoussaye Wins 2022 Caroline Dormon Award!

JIM AS ZOOARCHAEOLOGIST: EXPLORING, COLLECTING, ANALYZING
& DOCUMENTING

JIM'S WORK as FOLKLORIST

LOUISIANA MASTER NATURALISTS CONVENE IN PINEVILLE

LMNA News Blog

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YOUR CART

LMNA BLOG

Jim Delahoussaye Wins 2022 Caroline Dormon Award!

​JIM AS ZOOARCHAEOLOGIST: EXPLORING, COLLECTING, ANALYZING ​& DOCUMENTING

JIM'S WORK as FOLKLORIST

LOUISIANA MASTER NATURALISTS CONVENE IN PINEVILLE

LMNA News Blog

Archives

Categories

JIM AS ZOOARCHAEOLOGIST: EXPLORING, COLLECTING, ANALYZING
& DOCUMENTING