On a recent cloudy, cool spring morning the newest member of the Rye Nature Center staff was up to his elbows in artichokes. Not the more familiar globe artichokes of the thistle family – these were Jerusalem artichokes.

 

By Bill Lawyer

 

On a recent cloudy, cool spring morning the newest member of the Rye Nature Center staff was up to his elbows in artichokes. Not the more familiar globe artichokes of the thistle family – these were Jerusalem artichokes. 

 

“They kind of look like narrow potatoes,” said Taro Ietaka, as he reached into a container filled with the tubers to bring one out for planting. 

 

In the whacky world of plants, this one is in the sunflower family – it’s not an artichoke, and it has nothing to do with Jerusalem. It’s native to the northeastern United States. 

 

Ietaka (pronounced EE-u-ta-ka) was planting the Jerusalem artichoke tubers that morning as part of both aspects of his job title, Director of Conservation and Land Stewardship.  The former because the plants that will grow from the tubers will be tall and help provide protection for the Center’s garden composting area; the latter because as the plants grow they provide food for both humans and wildlife. 

 

In recent years the Rye Nature Center has been moving in the direction of making their 47-acre preserve more of a valuable natural history asset for conservation and educational advancement. In 2006, they developed a forest management plan, which called for the establishment of varied habitats to promote environmentally healthy resources. To implement that plan they needed to recruit and hire a suitably knowledgeable individual.

 

At the same time, Ietaka, curator at Westchester County’s Cranberry Lake Preserve, was looking for a more stable position, given the County’s repeated threats to eliminate some or all of the park curator positions. 

 

Ietaka was pleased when he was approached by the Nature Center and stepped into the new position in January.

 

Born and raised in southern Westchester, of Japanese and Irish heritage, Ietaka says that his initial interest in nature and the environment came from childhood visits to the Greenburgh Nature Center. 

 

He graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 1994. While he majored in political science, he always enjoyed exploring natural sites in the area. He took an ornithology course, which went beyond birding to studying bird habitats.

 

Having married a woman from Finland, he lived there for six years. He got a job as a technical writer for Nokia, but his real love was spending time at his wife’s family’s summer home in the countryside. Through nature exploration with his wife’s grandfather, he became knowledgeable regarding mushrooms and various flora and fauna.

 

After he and his wife divorced, in 2001 Ietaka returned to the U.S., where he was inspired by a visit to Sequoia National Park to become a park ranger. Back in Westchester, he took a variety of botanical and natural history courses and began volunteering in the Westchester County’s VIP program. 

 

From there he moved into a progression of paying jobs with County Parks, leading up to becoming curator at Cranberry Lake Preserve in 2008. 

 

Since taking on the job in Rye, much of his time has been spent making the park’s trails safe from the damage to trees from Hurricane Sandy. While this has been an arduous task, he has had help from a variety of volunteer groups. And, the bright side of the loss of trees has meant that the added sunlight may help stimulate the growth of new understory vegetation.

 

The storm did serious damage to the fencing at the Center’s deer exclusion area at the northeast end of the property. This had been created as the first phase of implementing the forest management plan. Ietaka is still working to re-close the fencing so that the deer will not be able to browse there. 

 

Another priority is carrying out field study to obtain an inventory of the Center’s plants.  In additional to cataloguing what’s there and where it is, they are developing a record of the temporal stages of the plants throughout the days, months and years. This will enable scientists to understand the impact of climate change. 

 

Studying the impact and handling of non-native and invasive wildlife is another priority.  While it would be helpful for healthy habitats to conserve or restore native wildlife, the removal of invasives and replanting of native species may only lead to the destruction by deer browsing. 

 

Ietaka points out that deer browsing is not the only cause of diminished understory plants.  Another is that as forests mature they become denser and provide less light. He thinks that comparative studies involving deer need to take this into consideration. 

 

Another project is the establishment of a permaculture garden – one that will provide edible plants for both humans and wildlife — birds, squirrels, bees, butterflies — and mushrooms. (Ietaka is president of the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association.) 

 

And for the rocky hilltop at Rye’s highest elevation point, Ietaka has plans to remove the over-abundant catbrier and restore what used to be a post oak habitat, including pitch pines and blueberries.

 

In describing the many projects he is working on, his love of nature and enthusiasm comes through loud and clear. Ietaka welcomes anyone who has the time and interest to come and see how they can be part of the Center’s conservation and land stewardship mission.