| Natural Resources Specialist Cinda Stutzman (from left) is interviewed by Tony Howard and recorded by videographer Matt Blinn. Photo courtesy of WBGU-PBS |
Northwest Ohio doesn’t have a Grand Canyon or geysers or mountain lions and mammoth Kodiak bears like the
places profiled in the new PBS documentary series "National Parks America’s Best Idea."
It does, however, have a wealth of natural beauty of its own, from thumb-nail-sized frogs to towering
monuments, though mostly on a smaller, more intimate scale.
Nine of those special places will be highlighted in 90-second spots produced by WBGU-PBS that will be
interspersed throughout the airing of the new Ken Burns’ series.
The spots and the PBS series premiere Sunday at 8 p.m. and will run through Oct. 2. Those individual
spots also have been rolled into one with additional material for a 30-minute documentary "Parks of
Northwest Ohio," which will premiere Oct. 5 at 8 p.m. Both the Burns’ documentary series and the
local show will air at multiple times over the next few weeks. See wbgu.org for details.
The spots were previewed this week for people involved in the production and WBGU supporters.
Tony Howard, who produced the series, said the staff at the local public TV station thought the series
"would be a nice complement" to the national documentary.
The crews, he said, got to go behind the scenes at some of the parts, including the "cells" of
habitat managed and set aside for shore birds at Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge. So as not to disturb
the birds, these areas are off-limits to the public.
At Goll Woods in Archbold, Howard said, they encountered in addition to the western chorus frog a heavy
infestation of mosquitoes. With its towering old-growth burr oaks, "we got to know what the Great
Black Swamp must have been like."
There were disappointments. At the Killdeer Plains in Upper Sandusky, the crews searched in vain to find
an Eastern massasauga rattlesnake, an endangered species that lives there.
The series also celebrates refuges close to home, including the Wintergarden Park and St. Johns Nature
Preserve in Bowling Green.
All these parks, said Patrick Fitzgerald, the station’s general manager, are "gems."
Not that some of them don’t rise to great heights. As the segment about Perry’s Victory and International
Peace Memorial notes, at 352 feet it is the third tallest national monument.
Fitzgerald said he hopes to continue producing the spots, covering other parks not in the original
series.
