The naturalist - Profile - Kent Bonar

Those who know him refer to Kent Bonar simply as the naturalist, sometimes almost with awe, in a tone suggesting that this strange man of the woods possesses a special gift.

With his eye patch, battered straw hat, and worn clothing, Bonar seems an unlikely hero. His cabin bordering the Upper Buffalo River Wilderness in the Ozarks of northwest Arkansas is slapdash functional. Several dogs sleep in the shade by the porch, Bonar's backwoods companions.

The naturalist has spent his life in these low mountains. He worked as a park guide in the Arkansas system but eventually sought a bigger stage. Drawn to the biologically rich region along the headwaters of Buffalo National River in northwest Arkansas' Newton County, Bonar built a homestead on a rocky, oak-shrouded ridge and began his exploration of the surrounding hills and hollows.

In doing so he became the champion of every living thing in the region, no matter how infinitesimal or overlooked. He brings a religious reverence to his view of nature and, like Thoreau and Muir, is an incessant foot traveler, prone to strike out on a 20-mile nature trek just to see what might be discovered and recorded. His friends still find it hard to accept the scope of his travels, since hiking in the Ozarks inevitably leads into a labyrinth of deep, narrow coves, or "hollers" as the natives know them.

Blinded in one eye, Bonar uses what sight remains to render drawings of Upper Buffalo flora and fauna. Working from field sketches, he returns to the candlelight of his cabin to fashion detailed pen-and-ink portraits of acorns, orchids, birds, bats, and insects. Some of the drawings have been commissioned for scientific keys, and from these Bonar draws a meager royalty check now and then. He could sell some of his drawings, but the Ozark naturalist shrugs at the suggestion; he'd rather donate a few to the Newton County Wildlife Association and add to his collection, which he hopes to hand over to a university some day.

Bonar serves the association as chief naturalist, illustrator, and editorial contributor. His knowledge has been crucial in aiding local grassroots environmentalists in their 25-year fight to limit clear-cutting and herbicide applications in the Ozark National Forest and earned him the title of "gonzo naturalist" from one local newspaper.

"There are things living here that haven't been documented by man since the early 1800s," Bonar asserts. He believes that these rare animals and plants haven't vanished but have been overlooked because few people still venture into the wildest of Ozarks recesses.

It is not unusual to come upon Bonar miles from home, his woodsman's axe serving as a walking stick and his naturalist's paraphernalia in a worn daypack. Sometimes you'll find him sitting under a towering oak, issuing a perfect trilling imitation of a screech owl and noting the species of songbirds that respond in anger.

Newspaper editorials declare that Bonar has been a force in slowing the decline of a national forest and the wildlife within. Some say his greatest gift may be his ability to guide the uninitiated through the Ozarks and make them feel at home. Bonar says he reaches out to others so they can "grasp our place in time and understand how fragile this place has become."

In the meantime, he continues to fashion his own field guides and live a life that mostly vanished with the demise of Bartram, Audubon, Muir, and Thoreau. His search for the unseen goes on-insects remain to be drawn, waterfalls to be inked, creatures to be recorded.

Gary Lanz is a freelance writer based in Norman, Oklahoma.

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