Taking the fear factor from spiders and snakes

David Womer, a two-time winner of the World Series of Birding Competition in New Jersey, declares that he is “not just a bird nerd.” He’s equally fond of snakes, tarantulas, lizards, cockroaches, frogs, toads, iguanas, mice and an assortment of other animals he owns.

Womer is president of Back Into Nature Inc., the company he founded in 1994 to share his knowledge and love of nature with people of all ages. Armed with a master’s degree in wildlife biology from Stephen F. Austin State University and a few years with New Jersey’s Somerset County Park Commission, he started offering nature tours and classes… and removing squirrels from people’s attics. Within a few years, his nature education services were in demand, and Womer was able to quit the odd jobs he took to keep his business afloat. Today, he struggles to keep up with an overflowing schedule of school assemblies, after-school nature clubs, summer camp programs and educational birthday parties. Preschoolers absolutely love his classes on scat (animal poop), while elementary school kids enjoy dissecting owl pellets to reconstruct the animal it ate by piecing together regurgitated fur and bones.

If you’re saying “Eeeewwwww” right now, you’re not alone. “So many people are afraid of so many things,” Womer says. “I try to get people out of that in a nice and humorous way. I had a teacher yesterday who said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not touching any of this.’ By the end of the class, she had a boa constrictor around her neck.”

Womer has 40 snakes, none of them venomous, which he uses to illustrate the different colors, patterns and textures of reptiles. He brings his Madagascar hissing cockroaches, giant winged cockroaches and walking sticks to teach about insects. He also can choose from more than a dozen lizards, including bearded dragons. His animals (which number in the hundreds if you count the mice and rats he breeds to feed the snakes) are housed in his basement, where tanks featuring ponds, water, logs and huts (for hiding) line the wall. Womer also purchases a few thousand crickets and mealworms each month, to feed the lizards, toads and frogs--though some of his frogs will eat mice and snakes.

With such a large collection of critters, Womer is able to teach classes on just about any animal topic you can imagine. He covers the broad categories of insects, arachnids, amphibians, reptiles and mammals, or he can focus on just lizards, frogs and toads, spiders and scorpions or birds. He’s taught children how to track animals and identify camouflage. Womer also shares his expertise on other nature topics, such as fossils, rocks and minerals, astronomy, compass navigation and volcanoes.

Whatever the subject or age group he is teaching, Womer specializes in making it fun and educational. In Scatology I, a group of 4-year-olds will learn the basic types of scat (not “poo poo” or “doo doo”) of different animals. They explore the topic as naturalists, learning how you might track an animal by studying its scat. In a six-week summer camp program, he will introduce a different topic each day. The kids enjoy searching for a camouflaged animal (Womer’s son Jonathan helps out by dressing in different kinds of camouflage and hiding in the woods). And he always times the breeding of his lizards and snakes so the kids (and interested parents) can watch the babies hatch from their eggs during camp.

Youngsters all over northern New Jersey and across the border into Pennsylvania and southern New York have enjoyed going “Back Into Nature” with Womer, whom they know as “Mr. Dave.” A typical Saturday may find him in a library for a reptile program with young readers, followed by a couple of birthday parties. He enjoys introducing children to nature, the way one of his teachers did for him.

“When I’m on a field trip with a group of kids, looking for snakes and turtles and frogs, I’ll bring a spotting scope and get them to look at birds up close. That’s how I got interested--when my teacher put a telescope on a woodpecker. I couldn’t believe the detail and colors,” he recalls. “I try to do as much as I can as early as I can. No age is too young. You’d be amazed what kids can accomplish.”

—Sharon Huss Roat, AS ’87

David Womer lives in Pohatcong, N.J., with his wife, Ann. His daughter, Caroline, is a UD sophomore.