Meet a Naturalist: Trent Pearce (Patreon)

Hey Deep Peeps,

It takes a lot of time and effort to produce each episode of Deep Look, but we couldn’t do it without the help of scientists and other valuable collaborators who have worked closely with us over the years. We’re introducing several of these wonderful partners to you in a series of short profiles so you can get a deeper look at their expertise.

Meet Trent Pearce: He’s a naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District as well as a freelance author and photographer.

“I’m an old‐school naturalist. I seek an understanding of the natural history and

ecological processes of the San Francisco Bay Area (and beyond), so that I may share that knowledge with members of the public. I teach children and adults through guided walks, lectures, online presentations, special events, interpretive signs and brochures, social media and educational videos. As a park ranger, I also get to dabble in trail maintenance, animal husbandry, and the many other aspects of running a public park.”

Pearce has served as a sort of “animal guide” for Deep Look’s production team by taking them to locations and helping them find target species for filming. He’s also been helpful as a volunteer crew member, whether he’s holding a light panel for lead producer and cinematographer Josh Cassidy or alerting producer Mike Seely when he’s crawling through poison oak.

Photo credit: (Josh Cassidy/KQED)

“What I enjoy most about working with Deep Look is having access to the producers and their wealth of knowledge. Each time I go out, I learn something new about field videography or photography, and when I watch the finished videos I learn something new about editing.”

Photo credit: (Josh Cassidy/KQED)

“My most memorable experience had to be filming turret spiders with Josh. We spent no less than three long evenings crawling around in mud and blackberries at various

regional parks to acquire the footage for these elusive spiders, much of which involved me hunting for various ground beetles to serve as prey for filming a predation sequence. I still can’t believe that out of all the times I dropped the beetle, bumped the camera, stepped into the frame, said something stupid, or otherwise completely blundered the shot, Josh and his team were able to create an epic micro‐documentary out of the footage.”

Turret spiders are ambush hunters, remaining motionless while they wait for unsuspecting prey to approach within striking distance. (Josh Cassidy/KQED)

“We are so lucky to have KQED’s Deep Look team here in the Bay Area. The content they create is some of the finest in the world,” Pearce said. “They are featuring our own local wildlife that most of us can go out and find on a casual evening exploration, and on top of that they’re a pleasure to work with!”

Top photo courtesy of Trent Pearce