Joel Bartsch: Exploring Houston’s Summer Bird Population in Hermann Park

Monday, July 20, 2020

Exploring Houston’s Summer Bird Population in Hermann Park

Joel A. Bartsch is a Texas community leader who serves as Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) president and CEO. Joel Bartsch oversees many unique HMNS satellite locations, including HMNS at Hermann Park.

A recent Houston Chronicle article followed HMNS ornithologist Dr. Dan Brooks on a bird-watching expedition around Hermann Park’s McGovern Lake. Having surveyed the lake once a week for more than a decade, Dr. Brooks pointed out resident birds like green herons, which alight on lakeside trees such as water oak. One hub of avian activity is the thickly forested Bird Island at the center of the lake.

While summer is not a time when many migratory birds visit the park, year-round inhabitants include the tree duck, or black-bellied whistling duck, and the bulls-eyed Egyptian goose. Other sightings during the trip included the common grackle, blue jays, cardinals, and mockingbirds. For those in search of rarer species, the rookery on High Island is home to tricolored herons and great egrets that gather in spring and disperse by late summer.

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About Joel Bartsch

Since 2004, Joel A. Bartsch has led the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) as president and CEO. In this capacity, he coordinates and leads museum staff and curators in the creation and maintenance of immersive exhibits, implements renovation strategies, and promoting museum-wide leadership. Through these efforts and many others, Joel A. Bartsch has nearly doubled both the institution’s annual attendance and membership base. He also oversaw two major expansions at the museum that added more than 250,000 square feet of space.

Mr. Bartsch began gaining experience in museum leadership more than three decades ago, when he joined the Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum as a curatorial assistant and assistant to the director. He held this role during his last years as a mining engineering student at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. From there, Mr. Bartsch took on staff roles at the Texas Memorial Museum and HMNS, curator of earth sciences at Lyman House Memorial Museum in Hawaii, and director and curator of the California State Mining & Mineral Museum.

Through these positions, Joel Bartsch gained extensive experience in everything from managing daily operations and directing fundraising efforts to writing corporate grant requests. He drew on this experience when he returned to HMNS as a curator, project manager, and director of earth sciences, the positions he held immediately prior to his current role as the president and CEO.