Excerpt from the Yellow Springs News
Any time we step outside into the natural world, we’re surrounded not only by abundant life, but stories about that life — if we learn where to look and how to listen.
Outfitted with a GoPro camera and decades’ worth of knowledge to share, local resident Don Cipollini brings viewers along on journeys that delve into those stories on “The Naturalist” — the newest original program to be broadcast by Community Access Yellow Springs Channel 5.
Cipollini began filming episodes of “The Naturalist” in late summer of 2023, and since then the program has featured new episodes nearly every week. The episodes air first on Channel 5, and are then uploaded to “The Naturalist” YouTube channel.
Speaking with the News this week, Cipollini said that, as a 25-year professor of biology at Wright State University, creating a show like “The Naturalist” was a logical next step.
“I teach about all this stuff all the time,” he said. “I have this thing in me to want to share what I know with other people.”
The genesis of “The Naturalist” was a series of conversations with Channel 5 Station Manager Ben Guenther last year. When Guenther suggested Cipollini bring his wealth of knowledge and his penchant for exploring nature on camera, Cipollini liked the idea, but put it “on the back burner” initially.
