Harold Greeney studies butterflies, bugs and birds in an Ecuadorian cloudforest

(Text reprinted courtesy of Wake Forest Magazine, which commissioned the article).

Although he could’t spell it at the age of 8, Harold Greeney III announced to his parents that he wanted to become a tropical entomologist. At the time, the Greeneys were living in Venezuela, and little Harold was already learning Spanish and  losing himself in the world of bugs. (“I have seen more jars of slugs than I care to remember,” his mother says.)

 Two decades later, Greeney is happily roughing it and studying bugs, birds and butterflies in a cloud forest just south of the equator in Cosanga, Ecuador. At 6800 feet in elevation, Greeney’s lofty new project and home place is a biology research station that he envisions becoming a center for creative studies that blends art, biology,  and creative writing. Yanayacu, as he calls it, sits on about 100 hectares where Greeney lives without electricity and conducts research the old-fashioned way, making field notes in the jungle. His research is broad but is directed mainly at the natural history of tropical forests. He also manages local research projects on insects, birds, frogs, and bees, and teaches biology to independent students and volunteers.

After graduating from Wake Forest University in 1993, Greeney earned a master’s degree in entomology from the University of Arizona in 1999, then sold everything he owned and, with help from his family, bought the Ecuador property, described in a Christmas email to friends: “I am situated at the end of 210 acres: mostly virgin cloud forest but also some pasture and patchy forest. My land is a big stripe that disappears over the mountains behind me. From the porch, I can see the  sun rising over the Guacamayo ridge about 10 kilometers away. The entire house is made of tropical hardwoods and to the left of the house is the current bathroom (actually a rather nice bucket-flush outhouse). The shower is a tube coming out of the ground. In the greenhouse I grow tree tomatoes, bananas, mangoes, limes, and peppers. There are oncilla (a small, jaguar-looking cat), spectacled bear, and cecelian (a legless amphibian). Bugs and butterflies: lots.”

He set up house stocking only rice, sugar, salt, coffee and beer. He trades pasture use for the neighbor’s fresh milk. In the greenhouse he raises butterflies and vegetables (which he shares with his caterpillars). Some days, the man eats like a king: mangos with whipped cream, smoked trout on a bed of rice and white onions, steamed green beans, wild mint sun tea. Like his neighbors (several miles away), he sleeps under alpaca wool blankets, rises with the sun and goes to bed shortly after it sets.

From his remote research station, he drives four hours to a hostel owned by friends, where he rents a computer by the hour to input field research and use the Internet.

“I am more of a natural historian than a biologist. I make drawings of the early stages caterpillars, what they eat, what eats them, what times of day they’re active. It is an interesting dichotomy because all biologists want the information I’m getting, but nobody want to do the research I’m doing. And pharmaceutical companies don’t want this kind of research; they want you to crush up bugs and look for chemicals inside them.”

Greeney has published his findings in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society, and the Journal of Tropical Ecology, to name a few. Currently he is preparing a field guide to the upland butterflies of northeastern Ecuador. He constantly initiates communication between research biologists, conservationists, and the community at large, and meets regularly to exchange ideas and share the need for volunteers and resources.  He has assisted a support group for indigenous battered women and participated in cooperative purchases of land to preserve it.

He dreams of writers and artists writing alongside biologists, students and researchers, inspiring each other and sharing knowledge. He wants to export butterflies for profit (some zoos buy several hundred butterflies twice a month), and teach local communities how to do the same as a non-invasive method of sustainable forest use. Exportation permits for the first shipments of butterflies are expected soon. Greeney wants to survey birds, butterflies, and orchids on the slopes of a nearby volcano, Sumaco, which would require a helicopter drop-in and lots of funding, hopefully through the National Science Foundation or National Geographic.

“Some of these things are at least five years in the planning and five in the execution,” he muses. “Once a dreamer, always a dreamer.” Student groups and researchers who want more information about programs may visit  www.yanayacu.org or contact Greeney (and wait a few weeks for a reply) at yanayacu@hotmail.com.

Go to  more alumni magazine articles

Article on Harold Greeney by Sheridan Hill

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