Al Keuter

Al Keuter is a long-time resident of Santa Cruz county who originally received his Biological Sciences degree from UC Davis. Early in his life he and his brother collected insects, 100,000 of which were later donated in the early 1970's to the California Academy of Sciences. After retirement he designed and built new trails at Quail Hollow Ranch County Park where he also worked to add to UCSC Bryophyte and Lichen curator Ken Kellman's QHRCP vascular plant checklist. Al has studied native California red oaks for the past decade and currently serves as vascular plants curator for the Norris Center herbarium. For Al, being a naturalist is being a lover of all things natural. One of the challenges he has had to face is the very real barrier to publishing meaningful peer-reviewed work when identified as a "citizen" or "community" scientist." He thinks we can get new students interested in natural history for their entire lifetime by engaging them with tasks and tools they are already familiar with such as iNaturalist (accessible through their smartphones).