December 2024 – Parks & Recreation - 43

Five Rivers Metroparks in Dayton, Ohio,
engages the public in their sustainability initiatives
in many ways, including this handson
recycling both at an outdoor festival.
ticeship program who are ages 1624
are mentored and guided by a
professional artist/teacher through
a variety of site-specific projects,
including indoor and outdoor murals,
sculptural installations, Art on
the Trails projects, and many others.
Katrina Williams, chief of the
arts and cultural heritage division,
says, " Young Stars happens to be
one of my favorite programs. It is
new, fresh, and pre-teens and teens
are eager to join. I hope that this
program grows to capture show
production,
videography, editing
and more! "
Impact of Technology
AI Video Editing Tools
Powerful new AI-assisted software
to enable creating short video clips
from images and photos are being
rolled out by Adobe, OpenAI,
Meta, Runway and Google in a
software arms race to bring advanced
AI capabilities to video
creation from text, still photos and
other source material. The big tech
companies are vying to capture
eyeballs and market share and have
either already rolled out their software
or will do so soon.
The implications for parks and
recreation are profound. The most
significant impact will be that promoting
recreation programs and
events will migrate to mobile platforms
much more quickly because
it will become much easier, cheaper
and faster to do. It also means
that the printed recreation class
program distributed to residents
will be going the way of the dodo
sooner than you think.
Quick Takes
Arachnophobes Beware!
Joros Are Coming!
A very large spider that " flies " is
likely coming to parks near you.
The Joro spider already is established
in Georgia and likely will
spread throughout the Southeast
and then move northward and
westward. The Joro spider, which
can grow to a size that would cover
the palm of a large hand, first appeared
in the South about 10 years
ago, likely arriving in the United
States as hitchhikers in shipping
containers or other commerce from
Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China
where they are Indigenous species.
The Joro has distinctive markings
and yellow stripes on its long legs.
They spin large filamentous golden
webs, the strands of which actually
can allow them to " fly " on strong
air currents and " balloon " into
new locations in parks, urban areas
and other potential habitats.
A study published in the journal
Physical Entomology speculates that
the Joro soon will expand in the
mid-Atlantic because they are largely
resistant to cold temperatures,
enabling them to move northward
and westward. Multiple sightings
already have occurred in New York
City and other mid-Atlantic states.
Principal researcher Andy Davis
of the Odum School of Ecology
of the University of Georgia says,
" People should try to learn to live
with them. " He notes that while
venomous, their small fangs cannot
penetrate human skin. That's some
consolation, right?
CyberDogs
If you thought a flock of sheep
munching your invasive weed species
to oblivion was a great idea
for your parks, you will love the
idea of CyberDog. According to
a report in Pest Management Science,
CyberDogs paired with an
AI model can ferret out colonies
of Red Imported Fire Ants three
times better than human observers.
Red Imported Fire Ants are a
globally destructive species that is
found in 13 U.S. states throughout
the South and Southwest. If CyberDogs
can be programmed to find
and identify fire ants, could they
also be programmed to find and
identify other invasive and destructive
species? Perhaps they could be
programmed to carry and apply
herbicides on noxious weeds much
as live dogs do when passing a fire
hydrant. Robo Fido might just become
man's next best friend.
Richard Dolesh is the retired Vice President of Strategic
Initiatives for NRPA and Editor-at-Large for Parks &
Recreation magazine (dolesh@gmail.com).
PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G | DECEMBER 2 0 2 4 | Parks & Recreation
43
PHOTO COURTESY OF FIVE RIVERS METROPARKS (OHIO)
December 2024 – Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2024 – Parks & Recreation
