By Mary Ann Thomas, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 8/22/25
‘We can debate the solutions, but we shouldn’t be denying the problems,’ says Jim Bonner of the Audubon Society of Western Pa.
Perched above an urban neighborhood in Tarentum is a restored 1880s home known as Rosemary Mansion. In the small pond, green frogs and toads create a chorus of “plunks” among the water lilies.
By design, the 1-acre lot features small patches of lawn surrounded by native wildflowers, creeping thyme, shrubs and black walnut trees. A sign identifies the property as an Audubon Certified Backyard Habitat.
This is where you will find Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania executive director Jim Bonner and his wife, Leslie, sitting by the pond or working on their gardens alongside their dogs Phoebe and Wren. He is set to retire next month.
The Bonners’ park-like yard in a classic mill and river town reflects both his journey and the region’s shift to more nature-friendly spaces. It’s a long way from where he began.
Born in Glassport in the Monongahela Valley with a proud family history of working in steel and other mills, Bonner grew up in the 1960s and ’70s, watching the snow darken turn dirty 20 minutes after it fell.
With 21 years at Audubon and leadership roles at the National Aviary and Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, he has worked to bring nature closer to everyone, regardless of their surroundings.
“I have taken great joy in birds and nature and feel fortunate that I’ve been able to introduce it to so many more people,” he said.
Bonner was recently honored with the Walt Pomeroy Conservation Award by the Pennsylvania Audubon Council Board.
The board highlighted his environmental work with economic justice communities and his role in establishing the “Lights Out Pittsburgh” initiative during bird migration.
“More recently, Jim has contributed to the adoption of several environmentally friendly ordinances by the Pittsburgh City Council, including one that permits property owners to grow native plants without fear of a previous ‘weed ordinance,’” the Audubon Council Board said in a press statement.
An environmental movement
Bonner has lived through and worked on environmental changes of public interest for decades.
Birds are immensely popular, but only recently has the recognition of their popularity grown tremendously, he noted. Nationally, 37% of Americans feed or watch birds, according to a 2022 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service survey.
“It’s no longer a quiet thing and people know that,” Bonner said.
The number of bird stories on major news outlets and social media sites has exploded in the last decade, he noted.
While Bonner has enjoyed watching interest grow, nurturing that interest regionally, he also sees its politicization.
The general public supported the environmental movement in the 1970s with “overwhelming bipartisan majorities,” marked by the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of the Clean Air and Water acts, as well as the Endangered Species Act.
“Now it’s politicized, with denying basic science and arguing whether something is valuable or not and it has divided people. That is disappointing and confusing, Hopefully, it’s not a long-term situation.
“We can debate the solutions, but we shouldn’t be denying the problems.”
Roughly a decade ago, climate change was supported by scientific studies and accepted by the majority of Americans, but leaders didn’t act as swiftly as they could have, Bonner said.
“When we had 60% who wanted to address climate change, we wanted 75% to agree. You don’t need everyone to agree. We needed 51% to agree, and we squandered it.”
Given the growth of disinformation and counterinformation, it will take some other future change to convince people, he said.
“That’s where birds play such a big role. For us, birds are a means and an end. People like birds and support them. If you can focus on birds, you can bring people to the table to talk about other things.
“The more we can have people find common ground, then you can have other things influence positively,” said Bonner, who is a fan of climatologist Katharine Hayhoe.
Not a crunchy granola guy, Bonner has that average Pittsburgh worker sensibility leavened with wit, courtesy and business acumen.
Meeting a green magpie
Bonner is a South Allegheny High School graduate who worked toward a math and computer science degree at Duquesne University and later earned a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences from the University of Pittsburgh.
He landed a management job in California in the electronic security industry in the late 1980s, but after a year or so, an earthquake upended his stay.
“Jim, I’m ready to go home,” his wife said. “Do you want to come?”
They returned to Pittsburgh and visited the National Aviary, then the city-owned Pittsburgh Aviary. There Bonner made a new friend: a green magpie from Southeast Asia.
While feeing the bird grapes, he noticed how it stored some for later. The interaction made an impression on Bonner, who began volunteering at the Aviary, received vet-tech training and rose through the ranks to become curator.
Soon after, he took a job as executive director of the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society, now known as Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh.
During his tenure, the nonprofit built a new North Side Shelter. Then came the outdoor cat problem. During summer, the society was inundated with kittens, sometimes receiving 80 in just one day.
“It’s a problem for cats, humans and wildlife,” Bonner said.
While trying to collaborate with the Audubon Society on solutions, he found himself in an interview process.
“I went from feathers to fur and back to feathers,” he said.
“The Humane Society was meaningful work but was not as personally rewarding as working with wildlife.”
Growing Audubon
The Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania is one of the five largest chapters nationally in program offerings, budget and staff size thanks to Bonner and the nonprofit’s board, who parlayed public interest in nature into more nature reserves, environmental education programs, certified backyard habitats and more.
“I am happy that ASWP has continued to grow. We have staff and members that go back to the 1970s and ’80s — that means we are doing something right,” he said.
However, the headwinds of dramatic bird population declines have created an urgency during his tenure. A 2019 study published in Science revealed the loss of 3 billion birds in North America in the past 50 years.
“We try to take a pragmatic and positive approach by not beating up people on things but to find ways to do things to make a meaningful difference.”
Bonner was shrewd when it comes to growth: He wanted it for the nonprofit, but he and the board thought it better to sprinkle nature reserves and facilities across the region.
Beechwood Farms facilities in Fox Chapel were already growing when Bonner arrived and he continued that momentum with improvements and a native plant center.
“There’s a law of diminishing returns on places. If they get too busy and too big, you lose the experience. We didn’t want 500 people a day walking on the trails of Beechwood. We wanted to keep it intimate and enjoyable,” he said.
In 2011, ASWP acquired Succop Nature Park in Butler County, which includes a historic mansion for events, a restored bank barn, trails and a nature store.
A decade later, the nonprofit opened the Buffalo Creek Nature Park with facilities and programs along the Butler-Freeport Community Trail in Butler County.
They kept nearby and longtime Audubon property, Todd Nature Reserve as a low-impact natural area in Butler County that remains undeveloped with some nature trails.
Besides its facilities, Audubon has encouraged residents to plant native trees and plants while avoiding pesticides to entice more birds, butterflies and other wildlife. The Certified Backyard Habitat Program has about 1,300 acres of habitat in people’s yards, which is about eight times the size of Beechwood Farms, Bonner said.
“That’s a distributed nature reserve we helped create.”
Additionally, municipalities are embracing ‘birdiness’ with the Bird Town program, which raises bird awareness, provides for their needs and celebrates our feathered friends.
“While all that is rewarding, there is more to do,” Bonner said.
He has his own retirement plan: “People will see me along the roads picking up litter and I’ll be working to make Tarentum a great Bird Town.”
