Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
You could say Rudy Gelis had a very mobile childhood. The 1991 Pocahontas County High School graduate remembers that he didn’t go to the same school in any grade for a full year until his family moved to the county when he was 10 years old.
West Virginia became a solid landing place for him, and Pocahontas County became home, at least until he graduated.
Then Gelis was on the move again. He went to Berea College with the intention of earning a degree in biology.
“It took me longer than normal,” he said. “I dropped out of Berea for almost two years to grow up a little bit. I went out to Seattle and did some things out there.”
Gelis returned to Berea and finished his degree, earning a fellowship to travel the world for a year.
“That blew my mind, as you might imagine,” he said. “With that fellowship, I actually wound up in Ecuador.”
That visit to Ecuador stuck with Gelis. After the fellowship, he tried graduate school in Kentucky and got married to fellow PCHS grad, but he was always thinking about Ecuador.
After some struggle trying to juggle everything, Gelis said he got divorced, sold his car for $500 and moved to Ecuador with a couple hundred dollars in his pocket.
“I was just dreaming about Ecuador,” he said.
His degree was in biology, but he has done a lot of different things to stay in Ecuador. For the most part, Gelis has been a naturalist, giving guided tours in the jungle, as well as a researcher of flora and fauna.
“I’ve done everything,” he said. “I’ve done so many things just to live here for this many years. I’ve done so many silly things. I’ve worked as a jungle guide for most of my time here. I’ve been guiding bird watchers and nature lovers.”
Gelis built up a system where he works as a guide for a few months, earning enough money to fund his own research. When those funds run out, he goes back to guiding.
In doing his own research, Gelis has written and published several articles about his bird studies and has even had an orchid named after him.
“I’ve done quite a few crazy things with science stuff, including discovering new species of orchids,” he said. “I had an orchid named after me. It’s Epidendrum Gelisii.”
Gelis is modest about the discovery and calls it “blind dumb luck” that he was the one who discovered the orchid.
At this point in his career, Gelis has two things he is balancing. One is writing, which he started doing in the spring. He posts regularly on his Substack blog called “Belonging Through the Wilderness.”
In this blog, he writes about his experiences as a naturalist and his childhood that led him to the outdoors and exploring all nature has to offer.
“Some months ago, something in my brain uncorked and I just started letting it out,” he said. “You’ll get a very good idea of who I am and what I’m about right away.”
Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t pay the bills, so the other half of his balancing act is recording birds, inputting the audio into AI and teaching AI to recognize the birds in the wild.
“I’m the guy that takes bird sounds from the jungle and puts them into machine learning so that eventually – and this is going to take another year or two – we can put out recorders anywhere in Ecuador and plug in that recording to the machine we’re training and the machine will go, ‘oh, this is what you have in your forest as far as birds go,’” Gelis said.
The work is training the AI to recognize bird sound, but the long-term goal is to help with conservation efforts all over the country. Although it might be difficult for AI to say specifically how many of a certain bird are in the wild when analyzing the audio, it can state with certainty what kind of bird it is.
Gelis said there are a couple apps in existence now that use this technology which were developed by Cornell University. They are called Merlin and eBird.
“eBird is a place where you can submit all of your observations, whether it’s raptors or robins, every bird counts and the data you generate goes to a general database everybody can look at,” he said. “Merlin does it a step further. It’s not great with the bird list, but it can actually recognize – if you go outside and turn it on and say ‘what’s singing,’ it will actually tell you – American robin, goldfinch, etc. It’s already trained.”
With the technology to do this now, Gelis said his ornithology friends have shown fear of losing their jobs, but he knows there’s no need to worry. The technology may be able to ID a bird from its song, but it can’t do the same job an ornithologist and guide can do.
To Gelis, the apps are a great tool for travelers who want to be independent and don’t want to hire a guide to go exploring with them.
“Their fear goes away in traveling because they have something in their hand, they can go out and try it themselves,” he said. “I want more of that. I love independent travelers and people who aren’t scared. Those people coming out of the woodwork is a good thing.”
And when those people, or others who prefer to have a guide, come to Ecuador, Gelis is there ready to show them around. When it comes to identifying the animals, trees, flowers and more of the jungle, he’s the one you want with you.
“Maybe you’ve been out with a hunter who knows where the ginseng is; knows where the ramps are; knows where the hawks are,” he said. “That’s me, down here. “I’m a naturalist. I know the fish, stingrays, you name it. Whale, sharks, trees, everything.
“I was told years ago that my knowledge is encyclopedic, and I’ve used it ever since,” he added.
Gelis has even been a guide for a fellow PCHS grad. He was contacted a few weeks ago by classmate Bill Carpenter, whom he hadn’t seen since graduating. Carpenter wanted to bring his family to Ecuador and “see it through Rudy’s eyes.”
Gelis was surprised to hear from him, but excited to show the family around and catch up with Bill.
Carpenter came bearing clippings from The Pocahontas Times from their days on the PCHS basketball team, and the two reminisced about old times.
Although he has been settled in Ecuador for the past 25 years, Gelis said he has traveled the world and lived several lifetimes of life in experiences.
“I think I’ve been saying this for the last twenty years, it feels like I’ve already had two or three lifetimes,” he said. “I’ve been doing a lot of stuff. I think it’s because the things that I do are so disjointed. Working in the Amazon. Making pottery in Seattle. Hitchhiking across Cambodia.
“Just doing a bunch of random, silly, absurd things,” he continued. “It feels like, when I tell the tales, it feels like I’ve lived a couple lifetimes.”
Those travels have also brought him back home to Pocahontas County, which can be strange, but for the most part, is rewarding. He spends time with his former basketball coach Bob Sheets, and his wife, Elaine, who have always felt like family.
“They treated me like family when I was in high school and they still do,” he said of the Sheets. They’re so awesome and I feel so comfortable there. I still love Pocahontas County. I love it especially because of the nature.”
Gelis has an older brother, Roger, younger brother, Alex, and a sister, Kimberly.
To read Gelis’ blog, visit rudygelis.substack.com
