John Frederick “Fred” Seitz died at his home in Hyattsville — the same home that he and his wife, Kathyrn “Kathy” Foxhall, bought and moved into after they wed in 1988 — on April 26, at age 73, according to his obituary. Seitz wrote the “Nature Nearby” column for the Life & Times (L&T) for over a decade, from 2011 until 2023.
Former L&T Managing Editor Susie Currie, who recruited Seitz as a regular columnist, said, “He always seemed so knowledgeable about area plants and wildlife — especially bats, as I learned when I happened to mention that we had just installed a bat box in our yard.”
The first “Nature Nearby” column appeared in May 2011 and featured yellow-crowned night herons. Topics over the years ranged from pollen and paleopalynology (“The sneezes, my friend, are ‘Blowing in the wind,’”), to cicadas (“They’re BAAACK!!!”) and tardigrades (“The toughest critter in Hyattsville — or anywhere else”), to woodchucks (“A hillside architect”) and opossums (“Night visitor”). Seitz’s writing demonstrated a dry, quirky sense of humor and a broad and abiding passion for nature and its critters.
And Seitz — who Miss Floribunda referred to as “Hyattsville’s Bat Man” in a 2013 column — wrote numerous times about bats (e.g., “Batting a thousand”). According to his obituary, Seitz was a member of Bat Conservation International, joined expeditions with national bat expert Merlin Tuttle, and gave talks on bats and threats to their well-being.
Seitz was born in Baltimore in 1952, raised in Arbutus, and graduated from Catonsville High School in 1921, according to his obituary. He received his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the University of Maryland, where he also completed his doctorate in criminology. He worked at the National Center for Health Statistics, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.