My father pioneered research on California quail in the 1940s, long before telemetry technology of any kind was available (“Wildlife Biology Goes High-Tech,” HCN, 12/10/12). I served as a small-aircraft pilot to monitor collared wolves, and to count animals from the air. More recently, I volunteered to help with a greater sage grouse study in […]
Wildlife
Posted inJanuary 21, 2013: Special issue: Natural resources education
Gratuitous hand-wringing
We can’t help the animals unless we understand their needs (“Wildlife Biology Goes High-Tech,” HCN, 12/10/12). In a world of ever-increasing human encroachment on the last pristine habitats, denying people their “God-given right” to property ownership requires justification, and that is why studies such as those cited in Robbins’ story are invaluable. I have marked […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2013: Special issue: Natural resources education
The more you know, the more you marvel
I was prepared to scowl at Jim Robbins’ article, “Wildlife Biology Goes High-Tech” (HCN, 12/10/12), after reading the subtitle — “But has our science lost its soul?” Science has no “soul.” It deals with the physical, tangible universe. As a professional ecologist and longtime teacher, I have grown impatient with the complaint that memorizing all […]
Posted inWotr
Admitting ignorance can be a good thing
At the risk of sounding like I’m a bubble or two off plumb, I’d like to ask our natural resource decision-makers to try something new as we start 2013. I’d like them to decide things based on what they don’t know, rather than on what they do. If it seems counter-intuitive to plan the future […]
Posted inWotr
Dead whales do tell tales
Just as 2012 was ending, a dead fin whale washed up on a beach in Malibu, Calif. A rare emissary from the ocean as well as an endangered species, it gave people in the area several things to consider. The first was the sheer wonder of whales. Fin whales are the second-largest animal on Earth, […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: A prospect from the singing mountain
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert, published the first Monday of each month. Damned ancient Mayans. In anticipation of the end of the world on December 21, I put off my Christmas shopping, blew off my deadline for this Rant, […]
Posted inWotr
There are too many unwanted backyard horses
I was sitting in a comfortable chair one evening, reading a vintage book about the Old West, when I happened to glance out the window to see a horse cropping the grass along my driveway. I don’t own a horse. I don’t want a horse. Too many of my neighbors own horses, only to let […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
Techno-eco-literacy
Jim Robbins’ article “Wildlife Biology Goes High-Tech” is an excellent exploration of the explosion of technology used by wildlife biologists these days (HCN, 12/10/12). As someone who has first-hand experience with some of these technologies, I agree that we can now ask critical ecological and conservation questions that we couldn’t have approached a decade or […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
Turning dead deer into good soil
Viewed from several yards away, the fragments of fur and bone woven through the pile of woodchips gave it an oddly debonair appearance, like some sort of macabre tweed. We didn’t detect a whiff of anything nasty — until we walked downwind of a recently disturbed mound. “That must be the five deer we picked […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
As it goes high-tech, wildlife biology loses its soul
In 1978, I was researching one of my first wildlife stories, working along the North Fork of the Flathead River in northwestern Montana, one of the wildest places in the Lower 48. A wolf was believed to be prowling into Montana from British Columbia –– an important discovery if true, because wolves had been absent […]
Posted inGoat
Predator control ain’t easy
I recently returned from a wolf hunt. The trip was part of my research for an upcoming story on how wolves, once endangered, are now being managed in the Rocky Mountains. Our experience of managing predators in the West goes far beyond wolves, however. There’s plenty circulating in the news on this topic right now; […]
Posted inDecember 12, 2011: Out on a limb
The environmentalists’ whitebark pine air force
In the summer of 2009, the Natural Resources Defense Council and EcoFlight conducted a comprehensive aerial survey to assess the damage mountain pine beetles were causing in whitebark pine forests in the Yellowstone National Park region. They devised a Landscape Assessment System — a low-flying airplane using “geo-tagged oblique aerial photography to assess the cumulative […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
A sampler of wildlife tech
PingersRadio transmitters, sometimes called “pingers,” are a classic monitoring method. Powered by batteries, they transmit very high frequency signals that are picked up by antennas or satellites. Until recently, the batteries’ weight and size couldn’t be reduced enough to use transmitters on small animals and fish. But now, says Doug Bonham, a freelance circuit-board designer […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
BLM’s equine quagmire
It’s unconscionable that current policy has tripled the Bureau of Land Management’s wild horse and burro program budget since 2000 to a massive $76 million. Dave Philipps’ fine piece of reporting mentioned many of BLM’s management strategies, such as roundups, adoption, fertility control and sanctuaries (“Nowhere to Run,” HCN, 11/12/12). A few more were overlooked, […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
Round ’em up
The ongoing feral horse debate is a prime example of a small special-interest group getting its way and creating an unsustainable public program (“Nowhere to Run,” HCN, 11/12/12). Feral horses are a serious threat to our native ecosystems. Research has shown that areas inhabited by feral horses have fewer plant species and less grass and overall […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
What’s wild?
I consider the recent article on wild horse management one of your best (“Nowhere to Run,” HCN, 11/12/12). It seems that some people are adamant that horses have no place in the wild. Others consider them equivalent to deer, elk and other wildlife. How long does a species have to be here to be considered […]
Posted inNovember 26, 2012: Casting for Common Ground
The right tributary
Yesterday I took a long walk up a cold stream in search of bull trout. I didn’t really expect to see fish. Instead, I’d come to see redds — the gravel nests in which fish lay eggs — because I’d been trying to write a story about salmon and realized I knew nothing whatsoever about […]
Posted inGoat
When deer attack dogs
I was innocently working away in my office (living room) when the barking began. We live in a medium-sized town in southwestern Colorado, where owning a dog seems to be a prerequisite, and every canine in the neighborhood was going off about something, resulting in a cacophonous symphony. Our dog, Princess (no, we didn’t give […]
Posted inRange
Trouble In Mind
Two images stand out from photographs I’ve taken here in northwestern Montana in the last couple months. One is from hunting for deer in November, the other from hunting a Christmas tree last weekend. The snowshoe hare in mid November is practicing “mind over matter.” He trusts his natural camouflage to keep him safe, even […]
Posted inWotr
Salmon must have water in the Klamath and Trinity rivers
Though it happened a decade ago, no one living near the Klamath River will ever forget the massive fish kill that wiped out at least 60,000 salmon trying to swim up the river to spawn. What happened that summer was the largest known fish kill in the West, caused by disease resulting from a combination of shallow […]