Scott Fitkin started his career chasing ghost bears. As a biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife in the late ’80s, he stalked grizzly bear sightings in the Cascade Mountains. Over two decades, he verified a few tracks but never glimpsed a grizzly or even a photograph of one. Until this June. That’s […]
Wildlife
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Behind the scenes in the lives of captive wolves
When we started the 2 o’clock tour at the Colorado Wolf & Wildlife Center in the mountains above Colorado Springs, the wolves were napping, just as wild wolves do in the middle of the day. A woman in jeans and cowboy boots served as guide for our group — eight random travelers, most of whom […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Daniel Marlos shares his knowledge and love of the insect world
In early June, Daniel Marlos, an eccentric, cherubic-faced Los Angeleno, received an intriguing message from a friend: “If there weren’t two little, scrawny legs, I wouldn’t think it was a living thing!” she said, describing a creature loitering on her porch. She emailed Marlos a photo of a tawny, wingless insect, its legs cartoonishly splayed […]
Posted inRange
Jack rabbit surprises
A small mention in a column in my local newspaper last week sent me scurrying to Google and other databases to find out more. The topic? A recent decline in the black-tailed jack rabbit (Lepus californicus) population. Okay, it’s not that I’ve ever been all that interested in jack rabbits, though now I’m kind of ashamed of that. […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Forgotten Fossils
On page 3 of the recent issue appear “snapshots” of four national park units’ paleontological resources (HCN, 10/17/11, “A fossil-fueled survey”). Among those highlighted is the 2010 discovery of Barnum Brown’s dinosaur dig sites in Big Bend National Park. After six years as chief ranger of that park (1977-’82), I was assigned to Buffalo National […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
In the weeds
Amy Whitcomb’s essay really puts the job of eliminating invasive weeds from federal lands into perspective (HCN, 10/17/11, “Among the processes of place”). I have been doing the same for the National Park Service since 2006, traveling all over the Southwest, mostly trying to eliminate tamarisk (saltcedar) and Russian olive. Currently, I am in the […]
Posted inRange
Dead wolf sprouts wings
Wolves do get around – but none more so than one that was already dead. Wolves are well known in the animal world for roaming long distances. Radio collars equipped with GPS have put new details in this marvel. One Oregon wolf covered nearly 300 miles this fall, simply looking around. Even so, the peregrinations […]
Posted inGoat
Big money bill could restrict bighorn management
Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson isn’t sheepish about legislative appendages. First it was a grazing rider that would allow the Bureau of Land Management to transfer permits without environmental review. His latest — also tacked to the House’s 2012 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill — could decide the fate of a wooly battle […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: ESA sees another day
The U.S. Supreme Court just waived its chance to rule on a constitutional challenge to the Endangered Species Act, the sixth time it’s refused to hear cases that might limit the bedrock law. The fish, endemic to the state, is two to three inches in length and resides in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta’s […]
Posted inGoat
Bugs in the plan
Despite the opposition of myriad conservation organizations, lawmakers, activists, and celebrities like Darryl Hannah, the Keystone XL pipeline has seemed well on its way to federal approval. Where star power has failed, however, an inch-long, carrion-dependent beetle might succeed. TransCanada conducted surveys on the beetle in 2009 and 2010, but they also trapped and moved […]
Posted inGoat
A fatal fungus, revealed
The death toll continues to mount in Eastern caves: Since the winter of 2007, when bat behavior turned erratic in upstate New York and state wildlife officials discovered thousands of bats dead in a cave near Albany, their noses smudged with a curious white substance, a million more have succumbed to a disease called white […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
Cruising the ocean, counting seabirds
The lone-flier screams, resistlessly urges the heart to the whale-way over the stretch of the seas.–“The Seafarer,” an Old English poem, author unknown At 120 feet wide and 951 feet long, the MS Golden Princess is nearly as big as an aircraft carrier. At 109,000 gross tons, she weighs more than one. She has 15 […]
Posted inWotr
At last, Yellowstone bison catch a break
Bison live to wander, but bison with the audacity to wander beyond the invisible northern boundary of Yellowstone National Park have long been chased back into the park, sent to the slaughterhouse or simply killed outright. Recently, Montana has been trying some new approaches, and this is a very good thing for North America’s only […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
Washington’s Hanford Reservation and nuclear plant may lie on faults
Updated 11/7/11 “You’re going to see some really cool geology,” Brian Sherrod says, running his finger across the screen of his laptop in the cab of his pickup. Sherrod, a U.S. Geological Survey paleoseismologist with a salt-and-pepper mustache, tents his hands and interlocks his fingers, illustrating how seismic forces created the craggy hillsides and deep […]
Posted inRange
Enjoying the aspens despite what may come
For weeks I’ve looked forward to a short stay — working vacation, really – at my tiny cabin in southeastern Utah. September is a brutal, blazing hot month in the Phoenix area, made worse by frequent reminders in the news and elsewhere that nearly every other part of the U.S. is experiencing the beginning of […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
In national parks, where are all the fossils?
When it was established in 1922, South Dakota’s Fossil Cycad National Monument possessed the world’s most significant beds of fossilized, Cretaceous Age cycads, large, fern-like plants. But management was left to local ranchers, and paleontologists working the site received limited federal support. By the time the state historical society offered to take over in 1955, […]
Posted inOctober 17, 2011: A Burning Problem
Killing for conservation in national parks
To work for the National Park Service is to undergo a kind of transformation. I wake up in boxers and an oversized T-shirt, and, 20 minutes later, I’m standing outside my cabin in pressed green jeans, a buttoned and tucked-in gray shirt, bulky brown belt and hiking boots. At 5 feet tall, 100 pounds, I’m […]