Wildlife

_____________________________________________________________________________ Colorado’s summer is drawing to a close. But the season’s remaining dog days still hum with the coda of hungry insects rushing to fill up before the coming fall.  The other weekend, I happened upon one such bug, the pleasing fungus beetle (Gibbifer californicus), as it searched the hilly forests south of Denver for […]

Idaho and Montana’s wolf hunting seasons kicked off without much of a howl last week. This is the second year of hunting; the 2009-2010, was held after the Rocky Mountain gray wolf’s removal from the endangered species list. Idaho and Montana have wolf hunting seasons that last four and 10 months, respectively — part of […]

Dozens of dragonflies zoom  through my vegetable garden this time of year. Like hunchbacked sprites, they perch on the hog wire holding up the ever-heavier tomato plants, waiting for an unsuspecting fly or a particularly attractive mate to zip by. In the shallows of mountain lakes and irrigation ponds, blue damselflies, wings folded behind (unlike […]

The developed Yellowstone campground where John Wallace set up his tent last Wednesday probably made the national park seem relatively innocuous to the 59-year-old Michigan resident. It’s peak season, after all, and the place was likely humming with human activity, cars, chatter — those signs of weird, woodsy civilization peculiar to the West’s iconic natural […]

When it comes to imperiled species that get the shaft, invertebrates — in all their backboneless-glory — often top the list. And of those invertebrates, insects, with exception of the ever-adored butterfly and economically-key bee, have a particularly tough time garnering societal sympathy.  People tend to be suspicious of or “grossed out” by insects or […]

The endangered Southwestern willow flycatcher may get an additional 1,300 river miles of critical habitat set aside for it in 6 Western states, according to a new proposal from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The six-inch-long, olive and yellow bird nests in the dense vegetation along Southwestern waterways. In 2005, the agency set aside […]

In 1999, the U.S. Navy approached the University of Washington’s Applied Physics lab with a mission: develop a tool that could help harbor surveillance teams detect DIDSON was the lab’s techno-fabulous answer. The advanced sonar technology works much like an ultrasound—converting reflected sound waves into visual images—but relies on a special acoustic lens that creates […]

“Salmon carcass, cattle blood and time. In a barrel.” That’s the rank concoction that biologists in Washington state are using to coax rare carnivores in for a candid photo shoot, and to snag a few precious hairs. “Burns the nostrils,” says Aja Woodrow, a biological technician with the US Forest Service, wincing as he pours […]