The news caught my eye. The European Bison, or 'wisent,' will be reintroduced to Southern England. The Wilder Blean Project plans to use a small herd of bison to regenerate a former pine plantation. They will be the first bison to browse an English forest in six thousand years. Together with some wild ponies and …
Salmon in the Mountains
I knew my chances were slim. Only a handful of salmon make it into the Idaho mountains this close to the Montana border. The fact any do at all is remarkable. I was standing six hundred and twenty-four river miles from the Pacific, upstream from eight major dams, three and a half thousand feet above …
How to Keep Returning Wildlife Wild
For the latest post on the Plastocene, I'm linking to a piece I published yesterday in The Atlantic on the complicated question of how to keep wildlife wild on a crowded planet. We go to restoration sites in Italy and the UK, before bringing the lessons back to Montana. Saving nature clearly ain't what it used to …
An Owl with a Parachute
I never knew a northern spotted owl could parachute vertically through the forest. This delightful image came from a researcher who spent eight years studying the owls in the Oregon Cascades. He had personally witnessed a descent and could hardly contain his excitement when he told us about it. To find the reticent Strix for …
Why Montana’s Not That Different
Jetlag gets you up early. On the first day back from a trip to Europe, I found myself alert in bed at 5.30 a.m. wondering how exactly I was going to fill the time till breakfast. A casual jog around the neighborhood would not normally be my first choice but it felt like a good …
When People, Dogs, and Fungi Form an Inseparable Whole
This was the third time I had witnessed Andrea, the gruff Italian woodsman and truffle hunter, working closely with his dog Zara. Zara is a short-haired pointer, an awkward-looking blend of floppy ears, long legs, and bountiful canine energy who just happens to be excellent at sniffing out the black truffles that lie beneath the …
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Biodiversity Loss and (What is Not) Rocket Science
It’s the habitat, stupid! Such a well-worn phrase – or something close to it – could serve as a tag line for the alarming report on biodiversity loss released in summary form this week by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The report doesn’t mince words about the fact that human impacts …
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Of Moose and Sturgeon: Lessons from the Ragged Edges of the Anthropocene
A mother and calf moose were found bedded down in an alleyway in downtown Missoula, Montana this last Friday morning. They were resting up somewhere between a law office and a bank. People showing up for work at the end of the week were warned to look both ways before they ran across the street …
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We Are All Part-Moose
“Okay, let’s do this.” These were my self-directed words of encouragement as I decided to take the right turn and head one final time up the hill of the outer ski loop. I had been keeping my eye on the clock as I had to pick my wife up from the airport in less than …
The Endangered Species Act and the Extinction of Cultural Wisdom
It wasn’t long after the Trump administration’s proposal to weaken the Endangered Species Act hit the headlines that a story emerged about a surprise encounter between two Irish fisherman and a striking piece of Earth’s history. Raymond McElroy and Charlie Coyle were fishing for pollan in Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland in September when their …
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