Wildlife News
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Tracy Arm and Ford’s Terror Wilderness, Tongass NF, Alaska. Photo George Wuerthner A new paper, Southern Alaska’s Forest Landscape Integrity, Habitat, and Carbon Are Critical for Meeting Climate and Conservation Goals, published in AGU Advances, outlines the reasons why Alaska’s Tongass and Chugach National Forests should be given protection as carbon reserves. Both…
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Author’s note. I wrote this piece several decades ago, but never published. Although some of the references may be outdated, the general theme of the article is still valid today. The main conclusion is that Agriculture is the biggest source of biological impoverishment and your food choices can do more for the environment than just…
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Wildness in bison is maintained by evolutionary agents like harsh weather, native predators, competition for forage and mating. Photo George Wuerthner Many bison advocates assert that bison have been “saved” from extinction because approximately half a million animals are now found in zoos, ranches, tribal reservations, state parks, national parks, and other public lands. Bison…
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The idea that frequent low-severity blazes as practiced by Native American removes litter but does not kill trees and thus can preclude large blazes is widely promoted by media, the Forest Service and others. Photo George Wuerthner The idea that frequent low severity blazes as was practiced by some tribal people can reduce large conflagrations…
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The Deschutes River upriver from Bend before irrigators have removed water. Photo George Wuerthner The Bend Bulletin published a piece “Fish by the hundreds rescued in isolated Deschutes River channel.” The basic message is that volunteers “saved” several thousand fish from death as the water levels in the Deschutes River dropped. I am glad some…
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The notion that fire suppression is the reason for large mega fires ignores the influence of climate/weather on blazes and thus leads to poor public policy. We are continuously bombarded with the message that 100 years of fire suppression and lack of logging drive large blazes. The fire suppression myth is a convenient excuse for…
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Cattle grazing in the Blue Range Wilderness of New Mexico. Photo George Wuerthner Anyone who has ever worked on public lands livestock issues knows that modifying the negative impacts of ranching operations, much less eliminating them, is nearly impossible. Domestic livestock grazing even occurs in national parks, national monuments, wilderness areas, and other public lands…
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Giant sequoia at Sequoia National Park, California. Photo George Wuerthner One significant problem with explaining complex ecological stories is that many journalists are unprepared to interpret scientific research. A recent report in the Washington Post on a University of California Irvine study of wildfire fuels in California’s Sierra Nevada is a classic example of a…