If you spend enough time in natural areas you will probably have a chance encounter with wildlife, where you share an intimate moment in the life of that species. I recently had an impactful meet up, or near literal impact, with the largest woodpecker in North America.
Due to a recent die-off of finches and other songbirds, the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife wants residents to remove or clean bird feeders daily until April 1 to prevent the spread of salmonellosis, a common and usually fatal bird disease caused by the salmonella bacteria. When birds flock together in large numbers at feeders, they can transmit the disease through droppings and saliva.
In October the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection for this species under the Endangered Species Act. Many conservation organizations including Earthjustice and Conservation Northwest have been working for over 20 years to get this species listed. With the continued reduction in snowpack, these organizations are concerned that without additional protections the U.S. Forest …
Gulo gulo, the gluttonous one. Wolverines are one the feistiest and most elusive carnivores in the north. Even among fierce predators of the Mustelidae or weasel family, wolverines are above and beyond. They have been known to fend off a grizzly bear from a kill and, when opportunity arises, hunt animals many times their size—like deer. They are the largest member of the …
Mountain lions are one of the most elusive animals in North America. Chances are if you spend time in the wilds you have rousted a cougar out of its bedding area without even knowing it. But some of these big cats get habituated to the human world, and losing their life because of it. Kalispel tribal biologist …
By Travis Laurence Naught Northeastern Yellowstone National Park is unbelievably wild. A dear friend of mine has taken a group of university students there for a week every summer since 2005. They watch wolves and write. Teeming herds of large mammals, expansive vistas, and the surging power of nature aid these practicing authors. Most writers don’t get a week like this—especially writers like …
The movement of wildlife is crucial to their survival. Salmon travel from the ocean to the river to spawn, field mice scurry along hedgerows to avoid predation, and caribou traverse thousands of miles to search for wintering grounds. Wildlife corridors are the routes, relatively unhindered by human activity, that wild animals travel to meet many of their primary needs: food, shelter, and reproduction. Nature has a way of spreading animals across the …
If animals become too crowded, they can more easily spread viral and bacterial diseases. This can become exasperated when humans artificially crowd animals, particularly bringing a large variety of different species together, like in the wildlife farms and wet markets where the COVID-19 outbreak started. In these situations, diseases can spread rapidly, evolve, and jump from one species to the …
Many people have a Life List of all the birds they have seen. Others keep field journals denoting all the wildlife and plant species they see during a trip. And still other just find a comfortable place to sit and sketch nature, adding annotations about the species or the weather. Bringing along a few items …
The Spokane region is near a major flyway for many waterfowl species flying from their winter grounds to summer breeding areas. One of the best birds to start with is the American White Pelican. Due to their size they are hard to miss and easy to observe if you know where to look.
