Island Press Field Notes

The standing dead trees were everywhere, their boles weathered silver where the bark had peeled. The carcasses of their fallen comrades littered the understory, with few aspen sprouting from the deadfall. The occasional mangled saplings we observed provided graphic evidence of heavy elk browsing.

Perhaps no other species symbolizes the conflict over logging in the Pacific Northwest more than the northern spotted owl. This medium-sized, forest-dwelling raptor has been credited with shutting down the logging industry in the 1990s and with shouldering the responsibility of conservation for hundreds of species that share its old-growth forest habitat.

Out here in the high elevation desert of Silver Hills the country is rough and remote. Much of it is so inaccessible that the common detritus of the dominant endemic species, Hillbillicus nevadensis (var.redneckii), is nowhere to be seen. So while the rutted, dusty BLM roads in the sage-filled valley bottoms are beribboned with spent shell casings, Coors light bottles, and empty cans of chew, there’s simply no easy way to litter the steep, rocky high country.

From Bryan Barney at Grist.org If you think all ecologists are focused on the gloom and doom of climate change, think again. Some of them have even bigger things on their minds.