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Benefit of thinning forests for spotted owls is not so clear-cut

By Dominick A. DellaSala / On August 16th, 2012
The July 26 editorial "Logging for spotted owls" dismisses decades of scientific research by touting one new study that suggests "heavy thinning" (aka, clear-cut lite) of forests could benefit spotted owls. Based on a single computer simulation, the new study suggests that intensive logging will magically prevent "catastrophic fires" such as the Biscuit that "wiped out" owls and other wildlife. This is unfounded.
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The Wolverine and the Refrigerator

By Charles C. Chester / On July 30th, 2012
One of Marvel Comics' most popular characters, Wolverine, was born with the genetic mutation allowing him to recover rapidly from any injury. Combine that with the Canadian [sic] government's program to replace his skeleton with the indestructible metal adamantium, and you have one tough character. The character's eponymous creature is also one tough critter, one that thrives in frozen mountain habitats and has been reported to scare off grizzlies from their kills.
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Conserving Our Wild Border

By Admin / On July 24th, 2012
From an important op-ed in the San Diego Union Tribune The southern border region is one of the most bio-diverse areas in the United States and a crossroads for many carnivores. Today, the area is more widely known for the highly charged border politics involving people than for how those politics may affects the bears, jaguars, mountain lions and other wildlife that make the area home.
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Almost, a Welcomed Surprise

By Steven I. Apfelbaum / On April 20th, 2012
The dustings from most previous storms, and atypical warm conditions, and storm paths that have gone around our southern Wisconsin farm, have left us in an extended “fall or spring-season-like trance”.  Fields of standing upright plant stalks blow and shake in the wind, brown, gray and straw colored. Finally, after much of the winter without winter-like conditions, Stone Prairie Farm is under a blanket of deep snow. Usually, the first heavy snows arch these stems to the ground.
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Bird Survey Suggests If You Plant It, They Will Come

By Robert J. Cabin / On April 15th, 2011
The results of last month's annual Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge Bird Survey indicate that birds may colonize reforested areas much faster than experts had predicted. This year's surveyors spotted all five of the common native forest birds and four endangered forest birds within sections of the refuge that two short decades ago had been treeless areas dominated by non-native plants and animals. "I never thought I'd live to see this," said Jack Jeffrey, who coordinated this bird survey and was the refuge biologist from 1990-2008.
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Human Impacts on Natural Systems

By Cristina Eisenberg / On January 17th, 2011
As a conservation biologist, I study the ecological effects of wolves on food webs, focusing on their primary prey (elk) and the foods their prey eat (aspens). My work takes place in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, which has many bears in it. Doing wolf research provides essential lessons about the web of life and coexisting with bears.

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