This weekend, connect to the wild with John Davis of the Wildlands Network in part two of his E-ssential: Big, Wild, and Connected. Join John as he treks from the central Appalachians to the Catskill mountains on his quest to find out if it's possible to identify and protect a continental-long wildlife corridor that could help to protect eastern nature into the future.
Enjoy!
If you think you understand wildlife, imagine trekking 7,600 miles in a panther’s footprints. John Davis did while spending 10 months hiking, biking, and paddling from the tip of Florida to Quebec, to better understand what it would take to establish an eastern wildlife corridor or “Wildway™”—a connected network of protected lands, minimal roads and development, and wildlife crossings where roads can be safely traversed by wildlife.
I’m on a site tour, standing with a group of dedicated conservation advocates in a field just outside of Troy, Montana. It’s a truly unimpressive place. A nondescript forested ridge lies in the far distance, a couple of well-kept houses and not-so-well-kept shacks are strewn about in the near distance, I look down to see some nondescript scrub under our feet—and then there’s the rural highway behind me.
This week's #forewordFriday pick is from the newly released book, Climate and Conservation.
Craig Groves, Director, Conservation Methods Team at The Nature Conservancy calls this book:
Parks, like Yellowstone National Park, and wildlife reserves, are the traditional models for conserving large tracts of land. But as the effects of climate change and development encroaches, it’s now clear that even large, protected tracts aren’t protection enough to help preserve biodiversity.
As Nature pointed out in a recent editorial:
Animals and cars don't go well together. Increasingly, wildlife crossings are coming into focus for many transportation departments across the country. The California Roadkill Observation System (CROS ) is the first statewide roadkill reporting web site and is a way for people throughout the state to record their observations of the dead animals and of their environmental context.