Issues

Learning From a Racing Pigeon

August 28, 2009 Doves & Pigeons

I think the pigeon people are trying to tell me something. Late last year, I took a rambunctious fledgling pigeon to a nearby hospital. In April, I drove two [very] baby pigeons to the same hospital. I’m always snapping pigeon photos even when other photographers sweep their lenses right over the pigeon landscape. So, it [...]

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Yellow Star Thistle and the Reticular Activating System

August 25, 2009 Flora

Invasive plants and motivational seminars collide in my world. If you’ve ever attended a goal-generating seminar, you’ve probably heard the term Reticular Activating System (RAS) tossed around. It’s used in motivational circles to describe our physiological capacity to pay attention. The RAS is part of a large network in our nervous systems, controlling consciousness, sensory [...]

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The Goldfinch and Thistle (A Pub With No Pints)

August 22, 2009 Flora

The Bay Area has a thistle problem, or so we hear, but goldfinches weren’t complaining on our hike yesterday. Here’s a photo of that Artichoke Thistle (Cynara cardunculus), taken last week in Tilden Park: And a few photos taken in Briones, where ongoing eradication has taken out bunches of the Artichoke Thistle in the grasslands: [...]

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Things to Know (and Love) About a Japanese Quail

August 6, 2009 Domestic Animals

He was misidentified but not forgotten — this lone Japanese Quail who fluttered his way into a wildlife hospital and then, into our hands and hearts. We gave him an appropriately Japanese name: “Mikiko” which, loosely translated, means “child of the tree.” A fellow volunteer pointed out that he is not, in fact, a child [...]

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The Case of the Misidentified Quail

August 2, 2009 Domestic Animals

He handed over the box: “A rescued quail.” We volunteer at a wildlife hospital, so a safe assumption might be California Quail. But assumptions are frivolous in a world where volunteers — well, mostly us newer ones — sometimes miss on species identification. He clearly wasn’t a California Quail. Their markings are distinct and easy [...]

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Bay & Beach Flotsam: Albany Bulb

July 26, 2009 Bay Flotsam


Part two in my series of documenting the flotsam floating and landing on the beaches around the Bay.

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Dawn Cleans Oiled Birds

July 11, 2009 Pollution & Trash

This post relates to the oiled bird photos and info below. Dawn launched a new campaign that will contribute up to $500,000.00 to IBRRC (International Bird Rescue Research Center) and the Marine Mammal Center. For each bottle of Dawn Special Edition dishwashing liquid sold, $1 will be donated to the cause (up to the 500k [...]

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The “Three U” Rule of Hazardous Materials

July 9, 2009 Pollution & Trash

Hugh and I just got our initial Hazwoper certification — a Federal OSHA requirement if we want to assist with bird rescue in oil spill areas. That, combined with a wildlife rescue training course we took back in March, will at least put us on the call list during catastrophic wildlife events. During the Cosco [...]

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Attack of the Giant Fish People

July 7, 2009 Fish

I saw these gigantic creatures slithering through the shallows — whipping up mud with each slap of the tail. They looked like radioactive versions of pond koi, ranging from about two to four feet long. And where I was, it was just me and and wind and the sound of their slither, evoking the Creature [...]

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Iron Eyes Cody – Time to Recycle & Reuse This PSA?

July 2, 2009 Pollution & Trash

Iron Eyes Cody, also referred to as “The Crying Indian” formed my earliest environmental understanding in this 1971 Keep America Beautiful ad: People Start Pollution, People Can Stop It. According to the Ad Council, the full Keep America Beautiful campaign helped to reduce litter by as much as 88% in 300 communities, 38 states, and [...]

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Marine Mammal Viewing — From a Distance

June 25, 2009 Bay Area

Hugh and I had another knucklehead-versus-wildlife encounter this past week with a family on the Mendocino coast. We hiked over an unpopulated bluff and saw a mom and kids chasing a young sea lion across the rocks for a photo op. Their actions were forcing the young animal away from her resting spot, as she [...]

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Bay & Beach Flotsam – Episode #1

June 21, 2009 Bay Flotsam


San Francisco Bay trash and pollution: I’ve seen: four-foot, mangy teddy bears nested in cord grass at high tide; an endangered Clapper Rail preening in a pile plastic bottles and corn chip bags; helium balloons tangled in seaweed, 100 yards out in the bog of low tide; plovers foraging around cigarette butts; fishing line and plastic loops just waiting to entangle the next curious gull.

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Splendor in the Low Tide

June 17, 2009 California

An homage to Warren and Natalie — in title alone. There’s photographic magic in the sun rising over a super-low tide. At the point where dawn meets a -2.0, the strange, the stunning, the predictable and the chaotic all converge on that plane of tide pools, mudflats, and beach flea burrows. One of my favorite [...]

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How Starlings Colonized the United States (and Other Stories)

June 6, 2009 Agriculture

William Shakespeare gets a bad rap for all of the Starlings. The story (or rumor) goes that some Victorian-era Shakespeare fans — misguided to be sure — hatched a plan to colonize, on U.S. soil, every bird species featured in Shakespeare’s plays. According to this Scientific American article a group known as the American Acclimatization [...]

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San Francisco’s Peregrine Falcons & Fledglings

June 5, 2009 Baby Animals

Originally posted in June of 2009, this piece deals with the new fledglings on top of San Francisco’s PG&E Building, but also with general issues of wildlife survival and human interaction.

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Protect California State Parks: Schwarzenegger’s Proposed Cuts Could Close More Than 200

May 29, 2009 Laws & Policy

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a cut to California State Parks that threatens to close more than 200 — or 80 percent — of our park lands. This post contains links to the potential closings as well as information on the California State Parks Foundation’s efforts to save our parks from budget cutbacks and closures.

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Bay Area Goats Fight Fires

May 24, 2009 Bay Area

Photo ©ingrid Well, he’s a yawning goat, I must confess. But the photo begs for an alternate characterization. Who needs Smokey Bear when you’ve got a hungry goat? These animals deserve some atta boys (and girls) for their hard labor in fire prevention. In the Oakland and Berkeley Hills you’ll find agile bucks and does [...]

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Bald Eagle Recovery Story

May 7, 2009 Endangered Species

I just read this piece by British Columbia wildlife biologist David Hancock. It’s posted at the Hancock Wildlife Foundation website, a site I found by way of their Bald Eagle cam at Sidney, B.C. Hancock’s account traces the eagle’s trajectory from pre-1950s “vermin” status to today’s recovery of populations in both urban and wild settings. [...]

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Wildlife & Nature Photography Ethics

May 7, 2009 Ethics

“Responsible wildlife photographers observe a strict code of ethics. The cardinal rule: if anything you do directly or indirectly endangers, restricts or harasses an animal, stop and leave the animal alone. The integrity of a wildlife photograph evaporates if the subject was not free to come and go, if it shows fear or anxiousness, if [...]

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Video: California Condor Released After Gunshot Wounds & Lead Poisoning

May 2, 2009 Endangered Species

Update May 13, 2009: Sadly, the second bird, Condor 286 did not recover from lead poisoning, and died at the LA Zoo on Monday, May 11. The full story is here at the Ventura County Star. California Condor 375 was released back into the wild on May 1, 2009. She was one of two condors [...]

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Helping the Carrion Eaters (or, Avoiding Secondary Road Kill)

May 1, 2009 Raptors

Years ago, Hugh and I were coming home from a late show and noticed a crew of stray cats feeding in the middle of the road. We slowed down and saw that someone had dumped a load of meat parts in the middle of a normally busy street. The strays were simply taking advantage of [...]

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Breaking the Human-Horse Covenant

April 30, 2009 Agriculture

William C. Rhoden, writing for the New York Times posted a piece on April 30 about the devastating contribution the horse racing industry makes to horse slaughter. Although the last horse slaughterhouse in the United States closed in 2007, horses, including thoroughbreds, are routinely shipped across our borders to land in foreign slaughterhouses. The covenant [...]

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Who Says You Never See Baby Pigeons?

April 3, 2009 Birds

Pigeons are meticulous, doting parents . . . which is why you probably won’t see many baby pigeons in the wild . . . if at all. Pigeons produce small broods (usually two babies) and tuck them in nests high on ledges — homes which resemble their ancestors’ cliff dwellings. The pigeon parents feed their [...]

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Salazar Moves to Delist Wolves in Rockies

March 11, 2009 Endangered Species

Update: Defenders of Wildlife sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to ascertain what new scientific review Secretary Salazar used in making this determination. Defenders President Rodger Schlickeisen noted: “There’s no way, in six short weeks, that the Department of the Interior had time to properly review the proposed delisting and examine the latest [...]

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Tagging the Endangered Clapper Rail

January 13, 2009 Endangered Species

Through 1915, the California Clapper Rail was a menu delicacy. The bird was hunted to near extinction (a sad but common fate for Bay Area and U.S. species).

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Admiring – But Not Feeding – San Francisco’s Wild Parrots

January 9, 2009 Bay Area

All photos taken at a respectful distance with a 300mm Zuiko lens: effective reach, 600mm. I was meandering toward Market in San Francisco when I saw them in my peripheral vision. It was cluster of rambunctious humans, a large family with children. It shouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary on a San Francisco summer [...]

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Foodies, Pollan and Compassion

December 18, 2008 Agriculture

I have Colleen Patrick-Goudreau at Compassionate Cooks to thank for this post. I landed on her page while looking for some vegetarian writings about offal mania, a food consciousness inspired, in part, by the words of Michael Pollan. In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Pollan addresses the serious problems of our bloated, industrial food system. His observations aren’t [...]

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Our Adopted Turkey

December 4, 2008 Agriculture

I received the certificate below in the mail this week from Farm Sanctuary. It’s a tangible representation of “Faye,” our adopted Thanksgiving turkey. Farm Sanctuary offers a beautiful and alternative way to celebrate “turkey day” — by making a contribution toward the well-being of a rescued turkey on one of the sanctuary farms (New York [...]

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Witness to an Elk “Hunt”

November 30, 2008 Ethics

Recalling a sad confluence of elk (wapiti) and hunter in the enclaves of Colorado — in Estes Park. We weren’t expecting harm to come to these elk, meandering through a residential neighborhood of Estes Park, just blocks from the Stanley Hotel where the elk herds draw tourists with cameras, not lethal suburban adversaries.

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Fishing for Fins & Wings

October 28, 2008 Fishing & Hunting

270,000 is the number — the estimated number of sharks killed daily for their fins. The practice of shark finning is brutal and wasteful, but the activity persists in a vacuum of globalized policy mandating otherwise. This particular fact played into a stroll we took on an Alameda Beach recently. As the tide receded to [...]

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