I have welcome news: our planet is going to be just fine. We’re the ones in trouble. In all the hype about “sustainability,” something seems to get forgotten: there are scads of sustainable populations of strange invertebrates living 18,000 feet…
Wildlife
Posted in honor of John Muir’s lost cause
by tom • April 18, 2011 • 3 Comments
Tonight’s American Masters episode, “John Muir in the New World,” concluded as required with an accounting of Muir’s failed quest to keep this dam from being built in Yosemite National Park’s Hetch Hetchy Valley. The leading experts agreed that some…
Uh, did we learn nothing from Grizzly Man?
by tom • February 7, 2011 • 2 Comments
Credit: National Geographic Rick at Best Hike linked to this video starring Casey Anderson, who’s been raising Brutus the grizzly for six years. The pic above is a screen grab from the video, which, among other things, features Brutus as…
In praise of coyotes
by tom • June 29, 2009 • 1 Comment
Bay Nature has an excellent short video on the virtues of coyotes. Bottom line: the presence of large predators in an ecosystem proves it’s working at all levels.
Gambolin Man does Vasco Caves
by tom • June 24, 2009 • 1 Comment
Only way to see the Vasco Caves is via guided tour — Ol’ Tom from Berkeley provides the next best thing. According to our affable guide, Mike Moran, a naturalist with the East Bay Regional Park District, “a lot comes…
Bear family up a tree at Yosemite
by tom • June 11, 2009 • 1 Comment
Dan Mitchell caught a mama and her cubs in the act of being bears. It seemed to me that “mom” was perhaps showing the cubs how to climb trees. She would edge them over to a tree and then they…
Randy Lloyd on local wildflowers
by tom • April 14, 2009 • 5 Comments
His Waypoints blog confirms my observation: it’s a pretty slow season out there. I had been talking to Dave, my brother in law, about the wildflowers at Henry Coe. They don’t usually go there, but after my brilliant reomendation we…
Wildflower and butterfly update in the Mercury News
by tom • April 3, 2009 • 0 Comments
Lisa Krieger reports on the bay checkerspot butterflies at Coyote Ridge, a habitat so delicate that the only way to hike there is with a docent leading the way. At first glance, their home on Coyote Ridge seems unremarkable. Rising…
‘World Heritage’ designations and the black-helicopter crowd
by tom • March 31, 2009 • 0 Comments
An alert reader sent me a link to this post at Miller-McCune.com about the history of U.S. participation in the UNESCO World Heritage Site program, which pays tribute to the world’s famous natural wonders. The post drags on a bit…