Audubon articles from July 2005

Audubon archives from July 2005

The BP Conservation Programme: developing the capacity of young conservationists through support, training and awards.(15 Years of Achievement)(Bird Population)(http://conservation.bp.com)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... The BP Conservation Programme is proud of its 15 years of achievement in promoting biodiversity conservation and nurturing the careers of young conservationists all over the world. This year the Programme awarded $600,000 to 28 different...

Editor's note.
July 1, 2005... About three weeks before Audubon went to press, one of our writers sent me an e-mail with the subject line "Story of the Century." It turned out that for 14 months Rachel Dickinson had been sitting on the kind of scoop that in the old,...

Audubon view.(ivory-bill rediscovered in Cache River National Wildlife Refuge )
July 1, 2005... At first some of us didn't know how to react to the rediscovery of an inventory-billed woodpecker in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in Arkansas. After all, we environmentalists aren't used to such good news. I thought about...

Heat is on.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2005... MICHAEL CRICHTON ["PULP Fiction," May-June] should discuss global warming with scientists who research national-security issues. I was a journalist covering Los Alamos National Laboratory for 10 years. The view was that humankind should take...

Bigger picture.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2005... IN "SOMETHING'S FISHY" [INCITE, May-June], Ted Williams points out that some blame hatcheries for the decline of salmon runs. That's as sensible as blaming rising obesity on dieting; there's a germ of truth to both claims, but neither is more...

Starting over.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
July 1, 2005... IT WAS EDIFYING TO READ ABOUT the GreenHouse Program that cultivates prisoners into nature stewards ["2nd Chances," May-June]. Even some of the hardened criminals were transformed into wildlife advocates. The program recognizes people's...

Corrections.(letters)(Correction Notice)
July 1, 2005... The March-April Migrations ("Red Alert") reported that the Apalachicola National Forest is the largest national forest east of the Mississippi River. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests are bigger. In the May-June Migrations...

Grounded butterflies.(monarch migration)(Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve reports on butterfly decline)
July 1, 2005... GAZING INTO THE REMOTE OYAMEL FOREST of central Mexico, ,t s difficult to imagine that monarchs could be in trouble. The trunks and branches of tall firs, which stretch like pillar candles from the loamy green understory, drip with tightly...

Singing in their sleep.(DISPATCHES ...)(bird song research)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Humans can subconsciously rehash the day's events as they sleep. Researchers recently discovered that birds might do so, too. A study in the journal Nature demonstrates that sleep is critical for developmental song learning in juvenile zebra...

Hail to "Duck" Cheney.(DISPATCHES ...)(United States. Secret Service animal protection services)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... The White House Secret Service, it seems, has expanded its job description. In addition to protecting the President and other government officials, agents have looked after a female mallard duck that laid 11 eggs at the beginning of April on a...

Carry in, carry out.(DISPATCHES ...)(Mars exploration has dumped it with spacecraft garbage)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... On Mars there is a mountain more than two times as tall as Mount Everest, a landmass so high--15 miles--that the top third projects into space. But unlike Everest, earth's mightiest and most alluring mountain, Olympus Mons is not yet covered...

Pollution.(field notes)(fossil fuels air pollution reports)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... In the United States, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels keep rising like a hot-air balloon. Each year the average American burns enough fossil fuels to produce 22 tons of C[O.sub.2] In 2002, the most recent year for which data are...

Prairie hunters.(chapter spotlight)(Prairie plants preservation)
July 1, 2005... WHEN LATE SPRING WARMS THE AIR over southeastern Nebraska, volunteers Ernie Rousek and Tim Knott (above, right and left) of Lincoln's Wachiska Audubon Society scour hayfields and pastures along back roads, alert for telltale flashes of color...

Farewell, Florida.(DISPATCHES ...)(Unemployed Philosophers Guild global warming mug)(www.philosophersguild.com)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... What better way to brace yourself for the day' ahead than to ponder, over a steaming cup of morning coffee, what life would be like if global warming completely melted the earth's ice sheets. What if rising sea levels swamped the entire U.S....

Birding Babylon.(DISPATCHES ...)(weblogs on bird watching)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Jonathan Trouern-Trend watches birds wherever he goes, even on "bus trips, family vacations [and] lunch breaks." So in February 2004, when the sergeant first class went to Iraq as part of the 118th Area Support Medical Battalion of the...

A true Ambassador for birds.(interview of John R. Hamilton)(Interview)
July 1, 2005... John R. Hamilton, U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, has watched birds wherever his 35-year diplomatic career has taken him. In December 2002, after serving throughout Latin America and parts of Europe, Hamilton was posted to Guatemala, where he...

Hold the purple loosestrife.(DISPATCHES ...)(controlling invasive species)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Hundreds of invasive plant and animal species are causing more peril to California's native wildlife than anything else except habitat loss. Audubon California staffers have a delicious solution that ought to make the heartiest gourmand happy....

Futurama.(innovation)(Natural disaster warning systems)
July 1, 2005... IMAGINE A MULTIYEAR DROUGHT THAT blisters the landscape. Grasslands are overgrazed and farm fields overplowed. Cattle and crops wilt in the relentless heat. Winds blow topsoil off the land, resulting in "black blizzards." This is no fictional...

Hollywood native: in the movies, Rene Russo's tenacity and infectious laugh have melted the hearts of tough guys Mel Gibson and Pierce Brosnan. Now she's leading a real-life crusade to save her hometown's true heritage: its indigenous plants.(Audubon at home)
July 1, 2005... At the end of a lane in the Santa Monica Mountains outside Los Angeles, an ocher retaining wall topped with native sandstone rises above the road but doesn't quite conceal the quiet revolution in landscaping taking place behind it. The plants...

The best-kept secret: for 14 months our writer lived with shocking news that she and a small, select group didn't dare reveal: an ivory-billed woodpecker had been found. Here is her insider's account of how it all happened and what it was like to be sitting on the conservation story of the century.([Re]discovery)
July 1, 2005... LAST JANUARY I FOUND MYSELF PADDLING UP A SWAMPY BAYOU in eastern Arkansas with Tim Gallagher, who is my husband and the editor of Living Bird at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, and his friend Bobby Harrison. Bobby, who supports himself...

To the ends of the earth.(Audubon TRAVEL 2005)(ecotourism spots)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Our world may be getting smaller, but roads less traveled still exist, many of them bejeweled with strange and extraordinary inhabitants, especially those of the feathered variety. In Audubon's 2005 travel issue, you'll visit fiery flamingos...

Burning desire: Great Inagua might lack the amenities of the Bahamas' more famous islands, but for the intrepid traveler, the spectacle of thousands of fiery-pink flamingos dancing and flying more than makes up for it.(DESTINATION AUDUBON TRAVEL 2005: GREAT INAGUA)
July 1, 2005... IF YOU'RE A BEACH LOVER, INAGUA IS NOT FOR YOU," opines Fodor's Bahamas (2005), reflecting the usual travel guide's conviction that a beach without hotels is simply not worth a visit. Undaunted, Henry Nixon, warden of Inagua National Park on...

Postcard: Northern Tanzania awed photographer John Huba with its people and its spectacular range of wildlife.(DESTINATION AUDUBON TRAVEL 2005: TANZANIA)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Equally at home in the fields of haute couture, portraiture, and adventure, photographer John Huba comes out of East Africa with images of a more natural grandeur: Tanzania's wildlife and its people. On his third trip to the continent, Huba...

Frozen in time: on his thirteenth voyage to Antarctica, a seasoned travel writer finds Shackleton's stark polar lands bursting with life, as beautiful as ever, and surprisingly unblemished by the growing numbers of tourists now visiting the Deepest South.(DESTINATION AUDUBON TRAVEL 2005: ANTARCTICA)
July 1, 2005... SNOW FLIES SIDEWAYS AS WE TROMP UP THE BEACH, the white flakes contrasting sharply with dark volcanic stones. We hear--and smell--the birds before we see them. Their raucous trilling mingles with a distinct barnyard perfume hanging in the air....

Postcard: photographer William Abranowicz beats about the Australian bush and returns with some striking images.(DESTINATION AUDUBON TRAVEL 2005: AUSTRALIA)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... To an Australian aborigine; a walkabout is a short period spent wandering the bush, an occasional interruption of regular life. William Abranowicz is not an aborigine, but the New York--based photographer couldn't pass on an opportunity to do a...

Treasure island: with a species richness unmatched in the Caribbean, it's a wildlife watcher's paradise. But Trinidad's precarious balance between industry and nature depends on local activists who are ready to fight.(DESTINATION AUDUBON TRAVEL 2005: TRINIDAD)
July 1, 2005... THE FLARES BURN EVEN BRIGHTER AS NIGHT falls over the island of Trinidad's Pointe-a-Pierre Wildfowl Trust, and from the oil refinery comes a strange chemical glow: half fire, half artificial light. Smokestacks shoot flames 50 feet into the sky;...

Colorado: a walk on the wild side: prairie chickens dance on Colorado's eastern plains cloaked by cloudless blue skies. Bighorn sheep scramble up the nearly vertical slopes of majestic peaks that burst to life in summer.(SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE)
July 1, 2005... COLORADO'S DIVERSE LANDSCAPES are not only breathtaking: they provide some of the nation's best wildlife viewing. More than 900 species feed, mate and rear young in the state's wildlife refuges, parks, public and private lands, wilderness areas...

To catch a shadow: the ivory-billed woodpecker's disappearance has haunted ornithologists for decades. A few refused to believe it was truly gone. It's a good thing they never gave up the chase.(book by Tim Gallagher)(Book Review)
July 1, 2005... The Grail Bird: Hot on the Trail of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker By Tim Gallagher Houghton Mifflin Company, 272 pages, $25 FOR MORE THAN 60 YEARS THE ivory-billed woodpecker had been staring out at us through little glass eyes from its...

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder.(book by Richard Louv)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
July 1, 2005... Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder By Richard Louv Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 336 pages, $24.95 There's something missing from the modern American childhood, says journalist Richard Louv. In Last...

Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral.(book by David Dobbs)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
July 1, 2005... Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral By David Dobbs Pantheon Books, 306 pages, $25 Unbeknownst to many people, Charles Darwin was at the center of a debate that revolutionized science--and it did not...

Guatemala ... A turquoise-browed motmot settles onto the limb of a cecropia tree at the Quirigua Mayan ruins near Puerto Barrios ... a white-throated magpie-jay blurts out a loud reeeek, then alights on the branch of a giant ceiba at the Takalik Abaj ruins near the Pacific Coast ...(SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE)
July 1, 2005... You might call it added value: great birding at archaeological sites; fascinating archaeology located at some wonderful birding destinations. Guatemala's new emphasis on birding is, without question, a well-placed endeavor. An instructive...

Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra.(book by Jordan Fisher)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
July 1, 2005... Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra By Jordan Fisher Smith Houghton Mifflin Company, 216 pages, $24 Nature Noir, Jordan Fisher Smith's memoir of his career as a park ranger, 14 years of which he spent patrolling 48 miles of...

Art of the wild.
July 1, 2005... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: "Maybe this world is another planet's hell," Aldous Huxley once said. For photographer Antonin Kratochvil, it's the perfect quote for the cover of his latest book, Vanishing (de.Mo, 248 pages, $54), which...

One picture.(Photographs From East Africa Chronicle Books photos by Nick Brandt)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... SPECIFICATIONS Subject: Cheetah in Thorn Tree Where: Masai Mara Reserve, Kenya Camera: Pentax 67 II with 100mm lens Film: Kodak T-Max 400 THE COMPLEAT NATURE PHOTOGRAPHER GOES INTO THE WILD THESE DAYS BURDENED WITH A...