Audubon articles from March 2004

Audubon archives from March 2004

Editor's note.(Editorial)
March 1, 2004... THIS WINTER'S SKIN-BRACING CHILLS ACROSS MUCH OF THE nation are now a memory. It's spring--time to head outdoors and heed Field Editor Kenn Kaufman's advice to go butterflying. Maybe you'll spy "the hackberry emperors, and question marks...

Audubon view.
March 1, 2004... MOST COMPANIES MEASURE SUCCESS BY THEIR PROFITS FROM selling products. As a nonprofit organization, Audubon's mission is to protect birds and other wildlife. How do we measure success? First, we monitor trends in bird and wildlife...

Hot button.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... BECAUSE OF ITS SCOPE AND SCALE and time frame, global warming presents an unprecedented communications challenge. Your special issue, Global Warning [December 2003], rises to that challenge with style and substance--setting a new and welcome...

Pet peeve.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... THANK YOU FOR WRITING ABOUT the illegal pet trade ["The Pet Offensive," Incite, December 2003] and for bringing up the fact that much of it deals in smaller animals such as turtles, lizards, and birds. Sadly, even licensed breeders of legal...

Sea sawing.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2004... I CANNOT BELIEVE TED WILLIAMS suggests in "The Exhausted Sea" [Incite, September 2003] that some how George W. Bush will be a "genuine environmental hero" if he follows the ocean guidelines set forth by the Pew Foundation. Environmental hero?!...

A river reborn.(Restoration)
March 1, 2004... WHEN BARRY DANA, CHIEF OF MAINE'S Penobscot Indian Nation, was a boy, his grandfather spoke of fishing Maine streams in the early 1900s so thick with Atlantic salmon that you could "walk across the stream on their backs without getting your...

Granddaddy's babies.(Reports)
March 1, 2004... At nearly 5,000 years old, the Methuselah Pine Tree, so named because it is the oldest living tree in the world, has seen better days, After all, its trunk started dying a thousand years ago. But Methuselah, which clings to a windswept hillside...

Zoo doo clears the air.(Field Notes)(Kyodoshoji Corporation)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... For years the 1,060 tons of animal droppings produced annually at the Tama Zoological Park outside Tokyo were costly to clean up and downright unpleasant. But starting in 2005 the zoo will recycle its animal waste into biofuel. Kyodoshoji...

Answering the call.(Field Notes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... They are the new breed of high-flying urban raptors. In the mid-1990s red-tailed hawks famously made a home on the ledge of a Manhattan apartment building. Now a pair of ospreys has taken up residence on a Madison, Wisconsin, communications...

Policing the high seas.(Law Enforcement)
March 1, 2004... AS THE CARGO SHIP CYGNUS PLOWED through the mid-Pacific in April 2002, en route from Japan to Portland, Oregon, the engine-room crew dumped hundreds of gallons of oil into the ocean through a hose, bypassing discharge monitors. Under the...

Nature's olive branch.(Preserve)
March 1, 2004... TO MANY KOREANS THEIR COUNTRY IS Keum Su Gang San--the "Land of Embroidered Rivers and Mountains." But years of war and recent economic growth have taken their toll on this once-idyllic landscape. Now an international coalition of scientists...

Flaming French roast.(Field Notes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Does a cup of hot coffee in front of a roaring fire sound good? Now you can enjoy both--sort of--with the Java Log. Since about two-thirds of each log is made of used coffee grounds, the popular beverage's contribution to landfills could be...

Happy flushing.(Field Notes)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... First it was hands-free, infrared sink faucets and toilet flushing. Now toilets are becoming water-free, too. A waterless urinal that allows urine to pass through a layer of odor-blocking, biodegradable liquid directly into the drain is now...

The culture of conservation.(Diversity)
March 1, 2004... RESEARCHERS HAVE UNCOVERED AN INTRIGUING correlation between cultural and biological richness: Nations with the highest numbers of endemic languages tend to also have the highest levels of biodiversity. Conservationist David Harmon, author...

Sprawl squall.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Between 1930 and 2000 the population of the United States more than doubled, from 122.8 million to 281.4 million. By the year 2050, the U.S. Census Bureau predicts, the country's population will top 400 million. This boom has left a heavy...

The natural attractions of Florida: beautiful beaches & beyond.(Special Advertising Section)(Advertisement)
March 1, 2004... Yes, it's difficult not to think beach, when you think Florida. Then again, why wouldn't you? But perhaps the best reason to visit Florida is the great variety of things to do, all the while surrounded by breath-taking land--and seascapes and...

Earthwormed over: northern forests had been bereft of native earthworms since the most recent ice age. Today they're the front lines of a slow, squiggling invasion that may be coming to a forest near you.(exotics)
March 1, 2004... FRIEND TO ANGLERS, ALLY OF GARDENERS, SQUIRMING SUBJECT OF a muddy toddler's curiosity--nothing is more dependable than the lowly earthworm. It's the king of compost, churner of soil, architect of ecosystems. No less an authority than Charles...

Flights of spring: on a marsh in northwestern Montana, the season of rebirth arrives on the wings of a Canada goose.(journal)
March 1, 2004... HERE IN NORTHWEST MONTANA'S YAAK VALLEY, UP ON THE Canadian line, the Canada geese are the first ones back, preceding, by a few days, the arrival of the ducks. It's about as spiritual a moment as the year possesses, when we hear that first...

Arizona's: watchable wildlife.(Special Advertising Section)(Advertisement)
March 1, 2004... IT'S A NATURAL ATTRACTION, the state of Arizona. Like its Grand Canyon and the beautiful desert landscapes with which it's so often linked, the lure of Arizona attracts adventurous travelers of every kind--on two feet, four paws or even on the...

Virginia is for lovers, naturally.(Special Advertising Section)(Advertisement)
March 1, 2004... "Virginia is for Lovers" is one of the best loved travel slogans in the nation. Since 1969, it has come to mean many different things to millions of visitors, whether it's love of mountains, beaches, history or theme parks, shopping and...

High hopes: overlooking the gritty landscape of East Los Angeles, a new Audubon center is changing the neighborhood's face and outlook. Locals are learning to love this hilly haven for wildlife and people as never before.(Urban Oasis)
March 1, 2004... Where were the schoolchildren? It was a warm November morning in East Los Angeles. From the hillside, Elsa Lopez pointed out landmarks--the downtown skyline, the San Gabriel Mountains--to the visiting local politicians, city officials, and...

Clear & present danger: millions of birds perish every year from crashing into glass windows. After decades of inattention, biologists, builders, and architects are joining together on solutions that will benefit both people and the birds.(Alert)
March 1, 2004... DARRAGH BRADY WOULDN'T HURT A FLY, much less a flycatcher. So the architect was devastated recently when she discovered that a breathtaking, $10 million building she had helped design was a death trap for songbirds. "I was appalled," she says....

"I brake for butterflies": today, from coast to coast, people out in the field with binoculars in warm weather are just as likely to be butterflyers as birders. If you haven't growing hobby yet, a fascinating world of beauty and behavior beckons you.(Pursuits)
March 1, 2004... At first glance it seems a typical scene of bird watchers in action. One April morning at Audubon's Kern River Preserve in southern California, on a brushy flat uphill from some cottonwood groves, a dozen of us are closing in on our quarry. Our...

The proof is in the pellet: students in California's Central Valley have all spotted evidence that the barn owls they raise and release feast in neighboring fields--and that's just fine with the farmers. By eating a steady diet of gophers, the raptors reduce the need for polluting and costly pesticides.(Pest Management)(Cover Story)
March 1, 2004... CHARLIE FORD'S SIXTH GRADERS SAT FOUR to a table, each student confronting the riddle of a barn-owl pellet. Working deftly, using straightened paper clips as probes, the students picked the pellets apart. It was forensic science, and they were...

Prickly personalities.(Photo Essay)
March 1, 2004... You could, were you so inclined, take a digital photograph of your garden and e-mail it this very afternoon to people in a hundred countries, all of whom would see exactly the same image on their computer screens. Or you could, with...

Cry of the loon: the elusive yellow-billed loon defines the wild spirit of the western Arctic. It's also just one of the many creatures threatened by oil and gas development on this land. As biologists hurry to learn which parts of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve should be protected, the future of these species may rest in their hands.(The Arctic)
March 1, 2004... A LOON'S WAIL BREAKS THE SILENCE BENEATH THE WIDE ARCTIC SKY--A CRY ALMOST WOLFLIKE, WITH THE TENOR OF A BASSOON IN ITS UPPER RANGES, OR OF A STRONG WIND WHISTLING THROUGH TELEGRAPH WIRES ACROSS A DAKOTA PRAIRIE. IT'S EARLY JULY, and I'm lying...

When nature bites back: as people are moving farther into wilderness for pretty views, the wildlife is acting, well, wild.(The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... The Beast in the Garden: A Modern Parable of Man and Nature By David Baron W.W. Norton & Company, 277 pages, 52495 AS I WAS READING THE BEAST in the Garden, an unnerving tale of mountain lions stalking the pets and people of Boulder,...

Art of the wild.(Plant Discoveries: A Botanist's Voyage Through Plant Exploration)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Caption: ART OF THE WILD Page after page of stunning, beautiful, and intricate illustrations of plants unfold in Plant Discoveries: A Botanist's Voyage Through Plant Exploration Firefly Books, 355 pages, $60). For...

Bayou Farewell: the Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... By Mike Tidwell Pantheon Books, 348 pages, $23 IF A FOREIGN ENEMY WERE TAKING Away twenty-five square miles of American soil from us every year... just taking it away from this nation and not giving it back, we would certainly go to war to...

Death in the Everglades: the Murder of Guy Bradley, America's First Martyr to Environmentalism.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... Stuart B. McIver University Press of Florida, 208 pages, $24.95 GUY BRADLEY'S COLORFUL LIFE AND violent death have always seemed the stuff of myth. He spent most of his short life in the swamps and marshes of Florida's Everglades. As a...

Seeds of Hope: Farming with the Wild.(Book Review)
March 1, 2004... By Daniel Imhoff Watershed Media, 184 pages, $29.95 FOR THE PAST 60 YEARS OR SO, THE U.S. agricultural landscape has been a battleground: Every day the forces of highly mechanized, chemical-intensive agribusiness tear up wild ecosystems and...

The compleat teacher.(Movers & Shakers)(William R. Stott, Jr. creates education program)(Interview)
March 1, 2004... WILLIAM R. STOTT JR., A FORMER president of Wisconsin's Ripon College (he also taught ornithology and literature), has created a spectacularly successful environmental-education program for the Fairfax Audubon Society in Virginia. Audubon spoke...

Three years ago Mary Welsh Parker gave the Bedford Audubon Society a manicured, 300-year-old estate in Katonah.(New York)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Three years ago Mary Welsh Parker gave the Bedford Audubon Society a manicured, 300-year-old estate in Katonah. The 120-acre property, called Bylane Farm, has reverted to its natural state. Now part of the Hunt-Parker Sanctuary, it has so far...

In 1998 the Wichita Audubon Society organized its first monarch-butterfly tagging program, at the Chaplin Nature Center in Arkansas City.(Kansas)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... In 1998 the Wichita Audubon Society organized its first monarch-butterfly tagging program, at the Chaplin Nature Center in Arkansas City. Such programs, which attract both the general public and chapter members, have continued annually since...

A regal haven.(Chapter Spotlight)
March 1, 2004... THE REGAL FRITILLARY butterfly is as elegant and lovely as its name. Since it's also big--almost as large as the familiar monarch--an inexperienced observer might confuse the two species. Both have black and burnt-orange wings with white spots....

Mary Kennedy, a member of the Bexar Audubon chapter in San Antonio and a science teacher at the Texas Military Institute, has been engaging her students and the public in various monarch butterfly-related activities for five years.(Texas)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Mary Kennedy, a member of the Bexar Audubon chapter in San Antonio and a science teacher at the Texas Military Institute, has been engaging her students and the public in various monarch butterfly-related activities for five years. Her students...

The San Diego Audubon Society gives a conservation twist to its butterfly walks.(California)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... CALIFORNIA The San Diego Audubon Society gives a conservation twist to its butterfly walks. Led by member Michael Klein, the goal is to look for the beleaguered Hermes copper butterfly, whose range is restricted to San Diego County and...

Butterfly gardening, butterfly photography, and butterfly identification are all part of "Butterflies of the Puget Sound Region," a class offered jointly by the Seattle Audubon Society and the Washington Butterfly Association.(Washington)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... WASHINGTON Butterfly gardening, butterfly photography, and butterfly identification are all part of "Butterflies of the Puget Sound Region," a class offered jointly by the Seattle Audubon Society and the Washington Butterfly Association....

Battery Island.(Important Bird Areas)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... One of nature's great spectacles is a colony of white I ibises in flight as evening comes on. With the setting sun flashing on their black tipped white wings and the scarlet of their scimitar bills, they approach in wave after wave to dip and...

The Audubon directory: your quick guide to the resources of the National Audubon Society.(Directory)
March 1, 2004... BOARD OF DIRECTORS Carol M. BROWNER Chair of the Board LESLIE DACH W. HARDY ESHBAUGH RUTH O. RUSSELL, Vice-Chairs JACK J. DEMPSEY Secretary JOHN L. WHITMIRE Treasurer VIVIAN R. JOHNSON Assistant Secretary Directors...

One Picture.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Photographer: Dennis Kunkel Subject: Common bedbug Type of Image: Scanning electron microscope Magnification: 45x SLEEP TIGHT. DON'T LET THE BEDBUGS BITE." FOR GENERATIONS, PARENTS have uttered those words when tucking their...