Audubon articles from May 2004

Audubon archives from May 2004

Editor's note.
May 1, 2004... IN THE MAGAZINE TRADE, EDITORS REFER TO PRACTICAL, HOW-TO content as "service pieces" or "news you can use." Audubon does a lot of service articles, because they're fun and because they're so popular with readers. We give you advice on...

Audubon view.
May 1, 2004... FOR THREE DECADES THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS TAKEN THE LEAD in protecting America's air and water through the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The current administration has now reversed course. Instead of going to Congress to change the...

Raising the bar.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... IT IS A RARE OCCASION WHEN WORDS fail me. I cannot find enough superlatives to describe the March issue of Audubon. How about... Wow! Matching the information, inspiration, and breathtaking photography of this issue will be a herculean task. I...

A bone to pick.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... IN REGARD TO BARN OWLS CONtrolling rodents on farms ["The Proof Is in the Pellet," March]: Be careful with your conclusions. I am unaware of any study worldwide that demonstrates a reduced field rodent population when barn owls are introduced...

Well versed.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... LORD BYRON WAS ABLE TO GIVE THE following apostrophe to the sea in his Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Roll on, thou dark and deep-blue Ocean, roll! / Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin,...

It's a gas.(Reports; flatulence may be form of communication for herring shoals )(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... If you're a herring, farting is far from rude. In fact, for these small fish, it may be a way to communicate, says a new report by scientists at the University of British Columbia. Initial research suggests that because most other fish can't...

Odds-on favorites.(Reports)(albatross migration tracked)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... This spring, when 18 albatrosses leave their Tasmanian home for a 6,000-mile migration east across the Pacific, the stakes will be higher than usual. Fitted with transmitters, their progress will be tracked by British online bookmaker...

Global warming: the movie.(Hollywood)(The Day After Tomorrow (movie))(Movie Review)
May 1, 2004... WHAT'S BILLED AS THIS SUMMER'S blockbuster won't scare you with aliens or asteroids but with a threat that's all too real: global warming. A big-time movie studio, Twentieth Century Fox, has teamed up with the makers of the megahit Independence...

Green rockers.(Reports)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... After a fruitless search for eco-friendly ways to reproduce his band's CD, activist Craig Minowa started Earthology Records, the world's first environmentally sustainable, nonprofit record company. Earthology, which is based on an organic farm...

They'll drink to that.(clean drinking water)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Big cities worldwide rely on protected areas to provide residents with clean drinking water. These lands offer a local, if unheralded and less controversial, alternative to piping in water from afar. Protecting land (noted in square miles for...

Arizona where wildlife abounds.(Advertisement)
May 1, 2004... LIKE ITS GRAND CANYON and the beautiful desert landscapes with which it's so often linked, the state of Arizona attracts adventurous travelers of every kind--on two feet, four paws or even on the wing. From Yuma's lowland desert to Flagstaff's...

Road trips.(Reports)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Zoologists studying carrier pigeons, the winged wizards of navigation, have discovered that the birds often home in on the nearest highway to get around. Using miniaturized GPS tracking technology, researchers Tim Guilford and Dora Biro of...

Separating church and park.(Faith)
May 1, 2004... CREATIONIST RIVER GUIDE TOM VAIL DOESN'T believe that Arizona's Grand Canyon was carved by the Colorado River over millions of years--the scientific view of nearly all geologists. To make his case that the canyon was instead created by a...

Chill pill.(Reports)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Fish in a north Texas creek could be feeling pretty serene about the urban development happening upstream. Brian Brooks, an aquatic toxicologist at Baylor University, found traces of fluoxetine, the active ingredient in Prozac, in the livers,...

Eyes in the skies.(Justice)
May 1, 2004... THE RED PIXELS CAUGHT CHARLES Costello's eye. Last June Costello, chief of wetlands mapping for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), sat at his computer in downtown Boston, comparing older aerial photographs of state...

Marsh light: thoughts on the pleasures of a lake versus the seething complexity of a living landscape.(journal)
May 1, 2004... THE WEAVING CONTINUES, ACCELERATING ACCORDING TO THE secret tilt of this one specific valley, the Yaak, so unique in the world. All the spilled sprawl and disorder from the beginning of May lines up now into firming braids of strength--several...

A taste for conservation: America's palate is shifting toward foods that are fresh, sustainable, and chemical-free. The chefs leading this culinary crusade believe that eating should be good for both body and the earth.(Audubon At Home)
May 1, 2004... fROM THE UPSCALE CHEZ PANISSE in Berkeley to the casual White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia, chefs across the country are adding a new ingredient to their dishes: sustainability. By seeking out foods that have been grown locally, they are...

Fish on the line.(seafood)
May 1, 2004... his energetic style causes the masses to crave his seafood specialties," gushes the website Starchefs.com. "We call him King of the Sea." Conservationists may as well dub Rick Moonen savior of the seas. "I truly believe that to be part of...

Field of greens.(vegetarian)
May 1, 2004... Annie Somerville and I weave between rows of lettuce--curly endive, butter, red romaine--their plump heads crowding one another under the California sun. "Aren't these great?" she exclaims, leaning down to rub furrowed pink leaf between her...

High steaks.(meat)
May 1, 2004... if you can't finish the meltingly tender flatiron steak at Higgins Restaurant in Portland, Oregon, you shouldn't hesitate to ask for the leftovers. Nationally acclaimed chef Greg Higgins wants you to enjoy every bite. He has gone out of his way...

Clean cuisine.(organic)
May 1, 2004... Somewhere behind the rising columns of steam in Nora Pouillon's kitchen, tempura squash blossoms, oven-masted sweet peppers, and slow braised rabbit await finishing touches; shiitake-tofu stuffing, black-olive dressing, and cognac-mustard sauce...

Last strand.(Endangered Species)
May 1, 2004... THE VANCOUVER ISLAND MARMOT IS AMONG THE WORLD'S MOST ENDANGERED AND COMPELLING ANIMALS--A COUNTERPART, IN RARITY AND CUTENESS, TO CHINA'S GIANT PANDAS. NO WONDER AN UNLIKELY COALITION THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE FROM SCHOOLCHILDREN TO A SKI RESORT...

Ghost lake: even when nature disappears, its story sometimes remains etched in the landscape.(Photo Essay)
May 1, 2004... IMAGINE YOU ARE LOOKING AT A BIOLOGICAL AUTOPSY--CONDUCTED AT 7,500 FEET. "With camera lens trained on the dead lake," the photographer David Maisel writes, "its skin was peeled back, the exquisite corpse revealed." Thus a towering island of...

Recovery room.(Audubon Center)
May 1, 2004... They arrive at the clinic with life-threatening injuries. Many of these birds of prey are rehabbed and released back into the wild where they belong. Those that will never be well enough to leave become some of wildlife's best ambassadors. ...

Clarion call: today, thanks to the endangered species act and a committed corps of professionals, the full-throated song of KIRTLAND'S WARBLER still echoes through the jack pine forests of Michigan. So why are scientists still concerned about the future of one of the world's rarest birds?(Bird Conservation)
May 1, 2004... 'I suddenly heard a new song, so rich, loud and clear, I knew it must be the one I was in search of.... Its song is the most beautiful of any warbler, so wild and has such a ringing, liquid quality I feel well repaid for my trip by this one...

A steady hand.(Movers & Shakers)(Constantine Eristoff: chairman of the board of Audubon New York)(Interview)
May 1, 2004... How do you build a strong, sustainable state organization while balancing the diverse interests of its many chapters? Audubon asked CONSTANTINE SIDAMON-ERISTOFF, an environmental lawyer, engineer, and public servant, and now chairman of the...

Illinois.(Chapter News)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... For the first time in 30 years, short-eared owls overwintered on the 375-acre Bartel Grassland, south of Chicago. Using $500,000 from the settlement of a polluter lawsuit, Thorn Creek Audubon hired a firm to restore the former wet prairie marsh...

Montana.(Chapter News)(Yellowstone Valley Audubon Society)(medical treatment for birds)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Alarmed by a lack of medical treatment for birds of prey throughout Montana, Robert Lubbers and 15 other members of the Yellowstone Valley Audubon Society maintain a volunteer raptor ambulance service. They're on call to transport injured...

Nebraska.(Chapter News)(programs by Omaha Raptor Team)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The Omaha Raptor Team uses a variety of feathered teachers to introduce people to local avian life, including Spike, an eastern screech owl that had been hit by a car, and Zorro, a male kestrel that had been blown out of a nest. Volunteers--who...

California beach patrol.(Chapter Spotlight)
May 1, 2004... COOPERATION IS A KEY to protecting breeding habitat for a shorebird endangered in California. The pale-plumaged snowy plover nests on beaches there, though its eggs often fall victim to people or pets. "For 30 years the plovers failed to...

Central Yukon-Kuskokwim.(Important Bird Areas)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... If you've even heard of the emperor goose, you're more than a backyard birdwatcher. Still, this stocky inhabitant of the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands is of prime concern to Audubon Alaska, the Russian Bird Conservation Union, and...

Oregon.(Chapter News)(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Since the first peregrine falcons took up residence on Portland's Fremont Bridge in 1994, members of the Audubon Society of Portland have been monitoring nest sites around the metro area, tracking the birds' behavior, and keeping a dawn to-dark...

Tribute.(Chapter News)(obituary)(Brief Article)(Obituary)
May 1, 2004... "I have known dedicated conservationists in my time who had dreams, but frankly few of them ever live to see big dreams come true," Stuart Udall, former Secretary of the Interior, wrote to Ariel Bryce Appleton. A committed conservationist,...

The Audubon directory: your quick guide to the resources of the national Audubon society.(Directory)
May 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 ...

Now or Never: in the desert of northwestern Peru, the strangest of bedfellows--a conservation biologist and a petroleum company--are racing to save one of earth's most endangered birds.(birds)
May 1, 2004... JEREMY FLANAGAN STEPS OUT OF THE PICKUP TRUCK, HIS SHOES sinking slightly in the sand of the searing-hot northwestern Peruvian desert. The British-born conservation biologist readies his tape recorder to play the call of one of the world's most...

Oil, toil, and trouble: political chaos and war will go hand in hand with global warming unless the world takes aggressive steps to end our dependence on fossil fuels.(book: The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World By Paul Roberts Houghton Mifflin, 400 pages, $26 IN THE NEXT DECADE, CATAstrophic storms, droughts, and heat waves could trigger widespread political unrest and war across the planet,...

Chicken Soup for the Nature Lover's Soul.(book)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... Chicken Soup for the Nature Lover's Soul Health Communications, 360 pages, $12.95 ANYONE WHO HASN'T HEARD OF A the Chicken Soup series is likely living in a cave. Since the first book, Chicken Soup for the Soul, topped the New York Times...

The Big Year: a Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession.(book)(Book Review)
May 1, 2004... The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession By Mark Obmascik Free Press, 268 pages, $25 QUIRKY BIRDERS MAKE GREAT book subjects, especially when they're on a mission. Denver-based journalist Mark Obmascik takes advantage of the...

One picture.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... Photographer: Larry Schwarm Title: "Burning Grass" Where: Lyon County, Kansas, 1994 Camera: Hasselblad with 50mm lens Film: Kodak Portra 160 color negative IN THE MID-1800S WESTERING ARTISTS PAINTED DRAMATIC SCENES OF...