Audubon articles from May 2006

Audubon archives from May 2006

Editor's note.
May 1, 2006... Planning for our special Mississippi River issue began almost a year ago, months before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck. I wish we could commend ourselves for such prescience, but to be honest, many others had beaten us to the punch. They...

Audobon view.(protecting the marshes)
May 1, 2006... The losses are staggering, almost incomprehensible. More than 1,900 square miles of marsh along the Louisiana coast have been lost since the 1930s, and an area the size of a football field disappears every 38 minutes. Louisiana accounts for 40...

Growing farmers' markets.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... ALIVE AND WELL IS THE LOCAL farmers' market in an urban environment. I was delighted to read this comprehensive article ["The Ripe Stuff," March-April]. Since I have frequented many local farmers' markets across the country, I was particularly...

Hazing grazers?(letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... I AGREE WITH TED WILLIAMS that some landscapes are too fragile for cattle and some lessees of public lands are too greedy ["Sacred Cows," March-April]. However, losing grazing leases may cause a rancher to sell the place, and these days the...

Foxhole.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... JEFF HULL'S PIECE ON RED FOXES was both enjoyable and terrible to read ["Meadow Lark," March-April]. I can't get this part out of my mind: "Swiss animal-rights activists at Chinese fur farms have documented foxes being skinned alive, bodies...

Cutting catalogs.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2006... SINCE YOUR RECOMMENDATION IN the September-October 2005 issue ["The Final Frontier"] that readers call mail-order companies to cancel unsolicited catalogs, I've contacted 45 companies--some of which referred to my "subscription" to their...

Correction.(letter)(Correction notice)
May 1, 2006... Instead of 6 1/2 inches by 6 1/2 inches, the dimensions of the 10 1/2-inch length of untreated softwood in the blueprint for the orchard mason bee nesting block ("Bring on the Bees," January-February) should have been 5 1/2 inches by 5 1/2...

Scorched earth.(forestry)(Biscuit Fire)
May 1, 2006... IN THE DRY HEAT OF JULY 2002, LIGHTNING sparked hundreds of wildfires in the Siskiyou National Forest in southwest Oregon. The four largest blazes, collectively known as the Biscuit Fire, eventually raged across a 500,000-acre swath of forest,...

Eye in the sky.(DISPATCHES ...)(checking air pollution)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Houston has some of the worst air pollution in the country, in some years surpassing even Los Angeles in number of smog-filled days. But help with locating the source of grunge-producing compounds may finally be on the way. For two weeks last...

Taxis worth hailing.(DISPATCHES ...)(gas-electric hybrid taxis help control pollution)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... New York City's notoriously noisy streets and dirty air may seem quieter and cleaner this year. Since last October, 22 gas-electric hybrid taxis have hit the pavement, weaving in and out of traffic like their gas-guzzling peers but using just...

NASCAR gets on track.(DISPATCHES ...)(National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing Inc. uses leaded fuel)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... With the health problems of lead contamination well documented, the Environmental Protection Agency banned leaded gasoline more than a decade ago. But NASCAR, the only major auto sport that still uses leaded fuel, allows its drivers to do so...

Storm warning.(weather)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Before 2005 the United States had never been hit by 27 major storms in a single year. [paragraph] Katrina and Rita seemed to confirm the findings of researchers from Georgia Tech and the National Center for Atmospheric Research that the number...

Watch out, Bullwinkle!(DISPATCHES ...)(moose hunting)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... He has the unenviable task of being a sitting duck for poachers. Luckily, Bullwinkle is not real but rather a life-size moose replica made from a durable, lightweight, and inexpensive Styrofoam material. Officials for Nova Scotia's Department...

The hottest news beat.(Q&A)(Interview)
May 1, 2006... SINCE JOINING THE NEW YORK TIMES IN 1995, Andrew Revkin, the paper's veteran environmental reporter, has journeyed to the ends of the earth to report on the effects of global warming. In 2003 and 2004 he camped out with scientists studying the...

Toxic Teddy.(DISPATCHES ...)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Parents who are childproofing their homes might want to start by giving stuffed bears the heave-ho. Researchers at Chatham College in Pittsburgh found high levels of flame-retardant chemicals and toxic pesticides on 11 plush toys collected from...

Collision course.(aviation)(bird strikes)
May 1, 2006... NOBODY WAS CONCERNED THE FIRST time an airplane hit a bird. Orville Wright didn't even note the species he struck over an Ohio cornfield in 1905. Today, though, such collisions, known as "bird strikes," are a major worry. Bird strikes have...

Sun singing.(DISPATCHES ...)(bird singing behavior)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... Karl Berg was doing research in the rainforest of Ecuador, where he had lived for 10 years, when he got curious. For a week he had been going out in the morning and recording the names of all the birds he heard, and when he tallied them up...

Gimme shelter.(chapter spotlight)(bringing back the birds)
May 1, 2006... LAST DECEMBER SANDY REED SLOGGED through the muddy streets of Jourdan River Estates, a residential neighborhood on the Gulf Coast in southwestern Mississippi. As a participant in Audubon's annual Christmas Bird Count (CBC), she was searching...

Duck soup: in a floodplain near the Mississippi River is one of the country's last remaining bottomland forests. The primordial ooze in these soggy woods is home to millions of small fish and insects--enough to feed 350,000 wintering mallards, gadwalls, teals, and other ducks.(true nature)(Column)
May 1, 2006... Down in the bottoms, the hard ram has stopped, and Larry Mallard and I slosh through ankle-high water into the deep-green forest of the White River National Wildlife Refuge, near St. Charles, Arkansas. Sturdy oaks, elms, sugarberries, and ashes...

A mighty challenge.(SAVING THE MISSISSIPPI: overview)(Geographic overview)
May 1, 2006... Last summer few people outside of Louisiana, or even in it, knew that every year the state loses more than 15,000 acres of protective, productive coastal wetlands or that a Dead Zone as big as New Jersey forms in the Gulf of Mexico. Then...

Nature's fury: while on a post-Katrina rescue mission, a veteran photographer captures a stunning perspective on the devastation below.(SAVING THE MISSISSIPPI: reportage)
May 1, 2006... Having lived in Florida for much of his life, Miami Beach-based photographer Andrew Kaufman is no stranger to hurricanes, and has replaced his share of roofs, sheds, and unhinged fences. But nothing in his experience prepared him for the...

Warning signs: North America's breeding birds, half of which migrate on the Mississippi Flyway, have long been a barometer of the river's ills. While Katrina's lasting harm to them remains uncertain, what is clear is the link between the birds' health and the river's--in its entirety.(SAVING THE MISSISSIPPI: birds)(Column)
May 1, 2006... DISTANT THUNDERCLOUDS FLARING WITH explosions of silent lightning moved closer from the north and west as we cruised the great river above Vicksburg, Mississippi. Around the 18-foot open boat coiled the waters drained from half a continent,...

Changing course: called "the gathering of the great waters" by the Ojibwa, the Mississippi River is a flyway for half of North America's breeding birds. Its massive watershed and diversity of habitat and species make it one of the preeminent river systems in the world. Its levees, locks, and dams also make it one of the most girdled and tortured.(SAVING THE MISSISSIPPI: habitat)
May 1, 2006... A PRICELESS WATERWAY The River From its headwaters in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, 1,475 feet above sea level, to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi runs 2,340 miles through 10 states and drains 1.25 million square miles--41 percent of the...

High-water mark: there are many ways to help the Mississippi: call or write Washington, ditch your lawn chemicals, or go birding.(SAVING THE MISSISSIPPI: what you can do)
May 1, 2006... BUILD SUPPORT Restoring the ecosystems of the Mississippi River and its watershed will be among the most ambitious environmental projects ever undertaken. Through its Mississippi River Headwaters to Gulf Campaign (www.audubon.org/...

So lawn: each year American homeowners, searching for green perfection, apply more than a million tons of toxic fertilizers and pesticides to their yards. Unfortunately, a lot of those chemicals run off into the Mississippi River and other waterways. Fortunately, there's a gentler, easier alternative.(Audobon at home)
May 1, 2006... FOR YEARS GEORGE TYLER BLANKETED HIS LAWN WITH COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS, believing the chemicals would compensate for the poor clay soils and construction backfill in the Bloomington, Minnesota, subdivision where he lived. Then Tyler, a sales...

Homeward bound: before global warming disrupted nature's pulses, before strip malls are through America's wilds, there was room to roam. Two writers set off in search of a lost continent.(ESSAY)(Chasing Spring: An American Journey through a Changing Season)(Return to Wild America: A Yearlong Search for the Continent's Natural Soul)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Chasing Spring: An American Journey Through a Changing Season By Bruce Stutz Scribner, 239 pages, $24 Return to Wild America: A Yearlong Search for the Continent's Natural Soul By Scott Weidensaul North Point Press, 394 pages, $26 WHEN...

Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam, A Photographic Journey.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Yellowstone to Yukon: Freedom to Roam By Florian Schulz The Mountaineers Books, 196 pages, $34.95 Florian Schulz and his partner, Emil Herrera Jara, draped themselves in dark cloths and began mooing at each other on the Rocky Mountain...

Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime By Kenneth Helphand Trinity University Press, 320 pages, $34.95 Anyone doubting the therapeutic power of nature need only read Kenneth Helphand's new book, Defiant Gardens. In the trenches of...

When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century.(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century By Fred Pearce Beacon Press, 336 pages, $26.95 The Rio Grande failed to reach the Gulf of Mexico for the first time on record in 2001, blocked at its mouth by a...

Art of the wild.(The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2006... Acclaimed Canadian novelist and birder Graeme Gibson spent 10 years compiling The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 370 pages, $29.95), a dazzling exploration of the history of the human-bird relationship....

One picture.(live oak damaged by Hurricane Katrina)(Brief article)
May 1, 2006... HURRICANE KATRINA'S 121 MPH WINDS STRIPPED THE leaves from this venerable live oak in Waveland, Mississippi, exposing its anatomy to the lens of big-tree photographer James Balog. "You are out cruising around, trying to make something out of...