Audubon articles from November 1998

Audubon archives from November 1998

Speaking for Nature.(Brief Article)(Editorial)
November 1, 1998... As we were putting this, our 100th anniversary issue, together, we felt an eerie sense of deja vu. Last spring 200 great egrets were shot in Oklahoma. In July, an egret rookery in Texas was bull-dozed. The same month, more than 800...

Local Heroes.
November 1, 1998... The history of the Audubon movement is the story of ordinary people who made a difference -- people who did what they could with what they had, where they were. People like Columbus MacLeod, Guy Bradley, and Paul Kroegel, who lived in South...

Undermining paradise.(building of a mining tunnel in Montana's Cabinet Mountain Wilderness area)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... The authors of the Wilderness Act of 1964 intended it to protect the nation's wild areas from road building and industrial development. And so it does -- on the surface. But the law says nothing about development under a wilderness area. ...

A really wild stress test.(researching animal health through fecal testing)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Sam Wasser, the scientific director of the Center for Wildlife Conservation in Seattle, and his dog Moja, a former drug sniffer, spent some time last summer trekking through the Okanagon National Forest, in Washington, searching out black bear...

A park Ben and Jerry would love.(dairy farm at the Marsh-Billings National Historic Park in Vermont)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Leave it to Vermont to have a national park that features a working dairy farm. The Marsh-Billings National Historical Park, one of the newest additions to the system, aims to send a dear signal that agriculture and conservation can coexist....

The dawn of conservation.(100 Years of Conservation)(Cover Story)
November 1, 1998... At the turn of the century, the modern conservation movement took flight. From Washington, D.C., President Theodore Roosevelt protected millions of acres of national parks, forests, and wildlife refuges. In Boston, prominent women and...

The killing of the warden: in 1902 Guy Bradley was hired to protect the last great breeding ground of plume birds. Three years later, he was found murdered.(excerpt from 'Bone by Bone')(includes related article on the mysterious murder)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... The following story is a fictional account of Guy Bradley's murder written in the language of the time. It is told by Gene Roberts, who discovered the body, to Lucius Watson, whose father, Ed, was blamed for this and other murders in south...

Stops and starts.(legislative issues effecting environmental movement in early 1900's)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... WORDS FOR A BIRD TO LIVE BY "Keep away from bird lovers, fellows, or you'll be standing on a little wooden pedestal with a label containing your full name in Latin: Campephilus principalis. People will be filing past admiring your glossy...

Our legacy of land.(ten environmentally protected areas in the United States)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... Its full name is the Alaska National Interest Lands and Conservation Act, but it is usually known simply as the Alaska Lands Act. Among environmentalists, the name is invoked with a kind of cautious reverence. Reverence, because it was the...

New Risks.(environment issues facing the United States between 1940-1959)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... THE BIRTH OF DDT In 1948 Swiss chemist Paul R Muller won the Nobel Prize for creating the persistent insecticide DDT. The US. armed forces had used the chemical as a powder to protect soldiers and civilians from various pest-borne...

Taking action.(environmental progress in the United States from 1960-1979)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... LAWYERS RULE "Sue the bastards!" -- Environmental Defense Fund lawyer Victor Yannacone, reflecting the litigious temper of the times in the environmental movement RACHEL CARSON'S MOTIVE "I still feel there is a case to be made...

Champions of conservation: Audubon recognizes 100 people who shaped the environmental movement and made the 20th century particularly American.(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... As the second millennium staggers to a close, the temptation to assess the quality of the life we have made on this planet is nearly irresistible. This is especially true of Americans, since the past 100 years, more or less, can legitimately be...

Ansel Adams: drawn to the High Sierra early in life, the photographer viewed his pictures as retreats for urban dwellers anesthetized by technology.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... No American nature photographer has had a greater influence than Ansel Adams in shaping public consciousness. Whether he was capturing Yosemite's Half Dome at sunrise, the Snake River beneath the cloud-shrouded Teton Mountains, or the cliffs...

David Brower: dedicated, self-assured. and fearless. he has campaigned to protect wilderness, becoming the dean of the modern environmental movement.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... In wilderness, the world gets put to its own music again," David Brower once said. "Wipe out wilderness and the world's a cage." In his nearly 50 years at the leading edge of modern environmentalism, Brower has rarely missed an opportunity to...

Rachel Carson: the food and chemical industries pilloried her as a cultist and a spinster, but her scientific skill and eloquence touched off the Age of Ecology.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... A reserved, private person, Rachel Carson became the center of the most intense firestorm in the history of conservation with her book Silent Spring. She had taught zoology at the University of Maryland from 1931 through 1936. As a marine...

Marjory Stoneman Douglas: she railed against those who threatened the wetlands of South Florida and campaigned to protect an area at once hostile and beautiful.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Marjory Stoneman Douglas forever changed the way Americans view the Florida Everglades with her book The Everglades: River of Grass, which distilled the 6,000-square-mile marsh into its fierce and elemental beauty. "The clear burning light of...

Aldo Leopold: he suggested that humans are part of an interdependent natural community and gave environmentalists its philosophical underpinning.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... In 1948 Aldo Leopold suffered a fatal heart attack while fighting a fire on his Wisconsin pine plantation. His most enduring work, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There, had not yet been published, but Leopold, a renowned...

John Muir: a founder of the Sierra Club, he campaigned to establish the park at Yosemite, and his efforts vastly expanded the national forest system.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Born in Scotland and reared as a farmer's son in the sandy, reluctant soils of Wisconsin, John Muir was a largely self-taught naturalist and writer who loved nothing more to vanish into the wilderness at every opportunity. He became infatuated...

Roger Tory Peterson: a man of many talents, he set the standard for the modern field guide, and he loved inspiring others to take notice of the natural world.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Roger Tory Peterson's first real job was as a schoolteacher, and although he soon abandoned the classroom, he never stopped teaching. He displayed many talents over the years -- as a painter, photographer, writer, lecturer, explorer, and...

John D. Rockefeller Jr.: a passion for natural beauty fueled his desire for preservation, and his philanthropy spread across the continent.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Three-quarters of a century ago John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of the founder of Standard Oil, took a trip with his family to Wyoming's jagged Teton Mountains, which rise above the dell of Jackson Hole. He fell in love with the valley. ...

Theodore Roosevelt: an avid camper and hiker, he wanted to conserve nature for the sake of people; he also created the m=national wildlife refuge system.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our National life," Theodore Roosevelt declared to Congress in 1907. As president for the first...

Edward O. Wilson: an influential theorist, he focused his attention on biological diversity, saying that flora and fauna should be seen as part of our being.(Champions of Conservation)(100 Years of Conservation)(Brief Article)
November 1, 1998... Most scientists would be delighted to enjoy a small piece of Edward O. Wilson's success. For that matter, so would most environmental activists and writers. A professor emeritus at Harvard University, Wilson is best known among...

Return to the wild: despite a hostile political climate, the Endangered Species Act works: eagles recover, and wolves comeback.(environmental progress in the United States from 1980-1998)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... REAGAN'S FOLLY "It is clear that on environmental issues Ronald Reagan rode against the American mainstream for eight years. The `great communicator' was unable to persuade Congress to repeal a single important law he disliked. He is the...

And a partridge in a pear tree; bird censuses have evolved in this century from the first modest Christmas Bird Count to an Internet extravaganza.(includes related article on obtaining additional resource information)(100 Years of Conservation)
November 1, 1998... Seven o'clock on a cold December morning. Doug and Gary and I are a mile down Arizona's Sycamore Canyon, having started down the trail with flashlights before first light. It's a level of effort that seems only natural for a Christmas Bird...

The Audubon canon: good nature writing should enrich its readers' awareness of the outdoors. Here, a short list of some of the century's best.
November 1, 1998... An old and persistent metaphor for nature is the book. Nature, Sir Thomas Browne wrote in the mid-17th century, is the "universal and publick Manus script, that lies expans'd unto the Eyes of all." The metaphor feels a little strained at the...