Audubon articles from November 2005

Audubon archives from November 2005

Editor's note.(Hurricane Katrina, 2005 affects everyone)
November 1, 2005... After Hurricane Katrina, our thoughts at Audubon, like those in the rest of the country, turned to the people who lost everything, including, in hundreds of cases, their lives. As products of human nature, we worried especially about the...

Audubon view.(Rockefeller Brothers Fund manages natural resources and the environment)
November 1, 2005... Last summer my wife and I spent a week hiking and birding in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. On a previous trip I took my family to Acadia National Park in Maine. Both are among my favorite national parks for their splendor and...

Bearbaiting.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... IN RESPONSE TO BEARBAITING ["Bad News Bear Hunters," September, October], you should know that in Minnesota, bears are in the suburbs of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They are yearlings looking for their own territory to call home. As the Minnesota...

Divine intervention.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... I TOO WAS ONCE A MEMBER OF the fundamentalist and evangelical Christian community. I attended a Baptist church, hung out with conservative Christians, and later graduated from a conservative theological seminary. Nearly 30 years ago I...

Inspiring photos.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... WHAT A POWERFUL PHOTO ["Final Frontier," September-October] of the logs stacked up to create the billions of catalogues we pitch in the garbage upon receipt! I spent the afternoon canceling catalogue deliveries and forwarding your article to my...

Rocking out.(letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2005... RENE RUSSO'S EFFORTS TO RESTORE the native vegetation on her property and her efforts toward creating and sustaining the California Landscape Heritage Campaign are outstanding ["Hollywood Native," July-August]. However, I would like to address...

Acknowledgment.(letters)(Correction Notice)
November 1, 2005... Page 41 of the July-August issue featured a full-page photograph by Joel Sartore of two ivory-billed woodpecker specimens at the University of Nebraska State Museum, but there was no credit to the museum, where the specimens are kept on...

Carousels for conservation.(DISPATCHES ...)(carousels feature endangered species)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Zoos around the country are raising awareness of endangered species by putting a novel spin on the classic carousel. Instead of horses, these new merry-go-rounds feature threatened animals, including pandas, sloth bears, and manatees. "Anything...

The road to recovery.(hurricane katrina)(wetlands protection)
November 1, 2005... CRASS AS IT MAY SEEM, THERE WAS A time when Hurricane Katrina, even after she struck, looked like south Louisiana's possible savior. "Hopefully, we won't piss away this opportunity," says Ted Falgout, director of Port Fourchon, the hub of...

Fall fashion.(DISPATCHES ...)(Audubon hat)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Tim Schaeffer considers himself both a hunter and a conservationist. So in February, when he took over as executive director of Audubon Pennsylvania, he immediately began working to build alliances between the two groups. His latest effort is a...

Birds in the bull's-eye.(animal control)(cormorants)
November 1, 2005... AS DAY BREAKS OVER 112,000-ACRE Leech Lake in northern Minnesota, a boat lands on Little Pelican Island. Two figures sneak ashore and quickly duck into blinds. Thousands of double-crested cormorants, common terns, and ring-billed gulls,...

This piggy went home.(DISPATCHES ...)(Farm Sanctuary)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... It began in the mid-1980s when animal advocates rescued a sheep named Hilda from a stockyard "dead pile." Now, almost two decades later, Farm Sanctuary is the largest farm animal rescue and protection organization in the country. The group...

Graveyard shift.(DISPATCHES ...)(Mount Auburn Cemetery)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2005... Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the final resting place for a number of famous birdwatchers, including William Brewster, co-organizer of the American Ornithologists' Union, and Harriet Hemenway, founder of the...

Take-home lessons.(chapter spotlight)(Audubon Leadership Workshop)
November 1, 2005... THERE'S REAL BONDING HERE," DELLE said, taking a break with her chapter colleagues at the Hog Island Audubon Camp just off the Maine coast. "We're opening ourselves to new ideas, learning from others, and finding that our own voice can make a...

Leaving Las Vegas.(migrations)(Moapa Valley Important Bird Area)
November 1, 2005... The 17,000-acre Moapa Valley Important Bird Area (IBA) in southern Nevada is a cauldron of contradictions. Located in a harsh region of Mojave Desert scrub and mesquite, the IBA is anchored by an oasis of riparian vegetation along the upper...

Survivor: all that distinguishes the ivory-billed woodpecker from the pileated is about an inch in height and subtle differences in plumage, but for the past century their fates could not have been more different. Why did one falter while the other flourished, and will either hold its own in the future?(birds)
November 1, 2005... Last April, within days of the announcement of the ivory-billed woodpecker's resurrection in Arkansas, reports of fresh sightings began pouring into the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and other institutions involved in the tracking effort....

365 days of Christmas: a real tree can be more than a beautiful emblem of nature in your home. After the holidays are over, it can serve as a gift to wildlife year-round.(Audubon at home)
November 1, 2005... Long before the plastic, pre-lit, silver-spritzed $39.99 special took the holidays by storm, people were decorating natural trees for celebrations. Egyptians gathered palm branches for fertility; Romans trimmed evergreens to honor their sun...

The Great Florida Birding Trail.(SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION)(Advertisement)
November 1, 2005... The Great Florida Birding Trail is a veritable road trip of birding sites, codified and detailed in a series of guides and other informative materials. It wanders for more than 2,000 miles throughout the state, providing birders, from novices...

"Doing the right thing": for the past century, five generations of Rockefellers have dedicated themselves to protecting the nation's natural heritage, from the California redwoods to the Hudson River. Their environmental legacy has lasted because they have fashioned it into the American ideal of civic responsibility.(Audubon Medal)
November 1, 2005... OUR ECONOMY IS A SUBSYSTEM OF THE EARTH'S ecosystem," Steven Rockefeller said recently. "And, very clearly, industrialized society is systematically degrading the planet's ecosystem. If we do not reverse our patterns of production and...

Green / acres: between the backyard and the back and beyond are a billion acres of agricultural land crucial to the survival of many of our endangered species. The much-maligned farm bill offers a portfolio of conservation programs that are key to these species' future.(Working Lands / INTRODUCTION)
November 1, 2005... AMERICA'S BILLION ACRES OF AGRICULTURAL LAND ARE AN often overlooked but immensely important piece of the country's conservation puzzle--a sort of middle ground between the larger (public lands) and the smaller (backyards). These croplands,...

Healing time.(Working Lands / CALIFORNIA)(rancher Scott Stone)
November 1, 2005... SCOTT STONE REINS IN HIS horse on a grassy knoll, leans back in the saddle, and surveys his family ranch. Black Angus cattle dot the hillsides, which rise before him in waves of spring green to the twin peaks marking the western edge of...

Bumper crop.(Working Lands / PENNSYLVANIA)(Bruce Bonnice)
November 1, 2005... WE'RE ABOUT HALFWAY through a two-hour tour of Bruce Bonnice's 430-acre property on this warm day in mid-June. The air is still as we look out over the landscape, a pitched patchwork of sun-splashed meadows, cool hardwood forests, and small...

Gaining ground.(Working Lands / ARKANSAS)(wetlands restoration)
November 1, 2005... A MALLARD CRUISING OVER the Arkansas River about 15 miles south of Little Rock might be inclined to treat the swath below as just another stretch of inhospitable farmland: an open, largely treeless, mostly waterless landscape. But on this...

Prairie king.(Working Lands / MINNESOTA)(Tony Thompson)
November 1, 2005... TONY THOMPSON HAS BEEN protecting prairie since before protecting prairie was cool. And he does it in southwestern Minnesota, where agriculture is king and where plowing prairies and draining wetlands to make way for crops has been a way of...

Through the looking glass.(Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World's Most Remote Island Sanctuary)(Cover Story)
November 1, 2005... SEA LETTUCE ULVA FASCIATA THEY ARE EARTH'S MOST SECLUDED ISLAND CHAIN, A NOAH'S ARK-LIKE REFUGE FOR ENDANGERED SEABIRDS AND MARINE LIFE, SO FRAGILE IS THIS DAZZLING STRAND OF SHOALS, ATOLLS, AND BASALT ISLANDS THAT ONLY RESEARCHERS ARE...

Sugar rush: for generations, Vermont's wholesome family tradition of making maple syrup has kept it on our flapjacks and birds in our trees. Now, faced with modern-day threats, these farmers wonder how much longer their way of life can last.(HERITAGE)
November 1, 2005... There are four basic grades of maple syrup, but every batch is slightly different. The color and taste of the final product reflect the complex influences of the climate, soil, and boiling process. Above: Trees adorned with galvanized metal...

Sparking renewal: when their land goes up in smoke, a family's belief in the importance of wildfire is sorely tested. But as the earth springs back to life, they feel comforted by nature's resilience.(journal)
November 1, 2005... Marypat and I had the same inspiration at Christmas two years ago. We each gave the other a journal to replace the one that burned to black ash when our 20 acres of Montana property was scorched by wildfire in August of 2003. Independently, we...

Birding Australia's Northern Territory.
November 1, 2005... "The great attraction about birding in Australia is that nearly everything is new." There is a lilt of excitement in Tonia Cochran's voice. A native Australian, Dr. Cochran (she has a Ph.D. in zoology, among her trio of degrees) runs her own...

California wild: along the Pacific Flyway and coastal waters they come by the millions--escaping winter's icy grip to bask in California's mild Mediterranean climate. From waterfowl and whales to butterflies and raptors, the diversity of California's wildlife makes the state A Winter Bonanza for Wildlife and the Wild-at-Heart.(Advertisement)
November 1, 2005... CALIFORNIA -- THE NAME ALONE CONJURES UP IMAGES OF SUN-SPLASHED BEACHES, RICH COASTAL ESTUARIES, VERDANT VALLEYS, GRANITE-SPIRED MOUNTAINS AND DESERT PLAINS. With over 1,100 miles of coastline and a topography that includes the highest and...

Audubon directory your quick guide to the national audubon society.
November 1, 2005... BOARD OF DIRECTORS CAROL M. BROWNER Chair of the Board LESLIE DACH W. HARDY ESHBAUGH Vice-Chairs ALLEN J. MODEL Treasurer JACK J. DEMPSEY Secretary CHRISTOPHER M. HARTE VIVIAN R. JOHNSON ...

Arctic chill: in the far north, people and polar bears live in a snowy and remote wilderness. So why are their bodies among the most contaminated on earth?(Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic By Maria Cone Grove Press, 246 pages, $24 FAR FROM CENTERS OF POPULATION and political power, the Arctic is easy for the industrial world to ignore. On the occasions the Arctic does make...

Raising Less Corn, More Hell.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... Raising Less Corn, More Hell By George Pyle PublicAffairs, 229 pages, 525 The days of Thomas Jefferson's independent yeoman farmer are pretty much a thing of the past. A decades-long trend toward industrial agriculture--described by...

Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet By Chris Spence Palgrave MacMillan, 191 pages, $24.95 "Myth # 1: Global warming is just a theory. The experts have not made up their minds. Fact # 1: The experts are certain--global...

Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash.(Brief Article)(Book Review)
November 1, 2005... Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash By Elizabeth Royte Little, Brown and Company, 311 pages, $24.95 The United States consumes more stuff, per capita, than any other nation in the world, and therefore generates more stuff to bury,...

One picture.(Ashes and Snow)
November 1, 2005... THE ANIMAL HITCHING A RIDE ON THE HEAD OF A YOUNG NAMIBIAN WOMAN IS A meerkat (Suricata suricatta), one of some 40 species of small African carnivores in the mongoose family. Meerkats, which are common on arid, stony plains throughout southern...