Audubon articles from November 2007

Audubon archives from November 2007

Editor's Note.
November 1, 2007... Modern conservation is marked by iconic images. In 1969 Cleveland's polluted Cuyahoga River burst into flames. As Ted Williams recounts in "Get Off Your Land!" (page 28), the incident symbolized the abysmal state of the nation's waterways. The...

Audobon view.(Nature is good for kids)
November 1, 2007... People want to do what's right for children. With that in mind, the Children & Nature Network has compiled an impressive set of research studies on what's best for their healthy development. One major conclusion was no surprise to us: Nature is...

The trees from the forest.(Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... While Ted Williams's article 'As Ugly as a Tree" [Incite, September-October] makes some valid points, it sends the wrong message at the wrong time--when our country is mainly in denial over global warming and looking to justify and continue our...

Roadblock.(Letters from our leaders)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... Michelle Nijhuis's article ["Dead End," September-October] provided a timely portrait of the threats to Arizona's wildlife and public lands by the impermeable border wall construction called for under the Secure Fence Act. It is important to...

Unnatural order.(Letters from our leaders)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... While conservation measures are imperative, they can only retard the depressing decline in bird numbers ["Common Birds in Decline, "July-August]. More important, we must identify and address the problem's root causes: a growing human population...

Corrections.(Letters from our leaders)(Correction notice)
November 1, 2007... The July-August "Green Guru" incorrectly suggested using eastern mosquitofish to control mosquito larvae in garden ponds. Both species of mosquito fish (Gambusia affinis and G. holbrooki) are native to the United States only from the Rio Grande...

Good vibrations.(field: notes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] An elephant's trumpeting blast is a staple of those old Tarzan movies. Imagine if Hollywood knew then what researchers have found out now: The largest of land mammals also communicate through low-frequency rumbles....

The meaning of life.(field: notes)(Encyclopedia of Life )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... There may not be two of each creature, but a new online project rivals the biblical story of Noah's Ark in its species-gathering scope. In May a collaboration of museums and scientific institutions announced a plan to create an online...

Cracking the code.(TECHNOLOGY)(barcoding animals)
November 1, 2007... DATELINE: 2014. Kennedy Airport, New York, NY. A well-dressed man chats with customs agents after his flight from Brazil--until his carry-on suitcase emits a weak squawk. His bag is opened. Inside, dozens of brilliant turquoise parrots are...

Gecko glue.(field: notes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] By applying sticking strategies from experts at opposite ends of the natural world, scientists are building a better Band-Aid. The reason geckos can hang on a desert cliff, even upside down, without being permanently...

Web site.(HORROR SHOW)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NO HALLOWEEN HAUNTED HOUSE would be complete without plenty of cobwebs. These days you can buy them in spray cans for spooky effects on a modest scale or shoot them out of compressed-air guns that can blow sheets of...

Hold the hay.(BIRD CONSERVATION)(Bobolink)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHILE MOST INVESTORS anxiously tracked their stocks this summer, people in one Rhode Island community were keeping an eye on a different kind of portfolio--one that paid ecological dividends. Residents of Jamestown,...

Eating poachers.(field: notes)(crocodiles to ward off poachers)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Bengal tigers of the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve in India's West Bengal state are alleged man-eaters. Yet even this frightful reputation doesn't keep poachers away. As of 2001, the reserve was home to as many as 271 tigers. No one knows how...

Got my goat.(field: notes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... It's been called the "green menace" and "the vine that are the South." Now the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has followed the lead of other municipalities by using an eco-friendly alternative to herbicide to combat kudzu, the pesky, invasive...

Froggy went a-floating.(field: notes)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... They may not have sailors' mouths, but some frogs certainly have their sea legs. For years scientists hypothesized that South American frogs reached Central America and the Caribbean by traveling over land bridges. Now new research shows that...

A blooming ghost.(ORCHIDS)(ghost orchids)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ON THE JULY DAY last summer when Maryanne Biggar made horticultural history, she had just spied a barred owl from the lichen-spotted boardwalk at the Audubon Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, near Naples, Florida. Scanning...

Wheelies for wetlands.(field: notes)(Terry Forrette )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Terry Forrette has been an avid motorcyclist for more than 40 years. It wasn't until Hurricane Katrina struck his Louisiana home, though, that the 56-year-old Harley-Davidson rider became a fervent advocate for the state's dwindling wetlands....

A monumental crisis.(GLOBAL WARMING)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] While the world's natural heritage, including polar bears and other wildlife, is global warming's first casualty, it's worth noting that the human heritage isn't faring too well either. In its 2008 Watch List of the...

Green guru: advice for the eco-minded.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In considering the hidden costs that come with shipping fruit--trucking it around the globe in refrigerated containers--I'm wondering whether it's more energy efficient to eat dried fruit? Justin Van Kleeck,...

SOS: the Arctic is sending a clear distress signal: Life there as we know it is imploding in what may well be a harbinger of things to come for the rest of the world.(GLOBAL WARMING)
November 1, 2007... On December 27, 2006, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne proposed listing the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The announcement stunned some observers because the Bush administration had repeatedly denied federal...

Cap and trade how it works.(GLOBAL WARMING/GLOBAL SOLUTIONS)
November 1, 2007... A CAP-AND-TRADE SYSTEM COMBINES A REGULATORY TOOL (the capping part, which requires permits, often called allowances) with a marketplace one (the trading part). The goal is to reduce the emissions of a particular kind of pollutant. In the...

Get on board: tackling our number one planetary crisis demands both personal and political action. Now it's your turn to put the heat on Congress to enact an idea almost everyone can live with.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SINCE CONGRESS CHANGED HANDS last year, there have been dozens of hearings on ways to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2])--the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming--released into the...

Standing out: a portrait photographer captures the playful nature of a pageant of avian subjects.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] THE PAINTINGS WERE claimed by Katrina's floodwaters, but Catherine Ledner still remembers gazing up at them almost daily when she was a small child. They were miniature copies of works by the 20th-century...

Camp Caribbean: wake up in a solar-powered tent, snorkel in an aquamarine underworld, bathe in water collected from the clouds, and turn your beer bottles into art--all while helping preserve St. John's natural appeal. A pioneering experiment in ecotourism offers a better alternative to big-box resorts.(GREEN TRAVEL)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Standing in dazzling sand at the edge of Maho Bay, my legs tingle as aqua waters tickle my toes, tucked into snorkeling fins. Nearby, brown pelicans are plunge-diving in elegant exhibitions that end comically as they...

Breakout: for the past century the whooping crane has followed a short path to the edge of extinction. Having successfully lured the birds back on migration routes by foster parents as they prepare to release young cranes directly into the wild this fall.
November 1, 2007... Snap! Snap! Snap! The plastic beak slammed shut in rapid succession, but each time the grasshopper narrowly escaped. Covered from head to toe in a billowing white shroud, Marianne Wellington, a biologist with the International Crane Foundation,...

Proud passage: a repeat journey down a legendary river honors a first step into manhood.(Journal)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] First we take a stick of driftwood and draw a circle in the sand, large enough for all five of us to stand easily inside, with Sawyer, 13, in the center. Each of us takes a compass direction, in stationary orbit,...

This little light of mine: they're brighter, cheaper in the long run, and fit most fixtures. Plus compact fluorescents can be a force in fighting global warming. So what are you waiting for?(Audubon Living)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] If you've visited a home improvement or discount store lately, maybe you noticed that compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) are front and center, stacked on the shelves of main aisles in a greater variety of shapes...

Ink, sweat, and paint: more than 40 years in the making, an illustrated field guide for bird-rich Peru finally hits the shelves, adding to the world of masterful ornithological manuals.(Birds)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some years ago I was walking alone one afternoon in Peru when a hummingbird zipped straight toward me at eye level, stopped two feet from my face, and hovered there for several seconds, apparently looking me over....

Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters With Ordinary Birds By Sam Keen Chronicle Books, 120 pages, $14.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Embedded memories come in all forms. For example, people often associate certain songs with seminal...

Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed.(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed By Alan Rabinowitz Island Press, 296 pages. $25.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Life in the Valley of Death is not your typical chronicle of rescuing...

Lost in the wilderness: has the environmental movement become stale and stodgy, too concerned with nature at the expense of people? The authors of this book-length manifesto think so and have charted a controversial new path for environmentalism in the 21st century.(Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility )(Book review)
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility By Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger Houghton Mifflin, 344 pages, 525 It's been three years since Ted Nordhaus and Michael...

No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... No Way Home: The Decline of the World's Great Animal Migrations By David S. Wilcove Island Press, 238 pages, $25.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] From butterflies to bison, sea turtles to salmon, No Way Home offers entrancing accounts of some...

Everything Bird: What Kids Really Want to Know About Birds.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... Everything Bird: What Kids Really Want to Know About Birds By Cherie Winner Northword Books for Young Readers, 64 pages, $10.95 (ages 8-11) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If birds don't have teeth, how do they chew their food? Can an owl...

On Meadowview Street.(Brief article)(Book review)
November 1, 2007... On Meadowview Street By Henry Cole HarperCollins, 32 pages, $16.99 (ages 4-8) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Caroline and her family move into their new home on Meadowview Street, the young girl notices something peculiar: There doesn't...

One Picture.
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Happy Halloween I confess I've never watched the 1984 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street or any of its many sequels. I prefer classic westerns. You know, the Duke, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda. Still, I've been...