National Wildlife articles from December 1996

National Wildlife archives from December 1996

Values that Americans hold dearly. (how voters feel about the environment)(Editorial)
December 1, 1996... Two years ago, in November 1994, the most explicitly anti-environmental Congress in history was elected. Both the new Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, and a large plurality of the freshmen class immediately took aim at environmental...

Tales of the great white bear. (polar bears)(Cover Story)
December 1, 1996... Get a scientist talking about polar bears, and you will hear hair-raising stories along with an assessment of the creatures' uncertain future Visitors to Churchill, Canada, sometimes hear the story of a polar bear in the 1950s that followed a...

Rare beauties: some of the nation's loveliest native plants are also among its most endangered.
December 1, 1996... Some of the nation's loveliest native plants are also among its most endangered Maryl Levine's odyssey began on a soggy spring day in Texas in 1992. The Maryland photographer waded across a rain-swollen river and then crept up a cliff by way...

Star of the swamp: the star-nosed mole has an incredible sense of touch that we humans can only envy.(Biological Wonder)
December 1, 1996... The star-nosed mole has an incredible sense of touch that we humans can only envy A neuroscientist is not the sort of person you'd expect to know how to catch a mole. Yet at least once a year, Ken Catania, a brain researcher at Vanderbilt...

The bizarre life of the harlequin duck.
December 1, 1996... Biologists are still baffled by a duck that would rather swim than fly and that migrates east and west instead of north and south A gentle splash on the water's surface punctuates the landing of a harlequin duck on a secluded mountain stream....

Bison on the firing line: around Yellowstone, rancher concerns about cattle disease are colliding with wildlife protection on public lands.(Battleground)
December 1, 1996... Around Yellowstone, rancher concerns about cattle disease are colliding with wildlife protection on public lands The wholesale slaughter of America's bison stopped near the end of the 1800s, but federal and state livestock agencies are trying...

Photo contest awards. (nature and wildlife)(includes details on how to enter the 1997 contest)
December 1, 1996... Whether they plotted and planned to capture on film images that already existed in their imaginations or clicked away at the unexpected, the winners of National Wildlife's twenty-sixth annual photo contest all had plenty of experience as...

Survival by handout? (San Joaquin kit foxes)
December 1, 1996... As a California city expands into the habitat of San Joaquin kit foxes, the endangered animals are showing up all over town Endangered species are often as elusive as spies, and human sightings of the animals can be rare and remarkable...

Historic plan paves way for grizzlies' return to Idaho's Bitteroot region.
December 1, 1996... Return to Idaho's Bitterroot Region History is about to be made in the Northern Rockies. If all goes according to plan, authorities will begin reintroducing grizzly bears next summer to the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness area of Idaho and...

He wrote the book on birds. (Chandler S. Robbins)(American Heroes)
December 1, 1996... The difficult thing with serious bird-watchers isn't getting them to start looking at birds. It's getting them to do it on a strict schedule. So it's all the more surprising that Chandler S. Robbins says he never doubted, 30 years ago, that he...

Investigating the Last Great American Gold Heist. (television documentary on mining)
December 1, 1996... Back in 1872, the fastest form of mass transportation was the locomotive, the average citizen could survive on a dollar a day in wages and Congress had just passed the Mining Act, which set the price that miners must pay the federal government...