Very high on my bucket list is to see a California condor in the wild (Figure 1), ideally over Oregon. If my timing is good and the condors cooperate, this could happen.

The Forest Service is proposing to mechanically push over at least thirty perfectly healthy and very tall and very large old-growth Douglas-fir trees into the uppermost Calapooia River, in the name of steelhead habitat enhancement. So-called tree-tipping is purported by some fish biologists to be helpful and by other experts to be harmful—or at best to be a distraction from getting the real restoration work done.

The protracted battle for the Izembek is now before a US District Court judge. At stake is whether the designations of national wildlife refuge and wilderness actually mean anything, at least in Alaska and/or under a Trump administration.

This is the second part of a two-part series. Part 2 examines the economics of using beavers to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

This is the first part of a two-part series. Part 1 examines the ecosystem and watershed benefits of beavers. Part 2 will examine the economics of using beavers to both mitigate and adapt to climate change.

The government that would become Oregon got its start in 1843 when some early European invaders met in the mid–Willamette Valley to discuss predatory wildlife attacking livestock. A result was the first bounty on wolves.

As state fish and wildlife agencies get shorted for funds, the bureaucratic tendency is often to double down on the traditional support base of hunters and anglers. However, for a multitude of cultural, social, economic, demographic, and other reasons, doubling down on a declining user base will not likely be an effective long-term strategy.

It is safe to say that most conservationists, not to mention the rest of Americans, have never heard of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS). It is a federal and state partnership that is little known and therefore underappreciated.

Why is it that public lands conservation (and other environmental) issues always poll well, but our movement is regularly getting its ass kicked in Congress (and now by the administration as well)? It’s because we’re not political enough.

This is the second of a two-part examination of proposed oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Just as it is in the public interest to have systems of corridors for the movement of vehicles, oil, gas, electrons, and water, it is in the public interest to have a system of corridors for wildlife. Wildlife corridors are for mammals large and small that must walk to where they need to go.

Part 1: It’s a Beautiful, Natural, and Necessary Thing That Nature Changes

Everyone—including many a card-carrying conservationist—just needs to take a deep breath. Yes, there was a relatively large forest fire mostly on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Gorge. However, the clearing of the smoke gave proof through the day that our gorge was still there.

The present president doesn’t seem to enjoy the outdoors, unless it is on a great big beautiful golf course. Though the presidential retreat in Maryland does have a modest driving range along with one hole and several tees, don’t bet on Trump spending any time at Camp David, tucked in western Maryland’s forests.