Closure of certain public lands for the protection of wildlife is an absolute necessity. Nowhere have we seen it more plainly than in the Millican off-road vehicle (ORV) playground. When Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologists discovered off-road machines were literally running all over some of the best Sage Grouse nesting habitat in that huge […]
Jim Anderson
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Natural World
Winter among the “lower animals”
Did ya’ ever stop to think…? Out there in that nice big woodpile you’re consuming this winter there are any number of insects, spiders and other six and eight-legged creatures sleeping away the winter. (What a rude awakening it must be when they suddenly find themselves in the consuming breath of the old wood stove!) […]
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Float Like This
Of hummingbirds and butterflies
While you were in the teeth-rattling -10 temperatures last week, Sue and I were basking in the balmy warmth of Las Vegas, Nevada. (No, I don’t gamble, but yes, we did go into downtown Vegas for an evening of enjoying the arts—no, not the strip clubs, but the exceptional Titanic exhibit for one—and had a […]
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Coyotes Forever
The oxymoronic management of a species
Coyotes Forever The oxymoronic management of a species By Jim Anderson I first became interested in coyotes shortly after I rolled into Bend on my good old ’51 OHV Harley in September of ’74. A couple of years later, I met and enjoyed a wonderful association with Henry Tonseth, ranger of the U.S. Forest Service […]
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Life Skills
Planting seedlings for the future
In this grand old, helter-skelter world of ours there are times when young people with special needs sometimes fall through the cracks. Thankfully, there are educators who are aware of this and set about to make sure it doesn’t happen on their watch.Tyler Winterholler, a Life Skills teacher at Mountain View HS in Bend is […]
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Naturalists Need You!
To help follow golden eagles
The Christmas Valley region has at least three Golden Eagles roaming around that are wearing radio transmitters, and one of them is from Alaska. The transmitter is difficult to see, unless you look for it. If the bird’s soaring overhead there will be several opportunities to observe that small “hump” on the eagle’s back, between […]
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Death on the Highway
Speed kills wildlife, and people too
Back in the early ’60s I began placing U.S. Fish and Wildlife #9 bands on the legs of golden eagle nestlings. I had been climbing into-and-out-of eagle nests in Deschutes, Lake, and Jefferson counties from about 1953, trying to learn more about their diet, territory, mortality, and natural history. I found nestlings and adults shot […]
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Moles, Voles, and Gophers
Controlling those pesky varments without poison
Back in the first week of June, my wife Sue and I went over to the Willamette Valley to take part in a delightful day at the Mother Earth News Fair in Albany (taking our son, Caleb, and his family along with us). Among the hundreds of exhibits and talks given by people who knew […]
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Keep Mule Deer Out of Your Garden!
“I am NOT going to put the raspberries out until we get a fence up to keep the deer out of the garden!” So says my wife Sue as we discussed this summer’s garden and greenhouse. Mule deer—thanks in part to those residents who continue feeding them in their yards—are a bane to anyone trying […]
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The Biggest Stinker of Them All
That’s not the neighbor’s ganja you’re smelling
Back in 1979 I was the manger of Ramsey Canyon Preserve in southeast Arizona, once known as the “Hummingbird Capitol of the World.” Unbeknownst, however, to the birders who labeled that beautiful place for the 12-or-so hummingbirds that were around in summer, it is also the “Skunk Capitol of the World.” All four skunks native […]