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The title of this piece was a common statement back in the ’70s and ’80s, when NASA was doing all it could to place men and machinery in space. It also became a common statement for all kinds of problems in our society—and now I use it to bring attention to a problem that people […]
Are cats cuddly companions or fine-tuned killing machines? They’re both—and their owners know that. Cats that live in the wild (or are indoor pets allowed to roam outdoors), kill about 2.4 billion birds in the continental U.S. each year, according to the American Bird Conservancy, contributing to the extinction of at least 64 bird, mammal […]
On a Saturday and Sunday afternoon in July, the brand-new wildlife rehabilitation facility, Think Wild, east of Bend, created a traffic jam with its open house. A lot of people from Bend, Tumalo, LaPine, Sisters and Redmond came out to check out what Think Wild was all about. So, here’s the skinny. The facility once […]
Well, good people, hummingbird moths are in season. Yes, they can fool you; some people think they’re actually hummingbirds, while others don’t know what they are, as evidenced by an email I received the other day with the question, “What, pray tell is this?” But before we go into the what, why, where and when […]
By golly, this is a strange time for Pandora moths to pop out of the woodwork—er, soil. They were here in grand numbers back in 2017, and it’s usually five to 10 years before they appear again. Must be climate change; something is taking place around us that’s favorable to this species. Meanwhile, another species […]
Oh, boy, are we having fun! Right now, during these warm first weeks of July, the California tortoiseshell butterfly, one of the more dashing of the nymphalids, is popping out by the hundreds of thousands—if not millions —in the foothills of the Cascades, known as the Skyline Forest. This beautiful butterfly has been flitting around […]
Back in 1951, I rolled into Bend on my grand old 1947 Harley, and within a year I was into the eagle conservation business. It was then I discovered what was previously unknown to me: the U.S. Government’s role in killing wildlife. Government trappers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Division of Predator and Rodent […]
The links between insects and a healthy environment are so vital to life as we know it, they should be taught in kindergarten so that everyone learns the facts at an early age. You can thank an insect pollinator for one out of every three mouthfuls of food you eat—which is what makes spraying chemicals […]
The Western U.S. population of trumpeter swans, Cygnus buccinator —Cygnus from the Latin for swan, and buccinare for “to trumpet”—fell into deep trouble when their feathers and skin became a valuable commodity in the late 1800s. That same species you see today on the Deschutes River, Lake Aspen and Sunriver’s ponds, were at one time threatened with […]
The only golden eagle cam operating in the U.S., located just north of Sisters, has been transmitting some pretty exciting footage over the last few weeks. Viewers have been witnessing what appears to be a very cruel event in the life and times of golden eagles: the starvation of one of the young. Last Monday, […]
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