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 […]
Natural World
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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 […]
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Monarch Waystations
Planting pit stops for migrating butterflies
The monarch butterfly is in a world of hurt. Right off the bat it has problems because it’s so unique; it’s a migratory insect that flies thousands of miles to survive winter, then returns to continue life in northern latitudes—and they travel right through our neck-of-the-woods. Everyone knows birds migrate and do it in astounding […]
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The Eagle Has Landed
Central Oregon has an unprecedented youngster
As many of you may know, I’ve been working with golden eagles since the 1950s when I discovered their dead bodies rotting near poison bait stations set out for coyotes. I also began banding baby eagles in the early 1960s, along with a wide variety of other raptors when I was approved by the US […]
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Balloons on the Loose
Innocent looking, but dangerous
This photo shows a group of party balloons found clinging to the GI Ranch pasture fence and others deflated and scattered around, way out in the middle of the state. A group of calves were smelling and nibbling at them when they were found. Had one of the calves started chewing on it and attempted […]