This great seal-pup video has been making the rounds. In case you haven't seen it yet ... Ethan Janson, a local windsurfer from Three Tree Point (south of Seattle) noticed that harbor seals were hauling out on a surfboard he'd tied to a buoy out in Puget Sound. He hooked up a GoPro camera, remotely, and captured this footage of a seal pup trying desperately to haul out on the slippery board. Before posting this, [...]
WildlifeConservationStamp.org is a collaborative effort to promote a new wildlife stamp and funding stream for our National Wildlife Refuges. We are birders, photographers, conservationists, wildlife rehabilitators, scientists, teachers and artists ... joined by a common passion and concern for our nation’s wildlife and wild habitats. We propose the Wildlife Conservation Stamp to provide a consistent source of income for our Refuges, separate but parallel to the current Federal Duck Stamp program. The Wildlife Conservation Stamp would raise fees [...]
I love seeing signs like this ... Two such signs were posted at Point Robinson Lighthouse on Vashon Island in Washington, one of the few public-access beaches in the area. It's the same spot where I photographed the large flock of Brant Geese foraging along the shoreline earlier this year. On a crystal day, this is the view from that beach: The ship traffic comes from the Port of Tacoma, passing northward between [...]
This post contains one image of a long-deceased gull, just FYI. You'd think I would have learned my lesson last year, with the dead gull I found wrapped around a deterrent wire on a nearby warehouse ... or the gulls we untangled last fall from a fish-pen net. But, in fairness, this location was difficult to see from any common vantage point in the neighborhood. It wasn't until I was out the other day, photographing [...]
Today, I came upon a contentious thread about bird banding on my local birding listserv. This thread made me think of the emails I got in response to my Snowy Owl post -- the post which criticized the photography field ethics we witnessed up at Boundary Bay. On today's listserv, a member birder had concerns about the effects of banding on birds like dippers. The subsequent conversation veered toward some strong opinions, and someone posted [...]
We barely saw this sub-adult Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), hunkered down and camouflaged, in a tree above the trail at Union Bay Natural Area. I shot a few frames right before the sun fell below Husky Stadium to the south. At full extension, the eagle was still quite small in the frame, and the aggressive cropping shows the limitations of my lens. Still, it was another one of my favorite periphery surprises, where I note [...]
Tucker isn't really interested in the water. But, he spends his working days on a boat, sniffing out orca scat in the breezes of the Salish Sea. He's a labrador mix, trained as part of the Conservation Canine program -- at the University of Washington's Center For Conservation Biology. Tucker's ambivalence about water actually makes him the perfect dog for this job, since he's a lot more valuable on board than he would be splashing [...]
Orcas can't, of course, pick out sofas. But if they could, they would tell you that their survival may depend on the product and furniture choices we make -- and the industries we support in the process. The orcas of the Salish Sea, who regularly cross the international boundary between Washington State and British Columbia, are among the most PCB-contaminated marine mammals in the world (Ross, Fireproof Killer Whales). They also harbor high levels of [...]
On a recent morning, nursing my perfect cup of coffee as brewed by my perfect host of a friend, I heard a sound from the kitchen. A shout, actually ...
In Jain texts, the term ahimsa denotes the principle of least harm: “Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture or kill any creature or living being.” Jain monks take great care to look out for the least among us, going to lengths to avoid harming insects and so forth. […]
Squirrels don't win popularity contests with gardeners and bird feeders. Tree squirrels, agile and clever, have been known to outsmart even the toughest mazes designed to thwart them. In fact, if you never saw the 1990s British documentary Daylight Robbery, check out the video clip at the end of this post. From there you can link to other segments of the show. The gist of it is . . . grey squirrels in the UK [...]
Barbed wire is just doing the job it was invented to do -- keeping livestock in and intruders out . . . In the wildlife world, it's an invention that's caused injury, death and significant suffering for countless species. [read the full post . . .]
It's estimated that 400 million animals die each year on roads in the United States, struck by vehicles. It's impossible to know precise numbers, particularly since mortally wounded animals will crawl away from road shoulders (where the dead can be counted). That 400 million figure is extrapolated from various local surveys and collision statistics. A Road Kill Diary This topic is on my mind because of a Photostream I came upon at Flickr [...]
Years ago, Hugh and I were coming home from a late show and noticed a crew of stray cats feeding in the middle of the road. We slowed down and saw that someone had dumped a load of meat parts in the middle of a normally busy street. The strays were simply taking advantage of a free meal. But they were at great risk of becoming road kill themselves. So what do you do? [...]