Coyote Crossing

Planet of Plagues

I noticed that this article, which was published in the Summer 1999 issue of Earth Island Journal, has fallen off the Journal’s website archives. So I’m putting it up here. It’s badly dated, and there are things I say with assurance here that I

Climate, Biodiversity, and Colonizing the Desert (Three Maps)

I went to a conference today, and I learned some good things about which I will be writing shortly, but before I do that I wanted to share with you a couple of maps I saw at the conference, and a third I decided to put together myself to see what

Ivanpah solar site may hold 140 tortoises

Funny thing. As soon as The Atlantic’s Alexis Madrigal refers dismissively to the Ivanpah solar site’s tortoise population as being “around 25,” the BLM ups the ante a little.

To 140 tortoises. A hundred forty tortoises on a bit less than four

Disappearing forests

My days and nights are upside down these days. I work until late. I sleep until late. I am less enthusiastic than I could be. Maybe it’s a hangover from the huge amount of bad news this month, which at first I followed assiduously and helplessly. 

Only the hills will know.

“Men still live who, in their youth, remember Passenger Pigeons. Trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a decade hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.”

— Aldo

The Litany: Part Two (Naiads)

If you haven’t yet read Part One, you should do that first.

In youth, sun-fever-burned, replete with doubt
and awkward angular, I walked unshod
and in the center of the viscid creek, heading
upstream, the algae tangled ropes
to bind my ankles.

The Litany: Part One (In Medias Res)

[A project I’ve been working on for a while, and it’s time to give it some light.]

A token for the sweet and blameless dead,
the fallen facets of this jewelled earth
each loss a weakened place, a broken strand
in this our fraying web. A token for … (continues)

Regarding the Mexican Wolf

Taking a break from educating the public at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

I’ve been quiet here for a little bit. Some of the reason is that I’ve been busy with a couple of other projects, one of which I’ll be saying more about here in a few

Mexican Wolf

One of the last wild Mexican wolves, filmed only a short time before the species went extinct in the wild. Details by the videographer are below the … (continues)

Thylacine

In addition to a brief, wishful-thinking introductory clip of an alleged recent sighting, this video contains all known footage of Thylacinus cynocephalus, the largest predatory marsupial of modern times. The Thylacine, also known as the

Obama and Extinction

There is more to protecting the environment than mitigating climate change.

You wouldn’t know that just from listening to the campaign speeches we’ve all heard over the last few months. The one environmental topic that ever got brought up was