“Are cows allowed on the Refuge?” I asked our volunteer coordinator at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. “Cows? No!” Former Ranch Buenos Aires NWR was created in the late 1980s from a 110,000 acre ranch 60 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. Lush grasslands kept free of trees by natural wildfires had enticed cattlemen to settle …
“Do you want to see the moose head?” A fellow volunteer escorted Chuck and I out behind the workshop of the National Elk Refuge to see the head of a large bull moose, complete with enormous rack, that had been removed from a carcass earlier that day. The moose had been gored by a fellow …
“I wouldn’t want to take part in the death of such magnificent creatures!” we recently overheard someone say in regard to killing bison for meat. But what constitutes a “magnificent creature”? Bison? Bear? Bluebirds? Butterflies? [twocol_one][/twocol_one] [twocol_one_last][/twocol_one_last] Perception “It’s all just perception,” noted a biologist friend of ours. “It’s what’s been glamorized and victimized. We …
In our last post, we mentioned one young man (Gabe Brown) with a passion for reptiles. For several years, we have been asking young people such as Gabe to provide us with an article telling how and why they have developed such an interest in these often misunderstood animals. So far, Gabe is the only …
One advantage of working as naturalists on the deck of the National Elk Refuge in Jackson, Wyoming, is meeting some of the young visitors who come through on vacation. While many people bemoan the deterioration of today’s youth, we witness first hand some of the dedicated and caring folks of our future. Many of the …
Although we’ve encountered people trespassing a bit beyond “Area Closed” signs on national wildlife refuges, recently we viewed a woman at least a half mile beyond the warning sign. We spotted this woman as we descended from a hillside after observing and recording wildlife information for the refuge biologist. The chattering of Sandhill Cranes alerted …
“Where can we take our 4-year-old hiking that’s safe?” a young father asked me at a visitor center where Chuck and I were volunteering in Wyoming. After thinking a bit, I recommended a trail that popped into my mind. “But are there a lot of people on that trail?” he asked. “We’d want to be …