I live in the Pacific Northwest where I communicate to enhance public understanding of science. I write and create visual narratives about ecosystem science, forestry, wildfire, wildlife, and the way humans interact with the natural world around us.
Once upon a time I studied anthropology and forestry.
Bulletins
Forest managers are increasingly looking to restore ponderosa pine forests to more ecologically diverse conditions - forests with clusters of trees, openings, and multiple age classes instead of the evenly spaced, uniform stands produced by traditional forest management.
When wildland firefighters head into the field, they know the work is dangerous; but until now, agencies lacked detailed data on exactly which activities and hazards posed the greatest threats. A recent analysis of five years of serious firefighter injuries offers new insights.
When gray wolves (Canis lupus) returned to the American West after decades of absence, they brought more than echoing howls on the landscape—they reignited one of the region’s most enduring human-wildlife conflicts.
To reduce the risk of wildfire, it’s important to understand where fuel treatments are most likely to succeed. Recent research by Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) scientists and their collaborators provides insights for prioritizing fuel treatments in sagebrush country.
When the Black Fire ignited in southwestern New Mexico in 2022, it had all the ingredients for disaster: record-high winds, extremely low humidity, and over 131,000 hectares (323,708 acres) of forest fuels to feed on. But something unexpected happened.
Research at the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range, managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, points to strategies for supporting native bees while maintaining grazing and timber production.
The sounds we create and carry into the natural soundscape, from our conversations to the whir of mountain bike wheels or the roar of off-highway vehicles (OHVs), can be stressful to wildlife.
Scientists at the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range collected real-time data from tracking units worn by hunters to better understand their movements as well as how deer and elk respond to their presence.
In recent years, the number of outdoor programs for veterans who experience post-traumatic stress has grown. Yet, there is little understanding about the diverse social, therapeutic, geographic, and activity dimensions of these programs on public lands, or how they are coordinated within and across agencies.
The 2020 Resources Planning Act Assessment looks at historical data and projects the availability and condition of renewable resources across the nation’s forests and rangelands 50 years into the future. This bulletin presents a sampling of findings relevant to disturbance, forests and rangelands, and water, both across the nation and specifically within the RPA Rocky Mountain Region.
Wildfire size and severity have increased in recent decades prompting scientists to take a closer look at where fire refugia––forested locations that are burned less frequently or severely than their surroundings––occur on a given landscape. Recently published research to identify potential refugia across upland conifer forests sheds light on the factors that influence where tree survival and recruitment are likely.
A greater familiarity with the physics of fire behavior translates to not only a better-prepared fire management workforce but also improved fire behavior prediction models. Both are critical for developing proactive approaches to managing wildfires and using fire itself as a stewardship tool.
Bees are declining in the United States and with them the pollination services on which people and wildlife depend. Among the threats to these pollinators are pesticides, disease, climate change, and habitat loss. Several national forests have begun to include habitat restoration for bees in their forest plans.
New tools to measure of the recovery potential of riparian ecosystems allow managers to both predict likely responses to disturbance and determine effective management actions.
Mammals, including humans, have evolved in concert with the world of microbes. From birth to childhood and throughout adult life, the human immune system is shaped by exposure to microbes.
A new, game-changing approach to spotted owl monitoring is less invasive to the owls than the call-back surveys and mark-and-recapture methods of yore, and holds promise for learning about many more species.
Scientists are seeing an increase in cases where forest resilience is pushed beyond a breaking point.
A new approach for estimating rangeland carbon stocks helps managers plan climate change mitigation strategies
Across the western United States, pinyon and juniper woodlands are undergoing significant changes that are of concern to land managers and the communities who depend on them.
In the Southwest, scientists and managers are working together to find ways to reduce the risk of future megafires while also maintaining critical nesting habitat for Mexican spotted owls.
Using the appropriate modeling tools can save managers time and effort and help them design restoration efforts that are best suited for a given area.
Using the appropriate modeling tools can save managers time and effort and help them design restoration efforts that are best suited for a given area.
After a more than a century of fighting to keep fire out of forests, reintroducing it is now an important management goal. Yet changes over the past century have left prescribed burning with a big job to do.
Beavers have become a source of inspiration for land managers over the past decade as their dams can help control flooding, raise groundwater levels, and improve surface water flows. Land managers are now designing stream restoration projects that mimic the way beaver dams shape river ecosystems.
Research partnerships with the US Forest Service are yielding advances in species threat assessments. An index based on rarity and sensitivity to climate change is designed to rapidly assess the vulnerability of amphibians, fish, and reptiles native to Oregon. Landscape genetics has helped assess dispersal of torrent salamanders, highlighting conservation needs that span the species’ life cycle.
The Humboldt marten is a weasel-like carnivore not much bigger than a kitten. This rare subspecies of the Pacific marten, which was once thought to be extinct, persists in a narrow strip of coastal Oregon forests. Forest service scientists are trying to better understand the Humboldt marten before it’s too late.
Recreation and wildlife managers asked Forest Service scientists to help them understand the impacts of motorized and nonmotorized recreation on elk. The unique setting of a large, fenced area within the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range in eastern Oregon, allowed scientists to collect real-time data and establish a cause-effect relationship between human activities and elk responses.
Blog Posts
Environmental social science is the study of how people and ecosystems shape each other. Often seen as useful but rarely as essential, it has long played a supporting role in ecosystem recovery. A new introduction to a special issue of Coastal Management, argues that this position is no longer appropriate, in Puget Sound or anywhere else.
For the past three springs, Shilshole Bay Marina has been contending with droves of California visitors occupying their guest boater moorages––California sea lions that is. Peak numbers at their traditional haulout coincided with herring spawning in March. By mid-May nearly 120 animals had hauled themselves onto five “finger” docks that are open to the public.
Features
UW researcher David Montgomery traveled around the United States and abroad to see how large and small farmers and scientists are restoring soil fertility - and doing it much faster than he thought possible. His research bodes well for the future of food and agriculture.
As David Huggins looks out across the rolling hills of the R.J. Cook Agronomy Farm at Washington State University in Pullman, his enthusiasm about soil is tempered with a sense of urgency about the future of agriculture.
Paul Stamets has had a life-long love affair with mushrooms, one that goes well beyond their culinary and psychedelic qualities.
PULLMAN, Wash. - A comprehensive study finds organic agriculture is more profitable for farmers than conventional agriculture. In spite of lower yields, the global study shows that the profit margins for organic agriculture were significantly greater than for conventional agriculture.
Design
Salish Sea Currents Magazine articles
Pugetsound Institute Science Communication webpage
Finding Common Ground: Collaborative Leadership in Washington State
Report title: The role of estuaries in the ecology of juvenile Pacific salmon and trout in Puget Sound
Report title: Puget Sound Marine Waters 2023 Overview
Title: Circulation in Puget Sound | Design: Sylvia Kantor; Artwork: Emily Eng
Title: Low dissolved oxygen in Puget Sound | Design: Sylvia Kantor; Map: Emily Eng