From early September through late November of each year, members of the Greenville County Bird Club participate in a count of migrating hawks at Caesars Head State Park. The Hawk Watch is normally manned by volunteers who call themselves “Wing Nuts.”
More than 10,000 acres of prime, mountain habitat are protected by a complex of state parks and wildlife management areas known as the Mountain Bridge Wilderness in extreme northern Greenville County, South Carolina. One of the state parks is Caesars Head. Rising 3,266 feet above the Carolina Piedmont, the Caesars Head overlook provides the most dramatic mountain view in South Carolina. Caesars Head is virtually the only place in the South Carolina mountains with the natural characteristics needed to attract thousands of migrating raptors.
These birds are on their way to Central and South America for the winter and are catching the thermals and lining up before heading out. Its not unusual to see 200 to 300 hawks at one time and the highest single day count was over 5,200 birds! You’re likely to see broad-winged hawks, Bald Eagle, Osprey, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, Merlin, American Kestrel, Mississippi Kite, Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture.
For more information about the Caesars Head Hawk Watch program, please contact Tim Lee, Park Interpreter, at (864) 836-6115 or by e-mail at [email protected].
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released its plan for the future of the red wolf recovery program in North Carolina. Rather than confront the real challenges facing the effort to recover the world’s most endangered wolf species, FWS instead presented a roadmap for a disastrous retreat, announcing that it was going to try to save red wolves by pulling them out of the wild and forcing them into captivity.
The agency made a vague promise to look for new areas where red wolves could be released and work with stakeholders on future recovery efforts. However, FWS is paying lip service to wolf recovery if all it’s really going to do is relegate red wolves to spending the rest of their lives in zoos.
It’s been two years since FWS has actively managed red wolf recovery in North Carolina, but it is still stunning to see it all but abandon the program. The announcement was especially tone-deaf in light of the overwhelming public support for recovering red wolves in North Carolina, as a recent poll showed that over 80 percent of North Carolinians say the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should do everything it can to recover the red wolf and prevent its extinction.
Only about 45 wild red wolves remain in the recovery area. If FWS has its way, most of these wolves will be rounded up and put into captivity, leaving barely enough space for two remaining packs to survive in the wild on one single refuge and a bombing range.
The White House Arctic Science Ministerial comes at a pivotal time for the region. While glacial ice hits record lows, the Arctic is more exposed than ever to the ravages of climate change. That’s because the receding ice has oil producers pushing harder than ever for permission to drill in the ecologically sensitive area.
The Arctic is often seen as ground zero for climate change. Disappearing glaciers, sea-level rise, melting permafrost, rapidly changing habitats: These are all climate change-related impacts being felt right now in the region. According to a recent report from the Center for American Progress, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the globe.
But complicating the fight to save the Arctic is that the region houses a massive, largely untapped reservoir of oil. The irony here is that as the ice recedes, it is easier to drill in the Arctic. More drilling, in turn, leads to more fossil fuel use, which drives climate change.
The planet could pass the critical 1.5°C global temperature threshold in a decade—and is already two-thirds of the way to hit that warming limit, climate scientists warned at a conference this week.
Scientists said global greenhouse gas emissions are not likely to slow down quickly enough to avoid passing the 1.5°C target. The goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C was agreed to in the landmark Paris agreement negotiated by 195 nations last year.
But the planet is continuing to experience unprecedented heat month after month, setting 2016 on track to be the hottest year ever recorded. In fact, the scientists said, Earth is currently on a trajectory to hit at least 2.7°C in global temperature rise.
A plant and soil scientist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, said mass lifestyle change must be undertaken to combat rising temperatures, such as developing more sustainable diets, reducing food waste and red meat intake, and importing fewer greenhouse gas-heavy vegetables.
“There are lots of behavioral changes required, not just by the government … but by us,” he said. He also warned that controversial geoengineering techniques such as sunlight blocking could become the norm in some countries.
In this the year of the centennial of the National Park Service, a coalition has emerged with a vision for the future of our national parks and other public lands, a vision of greater diversity and inclusiveness. The “Next 100 Coalition” is comprised of more than 30 civil rights, environmental justice, and conservation organizations.
The coalition’s vision statement calls for an approach to our national public lands that reflects the ethnic and demographic diversity of the nation, including greater use of national parks by people of color, and more people of color in the work force of the Park Service and other federal land management agencies.
The coalition also calls for more attention to ethnic diversity in telling the stories about our parks and national monuments, and in adding new ones. As the vision statement says, “Protecting cultural and natural landscapes that tell America’s complex history will help us learn from our past, honor our ancestors and educate future generations.”
America’s complex history includes a great many stories about how places that are now national parks used to be inhabited by indigenous tribal nations. There are also many stories about how it came to be that now, when we do talk about such habitation, we use the past tense.
In the film “Erin Brockovich,” the environmental crusader confronts the lawyer of a power company that polluted the tap water of Hinkley, Calif., with a carcinogenic chemical called chromium-6. When the lawyer picks up a glass of water, Brockovich says: “We had that water brought in ‘specially for you folks. Came from a well in Hinkley.”
The lawyer sets down the glass and says, “I think this meeting’s over.”
But almost 25 years after that real-life confrontation,[1] the conflict over chromium-6 is not over. A new EWG analysis of federal data from nationwide drinking water tests shows that the compound contaminates water supplies for more than 200 million Americans in all 50 states. Yet federal regulations are stalled by a chemical industry challenge that could mean no national regulation of a chemical state scientists in California and elsewhere say causes cancer when ingested at even extraordinarily low levels.
The standoff is the latest round in a tug-of-war between scientists and advocates who want regulations based strictly on the chemical’s health hazards and industry, political and economic interests who want more relaxed rules based on the cost and feasibility of cleanup. If the industry challenge prevails, it will also extend the Environmental Protection Agency’s record, since the 1996 landmark amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, of failing to use its authority to set a national tap water safety standard for any previously unregulated chemical.
Poll after poll finds Hispanics and Latinos are more likely to acknowledge the climate is changing, worry about the threat, and support policy to slow the rise in temperature — even though they are less likely to identify as environmentalists. Why?
One possibility is that Latinos tend to lean left and vote Democrat. But even among Democrats, people of color are more likely to believe climate change should be a top priority for policymakers.
Among Americans of color, Hispanics and Latinos stand out: Several polls find they are more likely to support pro-climate policy than African Americans, even though they are less likely to identify as liberal or Democrat.
There a few guesses as to why this is the case. Foreign-born Latinos may care more because they have strong ties to countries that are threatened by climate change. Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico are acutely vulnerable to heat, drought, and coastal flooding. Severe heat is worsening pollution in Mexico City, making the air almost unbreathable.
Another variable is age. “With a median age of 27 years, Hispanics are significantly younger than whites (42), blacks (33) and the nation as a whole (37). Overall, younger Americans are more likely than older Americans to say the Earth is warming because of human activity.”
Canadian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna pledged to enact a nationwide carbon price on provinces that don’t do enough to curb greenhouse gas emissions on their own.
McKenna said that each province would be allowed to create their own pricing scheme — whether a tax like British Columbia, or a cap-and-trade system like Quebec — and would only be subject to the national scheme if they are not achieving sufficient reductions. Four provinces in Canada — British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and, Quebec — currently have some kind of carbon pricing scheme, and approximately 80 percent of Canadians live in an area where there is a price on carbon.
British Columbia’s carbon tax, which was implemented in 2008, has been successful in reducing emissions while having a “negligible” effect on the province’s economic activity. Moreover, the tax has become popular among residents and businesses — polling last year found that only 32 percent of voters oppose the tax, and businesses have actually called for the tax to be increased.
In Washington state, residents will have a chance to vote for their own version of a carbon tax this November, inspired by the success seen in British Columbia. And nationwide, a new poll shows that Americans might be willing to pay a carbon tax in order to reduce global warming.
The Cradle of Forestry in America invites nature enthusiasts of all ages and knowledge levels to the first Pink Beds Bioblitz. Join naturalists and scientists Friday, September 23, 2016 from 6:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. and Saturday, September 24 from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. to discover the diversity of life in this special part of Pisgah National Forest. This free fun event in honor of National Public Lands Day meets in the Pink Beds Picnic area.
Bring your curiosity and observation skills to the Bioblitz. Binoculars, a magnifying glass, a notepad, and field guides will help you add to the knowledge of plants and animals along the Pink Beds Trail. You can observe and discover on your own or join a guided discovery walk.
Nighttime offers mist netting for bats and searching for moths and nocturnal insects. Saturday birding begins at 8:00 a.m., an “all species” walk begins at 9:00 a.m., and at 2:00 p.m. join an ecology walk. This is a full day of exploring and learning about the natural world from experts while adding to the knowledge of biodiversity in the Pink Beds area.
Mushroom, reptile, and amphibian hunts and fish shocking are just a few of the many activities offered from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday. Stations offering help with species identification and with how to safely and respectfully look for wildlife are among the educational booths. Check www.pinkbedsbioblitz.wordpress.com for a complete schedule of walks and activities.
The Pink Beds Bioblitz will use a citizen science tool called iNaturalist to aid in identification and data collection. You can download this app at home on a smartphone and join the “Pink Beds Bioblitz” project. If you choose to use this tool you can photograph a plant or animal with your GPS turned on and load your observation into the project. Help with this app will be available both Friday evening and Saturday.
Registration for the Pink Beds Bioblitz is not required. Please wear closed-toe shoes and pants for extra protection and prepare for the weather. Bring along water and lunch. Parking is available in the Pink Beds parking lot, or participants can park at the Cradle of Forestry interpretive center and walk to the picnic area. The Cradle is open daily from 9:00 to 5:00 and offers restrooms, a gift shop, exhibits and trails to enjoy.
The Pink Beds Picnic Area is located on U.S. Highway 276 in the Pisgah National Forest along the Forest Heritage National Scenic Byway, on the right just north of the Cradle of Forestry entrance, about six miles north of Looking Glass Falls and four miles south of the Blue Ridge Parkway milepost 412. For more information, call the Cradle of Forestry at 828-877-3130 or online at www.cradleofforestry.com.
Volunteers cleaning up the Columbia River Waterfront Renaissance Trail filled 53 garbage bags in three hours and hauled away a tire, a motorcycle jacket and a Buddha statue.
About a dozen volunteers in rain jackets scoured the stretch of trail from Who Song and Larry’s restaurant to the condominium complex to the east, picking up beer cans, soda bottles, fishing line and various other trash littering the waterfront. They also cleaned up tarps and tents in abandoned camps and removed eight hypodermic needles, said Joe Morse, Centennial Volunteer Ambassador at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
“We still got a lot done, especially considering we didn’t have a ton of people and it was wet outside,” said Morse, who organized the cleanup. “The turnout was amazing considering the massive amount of rain we got.”
The cleanup event was a collaboration between the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site and SOLVE Oregon, a statewide nonprofit that organizes more than 1,000 cleanup and restoration projects throughout the state. The organization also partners with local organizations throughout Southwest Washington. Vancouver Police Department was also involved in the effort, providing a sweep of the area to ensure it was safe for volunteers.
Remove the hassle of finding, booking and paying a professional cleaner.
“The heat made people crazy. They woke from their damp bed sheets and went in search of a glass of water, surprised to find that when their vision cleared, they were holding instead the gun they kept hidden in the bookcase.”
This passage, from Summer Island, a romance novel by Kristin Hannah, is how researchers introduce a potentially important new study they believe could alter peoples’ attitudes about the impact of unrelenting heat on violence, and why some parts of the world experience strikingly higher rates of violence than others.
It’s not what people think. The new research goes beyond existing ideas about how hot summer nights cause tempers to flare and prompt sporadic acts of violence. Their model explores long-term cultural changes resulting from persistently high temperatures and a lack of seasonal variability, among them a loss of self-control and future-oriented goals. This combination can lead to more aggression and violence, they say.
“People think about weather when they think about global warming, but don’t realize that climate change can increase aggression and violence,” says Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University and one of the study’s authors. “But climate change affects how we relate to other people.’’ Moreover, he predicts that unmitigated global warming could increase violence levels in the United States, something he believes deserves immediate attention.
How will you celebrate National Public Lands Day on Sept. 24? You can hug a tree, clean up a trail or share a spectacular moment in nature with family and friends — all without paying to enter national parklands.
The idea for the one-day event started 23 years ago when the National Environmental Education Foundation challenged Americans to come out and volunteer on its public lands. Federal parklands will be organizing cleanups, trail repairs and other volunteer activities.
Meanwhile visitors can skip the $20 to $30 entrance fee at the fee based national parks. (There are more than 400 units overseen by the National Park Service but only 124 charge fees.)
In addition, the U.S. Forest Service also observes National Public Lands Day with fee-free entry. You won’t have to buy or display an Adventure Pass at the national forests that charge fees.
Federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management also are waiving fees on Sept. 24.
One word of caution: The fee-free entry applies only to entrance fees to federal parklands. State Parks, for example, aren’t participating in Public Lands Day and will be charging entrance fees. This also will not cover backcountry camping permits and other fee-based activities.
The history and culture held in the mountains and hollows is intriguing. You might want to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park this weekend for the annual Mountain Life Festival.
A fixture at the park’s Mountain Farm Museum for more than three decades, the festival brings you face-to-face with the traditional fall activities of those who lived in the Smokies before the park was established. Making apple butter. Blacksmithing. Mountain music. Chair caning. All that and more will be on display on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2016 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Other demonstrations will include cooking over an open hearth, how to make lye soap, and food preservation techniques. The centerpiece of the event is the sorghum syrup demonstration, which the national park has provided each fall for over 30 years, a park release says. “The syrup is made much the same way it was produced a hundred or more years ago, using a horse or mule-powered cane mill and a wood-fired cooker.”
And, park officials say, the festival coincides with the park’s music jam sessions held on the porch of the Oconaluftee Visitor Center from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. every first and third Saturday of the month.
The Mountain Farm Museum is located adjacent to Oconaluftee Visitor Center on Newfound Gap Road in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, two miles north of Cherokee, NC. For more information call the visitor center at (828) 497-1904.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell approved the first phase of a sweeping renewable energy and conservation plan for California’s deserts Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016 that’s expected to shape large-scale wind and solar development for decades to come.
“Climate change is the pressing issue of the day, and this region is part of the solution,” Jewell said during a signing ceremony for the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan at the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto Mountains National Monument visitor center in Palm Desert.
The plan covers 10 million acres of public lands in the deserts of seven California counties, including Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles. In the works for eight years, it strives to speed up approvals for solar, wind and geothermal projects while focusing energy development in areas where such projects would do the least amount of harm to wildlife habitat and other natural and cultural resources.
The plan gives new protection to some of the most sensitive and pristine wildlife habitats left in the nation.
Habitats include the Silurian Valley in San Bernardino County; Amargosa River Basin and Panamint Valley on each side of Death Valley National Park; and the Chuckwalla Bench, south of Interstate 10 in Riverside County.
The conservation plan also is expected to help California and the nation meet carbon-free goals set to combat climate charge.
Researchers at the University of Illinois look at how nature restores social cues and makes people less irritable, improving how they relate to each other and establish important rituals.
When families spend time together outside, not only do they improve their individual attention and focus, but they also improve family relations, getting along better with each other. This intriguing concept has been investigated by researchers who recently published a study. The researchers’ theory is described by study co-author and doctoral candidate Dina Izenstark:
“When your attention is restored, you’re able to pick up on social cues more easily, you feel less irritable, and you have more self-control… We theorize that when your attention is restored, it transfers to your family relationships and allows you to get along better with your family members.”
Already there exists plenty of research to show that being out in nature benefits individuals, even for a short period of time, but there is relatively little research to show how these benefits affect other people in a group. Izenstark and her co-author Adam Ebata are interested in this outcome, particularly because children are almost always accompanied by family members when outdoors.
More than 5,500 miles of paved roads wind through the national park system. You probably haven’t given much thought to any of them, but Timothy Davis has. A Park Service historian, Davis has written “National Park Roads,” a fascinating and lavishly illustrated book about those paved ways.
They may well be the most important development in the history of the National Park Service, which turns 100 this year. Consider that in the early 20th century, the parks were remote and hard to reach. The automobile changed that, so much so that the National Park road trip became an important part of American childhood. The Park Service recorded 326,506 visitors in 1916, the year of its founding, and more than 292 million visitors in 2014.
The roads, of course, have always had their opponents. Edward Abbey, a park ranger and environmental advocate, hated them. “Let the people walk,” he exclaimed in his book “Desert Solitaire.” Critics complained about the hoards — their trash, their noise, their efforts to turn the wilderness into Disney World.
Davis takes a more accommodating view. “By allowing people to enjoy parks with reasonable ease,” he writes, “the combination of improved roads and widespread automobile ownership transformed the national park experience from an esoteric pleasure into a prominent component of the American experience, creating a powerful constituency for their protection.”
Yosemite National Park added Ackerson Meadow, 400 acres of critical wetlands and meadow habitat on the park’s western boundary through a donation. The landmark addition was donated to the park through a cooperative effort between The Trust for Public Land, Yosemite Conservancy, and the National Park Service.
The Trust for Public Land purchased Ackerson Meadow from private owners for $2.3 million earlier this year and donated it to the National Park Service to be part of Yosemite National Park. Funds to buy the property came from several major contributors to The Trust for Public Land, including a bequest of $1.53 million and $520,000 by the nonprofit Yosemite Conservancy, with additional support from National Park Trust and American Rivers.
“The generous donation of Ackerson Meadow will preserve critical meadow habitat that is home to a number of state and federally listed protected species,” said Yosemite National Park Superintendent Don Neubacher. “It’s a stunning open meadow surrounded by forest habitat, which supports a wide variety of flora and fauna species and offers new meadow experiences for park visitors. This meadow is a remarkable gift to the American people, coming at a historic time as we celebrate the Centennial of the National Park Service.”
“Donating the largest addition since 1949 to one of the world’s most famous parks is a great way to celebrate the 100th birthday of our National Park Service – and honor John Muir’s original vision for the park. We are delighted, and proud to make this gift to Yosemite, and the people of America” said Will Rogers, President of The Trust for Public Land.
Yosemite’s meadows are vitally important habitats and Ackerson Meadow provides critical habitat for hundreds of plant and animal species. At just 3 percent of Yosemite National Park’s area, meadows may be home to one-third of all of the plant species found in the park. Most of San Francisco’s water is filtered by Yosemite’s meadows, including Ackerson Meadow.
Every fall, on the first weekend in October, Wild South hosts training for a new group of volunteers interested in joining the Volunteer Wilderness Ranger team.
The USDA Forest Service in Alabama manages three federally designated wilderness areas, Sipsey, Cheaha, and Dugger Mountain, totaling 42,218 acres. For the past several years, Forest Service budgets have afforded very little staff time for agency presence in these areas. Meanwhile, visitor use has skyrocketed, especially in Cheaha and Sipsey, turning these federally designated wild places into crowded recreation areas rather than wilderness areas during certain times of the year.
For this reason, in 2011, Wild South entered into a partnership with the Forest Service and established a corps of trained and dedicated volunteer wilderness rangers for all three of Alabama’s wilderness areas. These volunteers provide all the services of a Forest Service wilderness ranger except for law enforcement.
Volunteer wilderness rangers are trained in wilderness law, local wilderness regulations, the wilderness ethic, Leave No Trace, CPR and First Aid, the Authority of the Resource, radio and GPS use, as well as crosscut saw and traditional tool training. All volunteer activities support USFS management goals and are covered under the USDA Volunteers in National Forests (VIF) program.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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