A predator’s physical senses determine the manner in which it hunts. Wild canids, for instance, favor their sense of smell – you can see this as they trot along the hedgerows,…
Features
Biocontrol: It’s Bug Versus Bug in the Fight Against Invasive Species
The mixed hardwood forest on the edge of the town of Dalton in western Massachusetts looks healthy to the untrained eye, but the researchers from the University of Massachusetts who visited…
Snakes on an Island
On an early spring evening in March 2017, a large crowd packed a public meeting in Ware, Massachusetts, to discuss a controversial proposal to establish a rattlesnake colony at the nearby…
The Maple Syrup Model: Conserving Small Woodlots with Acorn-Finished Pork
In the summer of 2013, as part of her graduate work at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Jennifer Milikowsky was talking with small-scale landowners in northeastern…
Easy Wood
If you have much to do with firewood, and if you have retained your amateur standing, you will eventually become acquainted with a certain principle – a bitter, rue-laden principle that…
Song of the Balsam Fir
Kakabeka, northwestern Ontario 48°23’45.7” N, 89°37’17.2” W I stand on a stony bluff overlooking a valley filled with the textures and hues of northern forests:…
Saving New England’s Rare Plants
Carla Fenner strode along the railroad tracks outside Burlington, Vermont, on an August afternoon, wearing an orange surveyor’s vest and carrying a large volume entitled New Flora of…
The Gordian Knot: Feral Cats and Wildlife
I’ve assessed spotted owl feuds and wolf re-introductions,” said Dr. William Lynn, an environmental ethics professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.…
Silent Sparks
As daylight drains from the summer sky, a cool breeze rustles through a hay-scented New England meadow. Relaxing in the long grass, even the keenest observer might miss the miniature army…
Mushroom and Metaphor
July 1989: A stranger with a colander full of fragrant mushrooms changed my life. Reinhardt, a German scientist with wild hair, in khaki shorts, rushed into our dooryard, displayed his heap of…