Writing on wildlife, technology, and nature
“So, what's your dream, Robert? How do you imagine things five, ten, or twenty years from now?” I was standing on a beach moistened by the steel grey waters of Washington's Puget Sound. Next to me was Robert Elofson of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Elofson is a long-time employee of the Tribe’s Natural Resource …
Continue reading "A Fish, A People, and A Tale of Resilience"
The wildlife recoveries I tracked in Tenacious Beasts offer lessons from conservation success stories. Some species need only one thing from us: STOP KILLING THEM! This is true of whales, beavers, wolves, and many others. Once we stop killing them, the species returns rapidly. Other species require considerable intervention to help them return. California condors, …
Continue reading "How Much Should We Interfere in the Lives of Wild Animals?"
Penn Cove is a tranquil scoop of ocean situated on the eastern flank of Washington’s Whidbey Island. Douglas fir and Sitka spruce ring the cove giving its shores the signature, emerald hue of the Pacific Northwest. The town of Coupeville presides over the southern edge of the three-mile bight. The restaurants and shops on one …
Continue reading "Remembering Tokitae: What Killer Whales Can Teach"
The wolf is a lightning rod in discussions about wildlife recovery. Theodore Roosevelt called them "beasts of waste and desolation." If you can have a conversation about the wolf and not raise any tempers, you are doing well. When I had to pick the animal that would open my new book, Tenacious Beasts, I swallowed …
Jonathan McCrea interviewed me for Newstalk in Ireland about my new book, Tenacious Beasts. This 15 minutes of listening gives you a sense of what I was trying to achieve. I found out today the book is going into a second printing already. People like to hear about wildlife successes, it seems! Enjoy Jonathan's FutureProof …
One of the most exciting recoveries I studied in Tenacious Beasts was the recovery of whales. Humpback and sperm whales are back. Humpbacks in the North Pacific have rocketed from 1,200 in the 1960s to 26,000 today. Sperm whales have recovered enough to become a serious headache for longline fishermen. The recovery gives reason for …
Continue reading "How a Resurgence of Whales Can Change the Ocean"
Christopher J. Preston 