Writing on wildlife, technology, and nature
Holmes Rolston, III, was my mentor for over thirty years. I met him when I moved from England to Colorado for a master’s degree in 1990. A renowned environmental philosopher, Rolston died in early 2025. I made the four-thousand-mile journey for two reasons. First, there was Rolston, the so-called “father of environmental ethics.” He put …
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Science is still doing great things! A few weeks ago, I was thrilled to join Justin Angle and Amy Martin, of the Peabody award-winning podcast Threshold, for a live recording of A New Angle. The event, sponsored by Climate Smart Missoula, was part of Climate Solutions Week. Amy and I talked about some of the …
A remarkable life is over. Blean Woods’ matriarch, the first Bison bonasus brought to the UK to live semi-wild outside of a zoo, died in November aged twenty-one. Her tenure served its purpose well. The matriarch provided three years of sound leadership and stability for the animals that followed. Photo Credit: Hannah Mackins The bison …
An essential principle of wildlife recovery is that animals must be free to move across the landscape. The ability to roam is necessary to search out unoccupied territory, to track down resources in a changing climate, and to secure an influx of fresh genes when breeding. My piece in the Fall issue of Sierra Magazine …
Last summer, I visited America's first commercial carbon capture plant in Tracy, California. Heirloom Carbon use ground up limestone to capture 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. It's a trial run for a plant planned for Louisiana that could ultimately capture 300,000 tons each year when fully developed. The strangest thing about a technology …
Last March, a friend in the Netherlands told me about a researcher nearby who had discovered that cows don’t reply to each other’s ‘moos’ right away. It can take a minute or two for them to respond. They are paying plenty of attention, but their linguistic rhythm is different from ours. This got me intrigued …
Christopher J. Preston 