Photo Credit: Hannah Mackins 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. The bison …
The Life and Legacy of an LA Lion
The only mountain lion living wild in Hollywood was hit by a car last week and euthanized. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife put P-22 to sleep after determining his age and poor condition gave him little chance of recovery. P-22 had been a much-loved resident of one of the world’s most exclusive zip …
A Transatlantic Wild
The news caught my eye. The European Bison, or 'wisent,' will be reintroduced to Southern England. The Wilder Blean Project plans to use a small herd of bison to regenerate a former pine plantation. They will be the first bison to browse an English forest in six thousand years. Together with some wild ponies and …
Salmon in the Mountains
I knew my chances were slim. Only a handful of salmon make it into the Idaho mountains this close to the Montana border. The fact any do at all is remarkable. I was standing six hundred and twenty-four river miles from the Pacific, upstream from eight major dams, three and a half thousand feet above …
How to Keep Returning Wildlife Wild
For the latest post on the Plastocene, I'm linking to a piece I published yesterday in The Atlantic on the complicated question of how to keep wildlife wild on a crowded planet. We go to restoration sites in Italy and the UK, before bringing the lessons back to Montana. Saving nature clearly ain't what it used to …
Walking a Cod Across a Mountain
I can’t get out of my mind the image of two men in wool sweaters, each with a giant cod slung over their shoulder, walking across a snowy Norwegian mountainside in a late winter storm. The image was placed there by my friend Erik’s kindly mother. She had just served lunch to us in her …
Christopher J. Preston 