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"
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"
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"
One of the delights of my recent research has been to discover animals that can help us fight the climate change battle. Sea otters, now recovering on the Pacific Coast of North America, are one of them. Their contribution to the maintenance of kelp forests is good for the climate and good for a productive …
It’s the habitat, stupid! Such a well-worn phrase – or something close to it – could serve as a tag line for the alarming report on biodiversity loss released in summary form this week by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The report doesn’t mince words about the fact that human impacts …
Continue reading "Biodiversity Loss and (What is Not) Rocket Science"
This post was printed in The Conversation US last week. In the context of recent efforts to start cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it asks questions about the prospects for genuine plastics recycling. "The ocean is better off without it, of course, but the plastic problem has many more layers than it first …
Continue reading "Plastics: A Problem Reaching Beyond the Space and Time Horizon"
Christopher J. Preston 