2 Million Acres & More...

Yesterday, the US House and Senate approved a conservation plan protecting over 2 million acres of wilderness throughout the country. The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act now heads to the President's desk for his signature. Read more here.

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears! Oh My!

I think Dorothy was wrong about the bears. Apparently, they've got better hobbies than terrorizing young girls from Kansas, or even hikers like us:

Keep your Eyes Peeled!

When I was growing up in northern New Jersey, my parents always told me to do just that. Whether hiking, canoeing, or driving down the highway, "keeping your eyes peeled" was a must in the Leonard family, and we were quite good at it. After all, New Jersey - despite its fair share of loading docks, oil refineries, bagel shops, pizza places, turnpikes, and jughandles- is full of wildlife: white-tailed deer, turkeys, black bears, hawks, woodchucks (yes, woodchucks!), raccoons, skunks, opossums, and more. Though I never understood where this expression came from, I did, thanks to years of disciplined training, develop a keen eye for spotting nature's critters throughout the Garden State's forests, wetlands, and roadways.

Still, I couldn't help but feel that the East was missing something, that it was inferior, and paled in comparison to the grand, rugged wilderness of the West. Besides, how many deer and raccoons can you see before you've seen them all? Out there, the mountains were taller, the rivers deeper, the trees bigger, and there were canyons and cliffs, peaks and prairies, and deserts and glaciers. Not to mention the animals: elk and antelope, mountain goats and bighorn sheep, grizzly bears and buffalo, and mountain lions and wolves! To a ten-year old from New Jersey, it didn't seem fair; the West was better! That was where the "wild things" were. But who could blame them: why would any animal vying for a cover photo in National Geographic choose to live out here in the suburbs when it could make its home in the pristine, picturesque wilderness of the American West? It was simple: impressive wildlife demanded impressive wilderness - end of story.

As a ten-year old, however, I had it wrong. Animals don't simply choose a home, as people might, by sizing up an area's aesthetic appeal, though, generally speaking it is true that many of the most beautiful places in the world provide superb habitat for a great diversity of wildlife. What matters, especially for raptors, is not the beauty of the place, but rather what's on the menu - and how much there is to go around. Yet we often fail to recognize this, dismissing the possibility of seeing anything extraordinary in comfortable, predictable suburbia.

I recently was reminded of this as I focused my gaze on a snow-dusted field, momentarily ignoring a hulking Giants Stadium in the distance, and the rumbling trucks bouncing along the New Jersey Turnpike just a stone's throw away. The Empire State Building, just seven miles to the east, pierced an overcast sky, and the tall reeds which have revegetated the dozens of still visible landfills in the area swayed gracefully in the wind. And there in the field, atop a heap of scrap metal and concrete, was a rare snowy owl. Her mate was just across the road.


A snowy owl in New Jersey? They don't belong here, especially not in an old industrial park adjacent to one of the nation's most despised roadways. Not here in "the armpit of America," only a few hundred yards from the purported tomb of Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. They belong in the Arctic, in the Tundra, beyond the sight or reach of people, in the uncorrupted wilderness, insisted the ten-year old boy in me. Don't they?

I guess it's not so simple after all.

These two owls, along with many more, had left their traditional Arctic hunting grounds due to rising population pressure and competition for food. Somehow they ended up in the urban jungle of New Jersey's Meadowlands. I never expected to see one in my lifetime, let alone against the backdrop of the New York City skyline and New Jersey traffic. But alas, there she was, and she certainly didn't come for the scenery. Unsightly as they may be, those revegetated landfills support a healthy population of critters for the owls - not to mention an impressive legion of bald eagles, ospreys, peregrine falcons, and northern harrier hawks - to dine on. Not a bad group. Still, to most people, the Meadowlands is just another exit off the New Jersey Turnpike: nothing to see there!

If only they knew.

And just a few days ago while walking through New York City's crowded Central Park, a red-tailed hawk narrowly missed having a squirrel for lunch. Here, too, in the most populated city in the country - "the city that never sleeps" - hawks and owls have made their homes, capitalizing on the easy prey that has emerged side-by-side with people. As he perched on a tree, just six feet off the ground and inches from the sidewalk, dozens of people walked by oblivious to his presence, just as dozens of cars had driven past the snowy owls, unaware of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them in the wild.

Who knows what other surprises surround us, in places we haven't looked before? Not only hawks and owls, I think. Rumor has it that mountain lions have been seen in eastern Pennsylvania and northern New Jersey.

I'll have to keep my eyes peeled.
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For a neat site about the wildlife in New Jersey's Meadowlands, including the snowy owls, check out The Meadowlands Blog.

For some surprising pics of Central Park's other inhabitants, see Urban Hawks.

And for a wildlife drama about them, check out Marie Winn's Red-Tails in Love.

Wilderness Volunteers in Portland Oregonian

Great article about Wilderness Volunteers written by a reporter who was a participant on the 2008 Mission Mountains Wilderness project.

Hotnewz.tv

And the Winners Are....

Thanks to everyone who participated in Wilderness Volunteers' inaugural Seven Words of Wisdom Contest and 1st Annual Photo Contest! We received over forty entries between the two contests and had our hands full selecting the winners from the creative, humorous, and impressive submissions. Alas, after much deliberation, here they are...

The winner of the inaugural Seven Words of Wisdom Contest and a limited-edition WV stainless-steel carabiner mug is:

"New Friends. Help their Mother. Wilderness Volunteers."

- Cap'n Greg

And the top three finishers in WV's 1st Annual Photo Contest are:

1st Place: Brian Bone

"Wilderness Volunteers Parade Entry #1: Log."
-Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness Gen XY Trip, CO 2007

2nd Place: Amanda James

"Amanda said she was going to take it easy on our day off!" - WV on the Way-Up
- Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail, Glacier National Park Trip, MT 2008

3rd Place: Brian Miller

"Oh-Be-Joyful!"
- White River National Forest, Raggeds Wilderness Trip, CO 2008

Congratulations to these wordsmiths and photographers and, above all, volunteers! 1st place wins a 27 oz. stainless steel WV Klean Kanteen, 2nd place a WV cap, and 3rd place a WV bandanna. Please send your mailing address to Mike Leonard at mrleonard89@gmail.com.

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

(To view all entries, click here: Seven Words of Wisdom Contest and 1st Annual Photo Contest.)

Off the Wall

Winter is getting old in Flagstaff:

I'm ready for spring. While I'm waiting, keeping warm, I've been catching up on my reading. Off the Wall: Death in Yosemite is subtitled, "Gripping accounts of all known fatal mishaps in America's first protected land of scenic wonders." Written by Michael Ghiglieri and Butch Farabee, it's a cautionary, sobering read. It starts off with deaths in waterfalls (almost fifty people have been swept to their death), which sent shivers down my spine because I just did a trip in Yosemite last June.

We were camped near a huge waterfall of raging, thunderous water where one false move could have ended tragically. Not having read this book yet, I was mercifully less aware how easily one of us could have slipped on the smooth (and often wet), slippery granite that makes up the backcountry of Yosemite.

Besides waterfalls, the book describes deaths due to snow, downed aircraft, falls while hiking and scrambling, vehicular mishaps, climbing (fewer died in climbing than in hiking and scrambling accidents), drowning, flora and fauna (stay away from horses)(and no, no one has been killed by a bear in Yosemite, ever), freak accidents and getting lost. In all, from 1851 through 2006, there were 765 traumatic deaths in the Park. This includes 29 park builders (O'Shaunessy dam was big here).

Reading about all these mishaps, many of them in great detail, reminds me how tenuous our hold is on life -- there are many ways to die; lots of them very sudden. Lots caused by simple bad luck.

But many teach lessons about planning, being prepared, being willing to bail when the weather changes, being attentive to your surroundings and knowing what to do when things start going wrong (keeping your head about you). These are lessons that can be easily forgotten -- lessons that need to be revisted often when you have a life with lots of adventure.

At the same time, we have to remember that life is fatal. None of us will get out of here alive. People die everyday in accidents around their houses. Football players die (and are horribly injured) every year. People pay big bucks to die on Everest. Planes fall on houses (thankfully very infrequently).

If we are lucky, we continue to pursue the things that interest us. For me, it's getting outside into nature, away from the throngs and noise and stuff. I will accept that my life has risks, and that I need to pay attention.

And continue to learn the lessons taught by the experiences of others. This summer, when I'm in Yosemite camped near those beautiful (raging) waterfalls, I'll remind the group about what could happen in a moment of inattention...