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I feel like I’m nothing without wildlife. They are the stars. I feel awkward without them. ~ Bindi Irwin

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Among the World’s Most Prolific Wildlife Viewing – Close to Home

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The North Face Sleeping Bags

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“Birds are key indicators of the environment in which they — and we — live and eat and breathe. Their health or decline eventually mirrors our own, and the diagnosis this week isn’t looking very good.

The spreading oil threatens “Important Bird Areas,” sites identified by Audubon and other conservation experts as vital to the health or even the survival of entire species.

Coastal bird species — graceful terns, gangly pelicans, peaceful plovers — have everything to lose if the oil reaches them. It is breeding season for these year-round coastal denizens, and it is also peak migration season for millions of other birds headed north, right through the areas that may be hardest hit.” . . . Read more on the potential devastating tragedy.

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Solo Backpacking: Antidote for a Frenzied Life

Four Legs Are Better than Two

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“To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of year, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.” ~Rachel Carson, author of the bestselling book, “The Sea Around Us”.

I hope this can still be said of the beautiful shores of the Gulf of Mexico in the near future. God bless those volunteers and professionals who are striving to save the beaches, salt marshes and wildlife of these shores.

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• Gulf Coast May Be Permanently Changed by Oil Spill (wired.com)
• Gulf wildlife ‘dead zone’ keeps growing (msnbc.msn.com)

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a bigger mess than ever. Here are some articles.

Latest Gulf oil spill forecast: Edging nearer Mississippi, Alabama …

View full size(NOAA)The latest 72-hour Gulf of Mexico oil spill forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows the spill further encroaching on Louisiana as it edges closer to Mississippi and Alabama. …

Publish Date: 05/11/2010 7:08

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/03/hopsfest.html

Gulf oil spill inquiry focuses on role of costly drilling mud …

Investigators on Tuesday homed in on whether an uncommon sequence of events involving a decision to remove heavy drilling lubricants early from a pipeline may have triggered the sudden upwelling of gas that led to the explosion and …

Publish Date: 05/12/2010 12:41

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/03/07/63486/triangle-pursues-smart-grid-money.html

Gulf oil spill inquiry focuses on role of costly drilling mud …

Investigators on Tuesday homed in on whether an uncommon sequence of events involving a decision to remove heavy drilling lubricants early from a pipeline may have triggered the sudden upwelling of gas that led to the explosion and …

Publish Date: 05/12/2010 12:41

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/03/07/63486/triangle-pursues-smart-grid-money.html

Solutions For The Gulf Oil Spill (PHOTOS/VIDEOS)

When an explosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig, killing 11, on April 20th–it set off a rupture that has been spewing at least 200000 gallons of oil into the Gulf Of Mexico every day since.

Publish Date: 05/12/2010 7:08

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/feeds/verticals/green/index.xml

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Hoisting Your Backpack Safely

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Wholesale Sporting Goods

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• Gulf of Mexico oil spill: dead dolphins found washed up on US coast (telegraph.co.uk)

BP’s attempt to stem the flow of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico with a containment dome has failed. Now, they are proposing to use garbage, aka shredded tires, to plug the rogue well. It sounds like desperation to me.

Meanwhile 210,000 gallons of crude oil continue to gush into the Gulf every day, to foul our coastlines and to kill our wildlife. A recent wind shift is shoving the gunk further toward the Louisiana coast and the ecologically sensitive Mississippi Delta.

On the hopeful and humanitarian sides of this environmental catastrophe,  ten thousand plus volunteers and professionals are doing their best to save the environment with boats in the hundreds and booms in the hundreds of thousands of feet.

Among the volunteers are Candy and other llamas who are donating their oil-free hair as a perfect absorbent to soak up the oily slime.

by Richard Davidian, Ph.D.

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Hiking Is Good for You, Mentally

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Arc’teryx Backpacks

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• BP says oil spill costs US$350M so far, shares hit (financialpost.com)
• Oil Hits Louisiana Shores: Exclusive First Photos of Cruded Coastline (treehugger.com)

Arctic Wolf

Wolves were re-introduced into the lower 48 states in 1995. Since then, their numbers have grown to as high as 6,000 in the Northern Rockies and the Great Lakes regions according to an ESPN article by James Swan.

With this growth of population has come a concomitant growth in controversy on how to manage them. Hunters and hunting advocates seek increased numbers of licenses to kill wolves. Conservationists advocate leaving them strictly alone to regulate themselves naturally and ranchers undoubtedly would opt for eradicating them completely.

The issue of how to manage wolves is not simple. There is a lot at stake and many different human populations and opinions are involved in this hot issue.

Here are some current articles on the debate:

ESPN Columnist Swan’s article in favor of wolf hunting

A scathing attack on Swan’s article by wildlife advocate, Matt Skoglund

The Wolf Recovery Foundation website

Wikipedia on Wolves

The jury is still out on wolves. I hope these articles and websites help you develop an informed opinion on the topic of wolves.

Richard Davidian, Ph.D.

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Does anyone see this as a warning against even more off-shore oil rigs?

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Crossing a Stream Safely

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Wolf pack in the snow

Next time you are in Yellowstone National Park (and I hope it will be soon), why not go on a wolf-viewing tour?

Well, it sounds like fun to me. I have been on many wildlife viewing safaris, especially in Africa. I’ve seen the big five many times: lions, elephants, leopards, rhinos and cape buffalo. In addition to the big five, I’ve seen up close cheetahs, hippos, gorillas and many more African species.

My wife and I love viewing blue whales and swimming with leopard sharks in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

In a word, we love viewing wildlife.

A good while ago, I planned to hike on Isle Royale, hoping to view wolves and moose. For a reason I have long since forgotten, I couldn’t go.

Well, maybe my wife, kids and I will get to Yellowstone National Park and take one of the wolf-viewing tours in the not-too-distant future. I hope you can do the same. Check out this article on Yellowstone wolf-viewing tours.

 by Richard Davidian, Ph.D.

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What is a gyre and what is it’s significance with respect to bottled water? Here’s a definition:

“a spiral; a vortex.  Geography a circular pattern of currents in an ocean basin : the central North Pacific gyre.” ~ dictionary on my Mac.

Well, I wish I had more time to go into this on my own, but I have a flight to make in a few hours, so I’m going to rely on others to tell the story.

First, there’s the Five Gyres Website. Don’t miss this one.

And here is more on the water bottle battle.

The Battle Over Bottled Water – Green Blog – NYTimes.com

The battle between bottled water enthusiasts and tap water die-hards is finding new ground on YouTube, with dueling videos from environmental activists and the International Bottled Water Association.

Publish Date: 03/24/2010 12:02

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/

Cambridge Science Festival Blog: Bottled Water vs. Tap Water …

Well, let’s start with this fact: some of the bottled water you buy is actually tap water. That’s right, tap. While bottled water may come from more pristine-sounding places like natural springs and wells, other bottled water is simply …

Publish Date: 04/22/2010 20:40

http://cambridgesciencefestivalblog.blogspot.com/

Consuming more Bottled Water is Hurting Us? “The Story of Bottled …

The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you.

Publish Date: 04/22/2010 21:52

http://www.therainbowcollective.com/

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Solo Backpacking: Antidote for a Frenzied Life

Four Legs Are Better than Two

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Wholesale Backpacking Equipment

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• Bottled water faces backlash (cnn.com)
• The Story of Bottled Water (boingboing.net)