Latest Blog Posts

The snake advocate

Catching of venomous snakes by nonexperts is stupid—monumentally stupid
Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

Serpent encounters are part of growing up in Arkansas. My first introduction was through Sunday School, in the pages of an illustrated Bible, with the depiction of a serpent wrapped around an apple tree. This was pre-kindergarten age. I learned that snakes once had legs and could speak before being driven onto their bellies to eat dust and rendered dumbstruck simply for offering Eve an option. Sure, the option was directly opposite what the Almighty had commanded, but I never viewed the snake as an archetype for evil.

Cleaned and gutted

There’s a fine line between being a conservationist and being a zealot
Cleaned trout prepared for cooking (photo. W. Works / cc2.0).

There’s a fine line between being a conservationist and being a zealot. That’s why both of my kids will be getting a refresher course in the coming days on how to properly dispatch, clean and gut a wild trout. Over my dead body will they succumb to zealotry.

Wait, wait, not yet

Take your time and let nature take its course
Photo: Chris Hunt

Every year about this time, I find myself pushing up some muddy mountain road, trying to get as far into the hills as I can. It’s not Memorial Day yet, which is the barometer most folks around the country use to mark the official beginning of summer (and most of us here in the Rockies denote as the date when it’s possible that the road to our favorite off-the-beaten path trout stream might be reachable without having to ski the last mile or two in).

Help capture what's at stake in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

Photographers, videographers and writers aim to fight oil drilling with evidence
Arctic char (photo: Pat Clayton).

This summer, under the umbrella of the International League of Conservation Photographers, a large collaborative media effort will take a group of accomplished image makers far, far to the north. The group, made up of seasoned conservation photographers with unique specialities, will travel to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) with the goal of capturing the awe and splendor of the nation's wildest and largest tract of publicly owned land.

Nature deficit disorder: Yes, it's a thing

An entire generation of kids has no idea what lies over the next ridge
Photo: Josh Hallet / cc2.0

Nature deprivation is a real thing, and I’m witnessing the impacts of being exposed to the wild and willingly foregoing exposure in both of my kids.

My daughter loves the outdoors. She’s working for the second year in a row in Grand Teton National Park, and just the other night, we exchanged photos and video via text of our respective campfires—hers in the shadows of the Tetons and mine on the high desert of southern Idaho, where I’d camped by the Snake River while chasing carp with my fly rod.

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