Articles

Class of '67

The original endangered species—where are they now?

by Kris Millgate - Wednesday, Sep 19th, 2018

Fall on the Snake River in eastern Idaho, where endangered species recover protected by Land and Water Conservation Fund (photo: Kris Millgate).

I'm researching the heavy hitters of my homeland. Grizzly bears. Bald eagles. The iconic feathers and fur of the Endangered Species List. They were both list bound when 'endangered' became a buzzword half a century ago. So were 73 other animals, including 21 fish. Those 75 species are officially called the Class of 1967.

How to capsize a sailboat with a woolly bugger

Despite a very hard-earned engineering degree, I can’t quite get the physics to add up

by Jon Tobey - Tuesday, Sep 18th, 2018

Photo: Ansgar Koreng / cc2.0

I had a recurring, crazy girlfriend once, the kind that only comes around when you have better, saner options. The thing about that kind of crazy is that it’s somehow contagious and you do crazy things, too. Like answer the phone. But she also had the beautiful side of the crazy-beautiful curve pretty much pegged, and we all know how that goes.

The 6wt E

At the intersection of passions there often lies magic

by Mike Sepelak - Monday, Sep 17th, 2018

Photo: Mike Sepelak

At the intersection of passions there often lies magic. Overlapping devotions compound and exponentiate in weird and wonderful ways, lifting each to stimulating new heights. But, just as often, at those same crossroads lies madness and the sad truth is, when in the throws of passion, it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.

Costa is turning discarded fishing nets into sunglasses

The new 'Untangled' collection is helping to reclaim one of the most destructive forms of plastic in the ocean

by Chad Shmukler - Friday, Sep 14th, 2018

Costa's new 'Untangled' collection turns discarded fishing nets into sunglasses

You'd be hard pressed these days to find someone who hasn't heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. First discovered in 1997 by yachtsman Charles Moore, the great patch floats in the open ocean between Hawaii and California. It is a massive gyre of discarded plastic, brought together by open ocean currents, that is estimated to be larger than the state of Texas. While often circulated rumors of the patch being visible from space aren't true, the patch is "home" to an estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic.

We are starving the last of our Puget Sound killer whales to death

Only 75 southern resident killer whales remain

by Dylan Tomine - Wednesday, Sep 12th, 2018

A Puget Sound orca, or southern resident killer whale (SRKW) swims with her calf (photo: NOAA).

Update: As of December 31, 2020, the population of SRKW has been reduced to 74.

Our southern resident killer whales (SRKW), the local, salmon-eating orcas, are starving to death. And the small size of the king salmon we boated this summer has had me thinking a lot about these whales, which we see on a fairly regular basis around our home waters. There are currently 75 SRKWs left.