Bayou-Diversity

I saw a ghost a while back.  He appeared out of thin air, transformed a peaceful, bucolic scene into murderous chaos, and vanished in seconds.  I loved it.  It was one of the never-to-be-forgotten highlights of my experiences in the natural world.

We are losing the old wise ones.  Some of our most erudite naturalists never heard a professor's lecture or studied in a biology lab that reeked of formalin and moth balls.  Still, they know the eddies where giant flathead catfish prowl and ridge-top trails of foraging coyotes.

Historians agree that the American president with the greatest conservation legacy was Theodore Roosevelt.  Among his many accomplishments in that arena was the protection of millions of acres that became units of the National Forest and National Park systems.  Additionally, he protected another group of lands and waters specifically for their wildlife values.  These became components of the National Wildlife Refuge System.

While on a late afternoon walk in the bottom north of the house, I heard a commotion in the dry, freshly fallen leaves beyond the creek.  Something was coming my way.  Suddenly, a red fox appeared in mid-air as he leaped across Rocky Branch, barely flowing in the late autumn drought.

Thank you, O Lord, in this bountiful season for the five senses to relish your world.  

Thank you for the succulent smells of the fruits of the earth in the kitchens of our mothers and wives.

Thank you for the odor of rich delta dirt on a warm, foggy winter morning.

Thank you for the smell of wood smoke, especially that tinted with lighter'd pine.

Thank you for the stew of odors distinct to our rivers and bayous: cypress needles, primal water, life and life-to be.

As a species we humans are infamous for behavior not conducive to our own long-term well-being.  Consider the frequency of wars, the unbridled depletion of earth's finite resources, and the "me now" attitude of our consumptive society.  There are, however, shining examples of far-sightedness in America, even in the halls of Congress.  A prime example is the Wilderness Act of 1964.

When it comes to politics, especially in Louisiana, one really can't make some of this stuff up.  Absurd political conduct has a long history in the Bayou State as illustrated by Congressman Robert Broussard's legislation, H.R. 23261, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1910.  The press labeled it the "American Hippo Bill."

What a glorious event it was, this eclipse of 2017.  With family and friends we gathered in a remote sagebrush meadow along the South Fork of the Payette River in Idaho, a stream fresh from the Sawtooth Wilderness that still carried snowmelt even on this late summer morning.  Our chosen viewing post fell directly in the path of the umbra - the shadow projected when the sun is entirely blocked by the moon.

Every autumn a multitude of people in the northern hemisphere contributes billions of dollars to local economies in order to look at brightly colored leaves.  The attraction, when green leaves of hardwood trees turn brilliant shades of yellow, orange, red, and purple, is a result of chemistry pure and simple.  Well - simple to a chemist maybe.

At the turn of the 20th century, the science of wildlife management was in its infancy.  Reeling from the catastrophic human-induced losses of America's iconic fish and wildlife resources such as the vast bison herds and billions of passenger pigeons to market hunters and countless plumed wading birds for the sake of vanity, a growing contingent of citizens began demanding a counteractive response to the wholesale pillage of nature.