The 17-mile backpack up to Ashnola Mountain feels much longer when your legs are burning and the flies are biting. I’ve visited this remote and delectably lonesome destination several times since the 2017 Diamond Creek Fire, which transformed 128,000 acres of the Pasayten Wilderness into a blackened forest of frail and fallen matchsticks. But last week’s trip with Robert and our 12-year-old (now deaf) husky mix, Alder, really upped the ante.

Seattle’s Fox 13 recently released the second episode of “Saving Wildlife,” their ongoing series highlighting conservation work at Woodland Park Zoo. This episode includes grizzly bear recovery in the North Cascades, and I was invited to talk with the host about why restoring grizzlies here is long overdue.

In the first of its 3-episode series about Woodland Park Zoo’s conservation impacts in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle’s Fox 13 highlights our regional carnivore research and other projects under the umbrella of the Living Northwest program.

On the evening of Wednesday, February 26th, I’ll be moderating a panel at Woodland Park Zoo with the authors of the graphic novel, Tales of the Urban Wild: A Puma’s Journey, and Samantha Kreling, a PhD candidate at University of Washington whose research focuses on urban coyotes. The discussion will explore how we can use creative storytelling to enhance tolerance and compassion for carnivores and other wildlife (as well as our fellow humans!)

Welcome to my new blog series about Rewilding “Scout,” a young Maltese on the path to rediscovering his wild side. I’ll publish posts occasionally so you can join me in watching him grow!

When Robert and I were recently invited to Zoo Montana to spend time with three wolverines, I was slightly apprehensive—though not for the reasons you might think.

In follow-up to my 2024 podcast interview about carnivore conservation in the Pacific Northwest, Rewilding Earth invited me to record a brief update as part of a year-end special episode. The episode aired just before the New Year.

Wolverines and Climate Change in Cascadia shows remarkable footage of wolverines in our region and sums up how climate change threatens their future. This 2-minute film was created by Dave Moskowitz and narrated by my husband, Robert Long. I helped edit the script.

Monitoring wolverines in the wild is hard work, so I’m pleased that the field data I’ve helped to collect in the Cascades has contributed to an ambitious new scientific publication, “Genetic Connectivity of Wolverines in Western North America.”

Deep Wild journal recently nominated my abecedarian essay, “Wolverines in a Land of Wildfire,” for a 2025 Pushcart Prize. I’m honored by this nomination and hope it brings a bit of attention to these incredible animals and their plight.

It would have been easy to feel alone today, with so many things I value rejected point blank.

Peace.

Compassion.

Justice for all (species).

Sometimes it’s helpful to look at what we know (or think we know) from a different perspective—where up is down, down is up, and the boundaries are blurred. Thus my travels in British Columbia last week, first for a spirited gathering of mesocarnivore biologists at “Weaselfest” (Best. Name. Ever.), and then an annual conference on regional habitat connectivity, called “Cascadia Connects.”

During my last research trip into the Olympic National Forest, I decided to sit tight by an unnamed lake while Robert proceeded to a nearby marten survey station. We’d already slogged nearly a kilometer off-trail, tumbling downhill through a lot of woody debris that tweaked my sprained ankle and tested my mood. When Robert and our dog, Alder, scared up a nest of ground hornets—prompting me to scream “No! No! No! No!” as we all scrambled to outrun an angry mob—I knew it was time for Alder and me to take a little break.

When I first learned of J.D. Vance’s derisive comments about the “childless cat ladies” who are ruling the country without a stake in its future, I had to chuckle: surely, he must have been joking—and what about us childless dog ladies; don’t we deserve equal billing? Alas, this was no joke, and Vance’s dangerous remarks picked at a scab for me and millions of others. So when I recently read an op-ed on this topic in The Seattle Times, I seized the opportunity to add my two cents. My LTE was published online last week, and in print on Sunday.

Were it not for the salamander, today might have felt foreboding. Temperatures so high I could almost see the glaciers melt, Mount Baker like a snow cone in the boiling sun. I could almost hear mourning in the song of the thrushes, smell fire in the firs as their needles yielded to brown. How will the wolverines survive these Hellish hot summers? I worried, their fate, like our own, tied to the future of climate change.

I’m thrilled to announce that the new issue of Deep Wild is now in print—including my essay, “Wolverines in a Land of Wildfire.” The essay was originally published in About Place last year and has since been minimally revised. Deep Wild is beautifully curated and crafted, and sized perfectly for traveling in a backpack!