It’s too rare these days that we have cause for celebration in wildlife conservation—but alas, it looks like grizzly bears will finally have a future (and not just a tragic past) in the North Cascades! Last weekend, the Seattle Times printed my letter to the editor responding to this eagerly awaited news.

The return of grizzly bears to the North Cascades is once again on the map, and my colleagues and I are eagerly anticipating the release of a Draft Environmental Impact Statement as soon as June or July. Last week, I was quoted in National Geographic in my capacity as a carnivore conservation specialist with Woodland Park Zoo, and as one of numerous field biologists who previously conducted surveys for grizzlies—to no avail.

In recognition of World Rewilding Day, friends at Northeast Wilderness Trust posted an inspiring new video, “Forever Wild,” written by author-conservationist Tom Butler and narrated by author-naturalist Sy Montgomery. Rewilding groups across the globe are celebrating this special day with the theme rewilding = hope.

Sometimes field work is a slog: soaring temps, steep trail, mosquitoes so thick you feel like you’re in a Hitchcock film. This summer, my colleagues and I encountered all of these conditions during a backpack into the Buckhorn Wilderness in the Olympic Range. And then there was the moment that made it all worthwhile.

A Bainbridge Island podcast, B.I.Stander, recently invited my colleague and husband, Robert Long, to engage in a free-flowing conversation about all things coyote (and then some). The resulting episode runs just over an hour, and makes the perfect companion for cooking dinner or sipping tea while you’re staring out the window. By the end of it, you’ll know one of your neighbors just a little bit better, and maybe you’ll be inspired to share what you know.

Earlier this year, colleagues shared an unusual surveillance video that was making the rounds. Murky camera footage showed a cougar-like creature wandering a neighborhood in West Seattle, slinking past cars in the sooty night. Soon reports trickled in from locals, too, as news of the cougar spread like Omicron. But unlike the pandemic, the cougar wasn’t a threat.

In this follow-up to my first interview with Wilderness and Wildlife, produced by KGVM 95.9 out of Bozeman, Montana, I talk with host Jay Shellenberger about writing and wildlife, and how my own relationship with writing has evolved over the years.

As we prepare to make the latest model of our scent dispenser more widely available to other field biologists through Woodland Park Zoo, we want to be sure the device can hold up to bears who might venture into camera stations.

Robert and I were recently interviewed by Wilderness and Wildlife, a radio show broadcasted by KGVM 95.9 out of Bozeman, Montana. We spoke with host Jay Shellenberger about noninvasive carnivore research, our ongoing wolverine surveys in the North Cascades, and my own path merging wildlife conservation and creative writing.

My first book was a cautionary tale about a community of crickets who overslept one lazy summer afternoon, precipitating panic among the local townspeople—who noticed that something in their world had gone terribly wrong.