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.

For the July/August issue of The Wildlife Professional, Robert and I co-authored an article about our wolverine research in Washington, emphasizing the need for creative collaborations and innovative survey methods given possible threats to the wolverine population in the future.

Please join me and several other writers who contributed to the new anthology, Keep a Green Bough: Voices from the Heart of Cascadia, for an outdoor reading on July 25 at 4pm. The reading will take place at the Dungeness River Audubon Center in Sequim, Washington.

Dear Friends, I’ve been thinking about connections a lot lately. How much we need them. How we maintain them. How to restore them, one link at a time. For me, the pandemic has been a paradox. I’ve appreciated the respite at times—less traffic, fewer places to go, our complicated emotions hidden behind masks.

Last week, as part of my research for a magazine article about I-90 SPE, Robert and I had the opportunity to tour several of the 13 crossing structures that have been installed specifically for wildlife. We’ve slowly watched these structures come to fruition during our occasional travels on the highway…

In the North Cascades, it’s unusual for us to visit a remote camera station that HASN’T been visited by Pacific martens—smaller cousin to wolverines and every bit as charismatic. But not so in the Olympic Range, where martens are rarely sighted and may even be at risk of local extinction. Last week, Robert and I initiated our seasonal camera deployments for the Olympics’ missing martens, as part of Woodland Park Zoo’s ongoing collaboration with Olympic National Forest and Olympic National Park.

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.

While enrolled in my MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University, I had the privilege to work with mentor Gary Ferguson—acclaimed author of more than two dozen books, and an inspirational thinker, speaker, and writer on behalf of wild nature. On Earth Day, April 22, Gary and social scientist Mary M. Clare will launch their new book, Full Ecology, via a virtual event titled, “A Walk in the Wild: Reclaiming Human Nature.”

In celebration of National Wildlife Week, Woodland Park Zoo published my post about Washington’s wild cats on their blog today. I wrote about the zoo’s efforts to document wild cats and other carnivores with remote cameras in greater Seattle and beyond—research in which I am proudly involved.

Last evening, as the sun sank low in the Easter sky, I decided to take a stroll on a local beach. I hadn’t been at my best all day. The night before, while watching Minari, I received a text from a friend telling me another friend had passed.

A few weeks ago, I began to hear rumblings about a cougar on Bainbridge Island. Such rumblings are not uncommon, but this time there was supposedly photographic evidence. Sure enough, just after Christmas, a friend sent me a video clip of a large cat with a long tail approaching a wire fence and then leaping straight into it, apparently stalking a wary goat on the other side.

This week, President Biden’s German shepherd, Major, was “indogurated” as the first shelter dog to inhabit the White House. Our own regal rescue, Alder, and his best friend, Bessie, helped mark the occasion by partying like puppies in the snow. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand woofs.

The morning began like most others during the pandemic. I woke up, read the news, wished I hadn’t, took a quick glance at email—and that’s when I saw the message on Nextdoor Bainbridge: Help! Wild animal rescue needed.

My feature piece in the current issue of Wild Hope celebrates those bold wild animals who eke out an existence in our yards and city parks, and the passionate people who study them. “Urban Dwellers” shines a spotlight on the Seattle Urban Carnivore Project, a citizen science-driven effort, led by Woodland Park Zoo and Seattle University, to inspire city people to get to know their wild neighbors.

In the spirit of the March for Science that had occurred a few months prior, Robert carried a fluorescent green sign bearing the words “Science is Patriotic” penned in red and blue. The sign is still taped to the wall of our garage, where we build survey equipment for wolverines and other carnivores so we can better understand their needs.

Normally, I would try to ride it out—close the windows, turn on some piano music, do my best to focus while the engines roared. But coupled with the daily barrage of political noise and a minor construction project underway in our garage, I decided to flee.