Hundred Year Flood – Mojave
Thursday, August 28th, 2008 Posted in Art & Nature | 2 Comments »At the end of the Mojave River, 100 miles downhill from mountain woods, You arrive at this sere topography of white salts, crusted devil horns, angelic duplexes of sand dune prayers floating across the oceanic expanse like tract-home miracles at the end of ZZYZX Road, named to create ...
Bighorn Sheep Need a Home, Too
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 Posted in Endangered Species, desert wildlife | Comments OffIn contrast to its good news for the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, the US Fish & Wildlife Service has proposed a revision to southern California bighorn critical habitat that is mostly bad news. While the Service responded to public comment by adding back ...
Big Solar Should Use Disturbed Lands
Monday, August 25th, 2008 Posted in RETI, renewable energy | 1 Comment »The Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) stakeholders group needs to hear from you -- by Wednesday! -- with the message that disturbed lands need to be given priority over undisturbed habitat as the group evaluates "Competitive Renewable Energy Zones" (CREZs). ...
Wee Thump Joshua Tree Wilderness
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 Posted in desert plants, desert wildlife, wilderness | 7 Comments »This month a friend and I sat bathed in moonlight on the fringes of a desert wilderness, enjoying a hundred-mile view. Eastward we saw towering thunderheads, illuminated from within by frequent and gigantic lightning flashes as they released their catastrophic ...
How You Can Help the Desert Tortoise
Thursday, August 21st, 2008 Posted in Endangered Species, desert wildlife | 1 Comment »Following up on last week's post, here are a few things you can do to help the desert tortoise: Comment on the US Fish & Wildlife Service's revised recovery plan (large PDF!) for California's state reptile. The plan has been criticized by the Center ...
Palms to Pines Map Now Available
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 Posted in Art & Nature | Comments OffThe "Palms to Pines Birding and Nature Trail Map" is now available from Friends of the Desert Mountains, authored by soon-to-be DesertBlog contributor Ruth Nolan, and DPC member Kurt Leuschner. Ruth worked on the project during her sabbatical (2006-07) from ...
Endangered Species Act Under Attack
Friday, August 15th, 2008 Posted in Endangered Species | Comments OffIn its never-ending war on the natural world, the Bush Administration has proposed rules that would gut the Endangered Species Act, one of our nation's prime defenses against abuse of nature, whether that abuse is carried out by the government, ...
Wind Energy Update
Wednesday, August 13th, 2008 Posted in renewable energy | Comments OffFollowing up on our July 26th post: the Bureau of Land Management has scheduled a public meeting for tonight in Julian about its plans to vastly expand areas available for wind energy northward into the Oriflamme Mountain, Banner, Julian, San ...
Good News for Bighorn, Bad News for Tortoise
Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 Posted in Endangered Species, desert wildlife | 2 Comments »There was good news for Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep last week, as the US Fish & Wildlife Service finalized critical habitat for this population of bighorn, cousins to the desert bighorn of the southwest. The new decision on critical habitat ...
Writin’ and Rockin’ in the Desert
Friday, August 8th, 2008 Posted in Art & Nature, Sunrise Powerlink | 1 Comment »Need a break from the gloom, doom and snarky sarcasm of DesertBlog? Chris Clarke has some great stuff posted on his Coyote Crossing site: desert poetry, essays, and tidbits from his summer basecamp in Nipton -- can you say "hot"? ...
