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Reposted by Nick Mustoe

Dezene Huber 🍁 🌻 @dezene.me · 2d

Took a walk around Lac Beauvert (Jasper National Park) today. I’ve walked this route a pretty much once a year since… forever.

Lots of changes from the 🔥 last year. And already lots of changes from last autumn. Looking forward to watching this over the coming years.

(Pano, click to expand.)

Burned forest landscape. Charred trees. Green grass. Blue skies.

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Dr. Stephanie @punkrockscience.bsky.social · 2d

Let’s set aside the question of whether these edited animals *are* the species they’re claimed to be - what possible argument would there BE for releasing them into a wild that isn’t the ecosystem they went extinct from? It would likely be condemning behaviorally-unequipped animals to slow death.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 2d

One of the world’s most important nature groups is weighing a call for a temporary ban on allowing genetically engineered plants or animals, such as canines edited to appear like extinct “dire wolves,” from being released into the wild.

These animals are extinct. This vote would make sure they stay that way in the wild.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, a top conservation group, is weighing a moratorium on unleashing genetically modified plants or animals into the wild.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Bingcai Liu @bingcailiu.bsky.social · 3d

Excited to share our research on the evolution of fossil forests from the Devonian to Jurassic! By analyzing 38 global fossil forests, we explored key parameters to better understand how these fossil forests developed over time.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ea...

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 2d

Paintbrush wasn't feeling it today.

A merle rough collie bites at her pink leash.

Still more merle rough collie leash shenanigans.

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The English Oak Project @thekentacorn.bsky.social · 3d

Noble Shadow the oak seedling is stirring within the acorn

The taproot continues its search for depth and moisture, throwing out secondary roots as it goes

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 3d

Best audiobook of the year for me was The Memory Palace by Nate Dimeo. Imagine the most soothing voice telling you a collection of nonfiction stories that might involve names you know from history, but usually told from an entirely different perspective. I loved it.

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KSUT Public Radio @ksutpublicradio.bsky.social · 3d

More on the flooding in southwest Colorado, from @coloradosun.com

Raging creeks cut off evacuation routes in southwest Colorado as about 390 households are forced to flee

Heavy rain sent by Hurricane Priscilla forced about 390 homes at the north end of Vallecito Reservoir to evacuate. More weather is on the way.

coloradosun.com

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Dustin Mulvaney @dustinmulvaney.bsky.social · 3d

Good fire in the big trees. 🔥🌲

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 3d

They Might Be Giants is a band that stands the test of time.

They Might Be Giants @tmbg.bsky.social · 3d

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 3d

Yes!

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Reposted by Nick Mustoe

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 3d

At first, Susan Orlean was hesitant to sign on to “Adaptation.” Then she changed her mind. “I began to feel as if I had been offered a ticket for a very strange amusement-park ride, one that I might later regret not taking,” she writes.

The Making of “Adaptation”

When your quirky book becomes a quirkier movie.

www.newyorker.com

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 3d

I love how the entire town of Dolores is getting their dog walking in before the next round of storms.

Paintbrush next to willows and the Dolores River.

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Dr Susannah Lydon @susieoftraken.bsky.social · 5d

A 300 million year old Sigillaria tree trunk, in front of a mural depicting those steamy Carboniferous coal swamp forests.

On display in Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid.

#FossilFriday ⚒🌏🌱🧪🌿🔬

A Sigillaria tree trunk, in front of a mural depicting the Carboniferous swamp forest. About 1.75 m tall

On display in Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid.

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 4d

Sentinel satellite images of the San Juans. The color of the peaks is something else. Historical maps of the areas for the map nerds.

Ice Lake Basin with recent snow on the mountain tops. A small cloud to the far right of the image.

La Plata mountain satellite photo showing fall color on the left side of the image.

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 4d

Near Mancos, western side of the La Platas.

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 5d

We're seeing deer and elk leave the high country and move into lower elevations this week.

A doe mule deer looks back surrounded by dry grass and brush.

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Travis Mason-Bushman @snarkranger.bsky.social · 5d

The greatest of basins.

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 5d

This article is sticking to my ribs like a Thanksgiving meal. What is love if not sharing food and watching each other age?

Orion Magazine @orionmagazine.bsky.social · 5d

In praise of the pumpkins, the sweet potatoes, the squashes—the patron vegetables of soup season, of cold weather, of hard times.

On Cold-Weather Vegetables

Andre Dubus describes the meals between married couples as not mere eating but a “pausing in the march to perform an act together."

orionmagazine.org

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 5d

As someone who spent a good part of the summer working on evacuation planning for a wildfire, I strongly recommend planning for and practicing evacuations. Well done Ashland. A lot of communities and counties should follow this lead.

OPB @opb.org · 5d

Ashland is offering residents and businesses the chance to practice their wildfire evacuation plans this Saturday.

Ashland plans practice wildfire evacuation drill for Saturday

Ashland is holding a wildfire evacuation drill for people and businesses to rehearse what they would do in a real evacuation, from gathering their belongings to practicing their evacuation route.

www.opb.org

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 6d

The global whaling industry experienced a boom c. 1840-1950 as technology allowed whalers to hunt the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.

Under standard models, we would have expected krill populations to have *exploded*.

Instead, they DROPPED exponentially.

Let's talk about the KRILL PARADOX.

Change in distribution and abundance of southern right whales. (A) Shows historical and contemporary wintering distributions (Figure 1 from Carroll et al., 2018), and (B) shows decline in abundance and subsequent recovery (solid line is the mean, dashed line shows upper and lower 95% CI). Modified Figure 1 from Jackson et al. (2008). Contemporary sightings are divided into regions where large aggregations are seen during winter: Argentina (ARG), Brazil (BZL), South Africa (SAF), southwest Australia (SWA), south central Australia (SCA), and New Zealand sub-Antarctic (NZSA) and regions where sightings are typically of small numbers of individuals per year. The large aggregations are IWC management units and correspond to historical whaling grounds, although another 5 whaling grounds show little sign of recovery. Summer feeding areas are poorly described and so not shown.

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 6d

It is raining gold on the San Juans. Probably peak color for the season as rain moves in this weekend.

Golden aspen and Engelmann spruce surround a dirt road.

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Dr. Michelle I. Turner @chaco-arch.bsky.social · 9d

Some memories of fall in southwest Colorado.

A valley view of yellow aspen and green pine trees

Looking up at the crowns of the aspen trees

A dark and magical path covered with yellow aspen leaves among the white trunks of the trees

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 9d

Aspen brought the fireworks on the Cumbres Toltec railroad line this weekend.

A partly cloudy sky highlights a rock face covered in conifer and bright yellow aspen.

A steam train changes ahead surrounded by yellow aspen.

The Los Pinos River flows through a canyon with dramatic clouds above.

Sheer rock wall serves as backdrop for orange-tipped aspen.

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Reposted by Nick Mustoe

Eladio Bobadilla @eladiobobadilla.com · 11d

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Nick Mustoe @nickmustoe.bsky.social · 11d

For whatever reason, it took this tweet for me to realize that people looking for ivory-billed woodpeckers and those looking for bigfoots are searching for the same thing.

Alexander Lees @alexanderlees.bsky.social · 12d

I had missed this well written rebuttal on the purported Ivory-billed Woodpecker rediscoveries; these passages in particular are gold:🪶
academic.oup.com/bioscience/a... #Ornithology

They are reported not by random, casual observers but typically by select enthusiasts deeply committed and emotionally attached to the idea of the ivory-billed woodpecker's survival against all odds. These individuals have often dedicated years to the hopeful pursuit of clues supporting the species' continuing existence. Therefore, as one of the former searchers admitted in hindsight, “many searchers may have been subconsciously biased and, as a result, not sufficiently cautious in their identifications under field conditions” (Sykes 2016).

The purported sightings invariably occur in flooded southern swamp forests deemed by the dedicated enthusiasts as the ideal habitat for the species and less often, if at all, frequented by other observers (Hill 2007, Collins 2019). The vastness and inaccessibility in the descriptions tend to be exaggerated: “Alligators, wild boars, and venomous snakes are abundant, and there is a danger of heat stroke during the summer and hypothermia during the winter” (Collins 2019), being a description of an area of less than 100 km2, a mere 40 kilometers (km) away from New Orleans, the most populous city in Louisiana. The LSU Museum of Natural Science in Baton Rouge, historically one of the most vibrant ornithological centers in the Unites States, is about 145 km away. An area of 100 km2 would by no means be vast enough even for a single ivory-billed woodpecker, let alone a breeding population, to hide in for long. Meanwhile, there are abundant eBird reports of other bird species from the same area (Pearl River swamp), with the widest gap between adjacent observations of pileated woodpeckers, as an example, being less than 5 km (figure 3).

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