August: Cat Island

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Cat Island is a National Wildlife Refuge near St. Francisville in south central Louisiana. It’s a wonderfully primitive refuge. It has one road with a turn-around at the end of it somewhere in the middle of the refuge. You drive in, you drive out; you do not drive through. The road to the entrance of the refuge runs along a bayou and is interesting in its own right for wildlife observation. But the dominant feature is “the big tree,” a Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) estimated to be 1500 years old. It is 96 feet tall, has a diameter of 17…

June: National Forests

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According to Wikipedia, the U.S. has 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands containing 193 million acres. That’s 8.5 percent of the total U.S. land mass. Add to that the 12 percent of U.S. land protected as national wildlife refuges for a total of 20.5 percent. This means we must protect another 9.5 percent in the next 6 years if we are to meet the current “30 percent of land by 2030” conservation goal. I’m for it! I’m deeply grateful for what we have. But the esteemed naturalist and scientist E. O. Wilson says we must protect half of earth…