Musk Ox
Obtained from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology web site
A great piece came out in the Globe and Mail yesterday (7/28/09) that does an excellent job of laying out how the Canadian Boreal is one of the world’s last great conservation opportunities. Here are a couple of quotes from it:
“the biggest “risk-of-risk” regions on Earth lie [...]

This just out in Toronto paper. Links to entire story below. 
 Caribou in peril, Ontario warned
Facing ‘emergency,’ province urged to halt logging, road building in threatened habitatsCatherine PorterToronto Star “The Ontario government should halt all logging and road building in endangered woodland caribou habitat, as six out of nine known populations below the 51st parallel are at [...]

I recently came across this report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that discusses the importance of conserving natural ecosystems that store, and often capture, carbon.
 
As you probably know, the Boreal Forest stores a massive quantity of carbon, which is easily released by industrial development. There were two passages in the report that stood [...]

Nancy and her husband, Bob
Taken from: http://sononis.blogspot.com/
While the field of Ethnobotany might not be deeply understood by many everyday citizens, its importance is certainly recognized by the Governor General of Canada.
Earlier this month Nancy Turner, an Ethnobotanist for the University of Victoria and member of the International Boreal Conservation Science Panel, was named to the [...]

Here’s another excellent guest post by our friend Matt Medler. As mentioned previously, he used to work for BSI and currently works for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is the second of two posts on his recent trip to Northern Ontario. Click here to view his first post.
From Matt: 
 
Boreal Scenery
Credit: Matt Medler

When Jeff first contacted [...]

This is a guest post from our friend Matt Medler, who used to work for BSI and now currently works with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a wonderful research and outreach team whom I used to work for as well. He recently went up to the Boreal Forest of Northern Ontario – and documents here the first leg of [...]

Ivory-billed Woodpecker
Credit: US Fish and Wildlife Service
I got to see an advance copy of this film and it is incredibly well done. Takes you from laughing to crying to reflection while exploring the multi-faceted ways in which society interacts with and views the natural world through the story of the reported rediscovery of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.  
Jeff
US Premiere of Ghost Bird takes flight at [...]

This just out from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Reminds me of the simple analysis we did a few years ago that suggested that migrant and wintering Boreal birds contributed as much to the U.S. economy as Major League Baseball 
 Jeff
Birdwatchers No Featherweights in Contributions to Economy
A new report released today by the U. S. Fish and [...]

I heard on the news that there had been a rare tornado in northwestern Ontario last week and emailed Matt to ask if it had been anywhere near where he was located on his bird trip to Whitewater Lake courtesy of Wilderness North. This was his reply: 
“We also heard about the tornado (and two Americans who died) in [...]

More follow-up (read first entry here) from Cornell’s Matt Medler who sent this note on Saturday fromWilderness North’s Striker’s Point Lodge on Whitewater Lake in northern Ontario:
“The weather has been bad since I arrived–strong wind and strong wind & rain–so I haven’t been able to get outside much. I did have some good birds yesterday–two countersinging [...]