by Denny Olson I’m spoiled I’ve always been a student of nature, gleaning factoids and evaluating the quality of evidence about the health of our wild environment. I’ve been able to teach what I have learned – about in equal measure to my continuing efforts as a student – to literally hundreds of thousands of…
Read MoreThe Meta-Threat by Dennis Olson In the last Pileated Post, FAS Board member Carole Jorgensen and Post Editor Lewis Young wrote two wonderful short summaries of two separate “meta-studies” – regarding the 29% decline in North American bird populations in the last 50 years, and, respectively, an Audubon study outlining the 64% of North American…
Read Moreby Denny Olson Invasive plant species have been described as a slow-motion nuclear bomb going off. While this sounds like hyperbole, we have to remember that the this “bomb” can affect entire bioregions, and invasives can reduce tree cover, cause increased erosion and reduce water quality, increase fire risk, have noxious effects on humans and…
Read MoreBy Denny Olson We are social animals, and our ‘kind’ – the pack (or village) animals (wolves, chimpanzees, gorillas, orcas, etc.) — are almost desperate to know where they fit in their social environment. Of course, social animals receive conformity messages from the pack or herd or club. But in most cases, there is still…
Read Moreby Denny Olson Well, we are nearing the end of that chronically over-planned, not-enough-time-in-the-universe-as-we-understand-it, time we call “summer”. And I have to say … it has been fun! Five weeks of teaching senior citizens about birds and life in Glacier, four days of Audubon and Road Scholar grandparents and grandkids with talented FAS volunteers, many…
Read Moreby Denny Olson “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby (and still have a ways to go)” Despite our recognition that women have played a very important role in our knowledge of science (see last month’s column), the background shows that cultures, and prevailing thought, do not change overnight. Gender inequality is still the norm in…
Read Moreby Denny Olson, Conservation Educator “Who has the right to decide that the supreme value is a world without insects, even though it would be a sterile world ungraced by the curving wing of a bird in flight. The decision is that of the authoritarian temporarily entrusted with power.” — Rachel Carson,…
Read MoreBig Possibilities for Local Bird Education by Denny Olson Partly because our local schools are cash-strapped for bus money, opportunities for public school outdoor education seem to be shrinking. With our local economy increasingly tied to outdoor experiences – and with what we know about how important natural outdoor experiences are in the intellectual and…
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by Gail Shay Linne, Education Chair Denny Olson, Conservation Educator, presented an ambassador training on January 7, 2019 at the Lone Pine State Park Visitors Center. Shannon Donaldson and her son Bridger Donaldson, Jennifer Dodan, Pat Jaquith and Pam Willison attended the three-hour workshop. FAS Education Committee members Amy Jacobs, Rod Wallette and Gail Linne…
Read Moreby Denny Olson At Flathead Audubon, we have a lot going on these days behind the scenes to build our school field trip presence in our own Owen Sowerwine Natural Area and assisting the Flathead Land Trust and Fish, Wildlife and Parks with in and out-of-classroom student bird education in the West Valley Ponds (“The…
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