How did your time in the wilderness impact your relationship with each other?


Isaac: I think it strengthened our relationship it huge ways – we had to lean on each other for everything. By contrast, filming your own journey can be a bit trying on your relationship at times…

Bjornen: I feel like this experience strengthened our relationship in ways we will still be finding out when we’re 90. It’s just hard to explain in one little paragraph, but it has something to do with a certain level of trust and reliance on the other person, with unconditional love (Geez, he had to dress me some days, prop me up at night so I wouldn’t be in so much pain, rub my smelly,swollen feet, listen to my grumpiness sometimes, convince me that we weren’t going to get too cold…). But we have a pretty solid relationship because of it. I know he’ll be there for me no matter what comes along, and I hope he feels the same way about me. I think he described me as a “mule” once… and I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing. At least that’s how I’m seeing it.

Isaac and Bjornen Babcock in the River of No Return Wilderness

Isaac: Too few for my “observational desires”. But from a biological standpoint, I feel the numbers where just about right when we were there, but today wolves are under some pretty heavy hunting and trapping pressure in Idaho, including the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. The state of Idaho has committed to have wolves in the state, but at a much lower population than they are currently at, (and much lower than the level they were at when we were back there for our film). I don’t think we would have the same opportunity to see and watch them now, as we did just two years ago (when working on the film). It is quite a controversial subject here in Idaho, and while the above comments are my opinion, please realize that the opinions on this subject vary widely and are often extremely emotionally charged. Unfortunately the views seem to continue to be more and more polarized. In the end, the number of wolves in the wilderness will have less to do with biological carrying capacity (the number that could exist in a somewhat sustainable system) and more to do with the number of wolves that is deemed socially tolerable, which is largely a product of political interest and desired ungulate hunting opportunity. Sorry for the lengthy answer, but this is one of the most complex issues in having wolves return to Idaho, there is no simple answer, and a lot of work ahead for us to get through it.

Bjornen: Just about right, I’d say. I mean, we went for long periods of time without seeing any wolves or sign at all. But then we’d see something, some interaction, hear them (one of the best sounds in the world), or even just some fresh tracks and it would make everything worthwhile. I mean, wolves were what brought us out there in the first place, but they weren’t the only reason.

Would really be interested in hearing or reading more about the equipment and any problems you experienced!

Isaac: We used a Red One camera and an HV20 for the ad lib hiking camera (b-roll). The Red One was a newer camera with a tremendous picture, but presented some technical difficulties in the field. It was power hungry, and it recorded to hard drive which meant we had to offload it at times. It also took 90 seconds to boot up before you could record. A lot can happen in those 90 seconds of watching wildlife, and one can pull out a lot of there own hair in frustration waiting for the camera to be ready to record. But the picture quality it captured, and the slow motion capabilities made it worth while. We hiked with foldable solar panels to charge batteries, which worked acceptably in the summer, but struggled to keep up in the winter. Generators and other motorized equipment are prohibited in designated wilderness, so solar panels were the only option. There were plenty of challenges, and lots of frustrations and troubleshooting, but it’s all part of what made the journey what it was.

Bjornen: Oh gosh… how long do you have? Isaac is really the equipment guru, so I’ll let him answer this one. Ha! I got out of that pretty easily…

Is Bjornen able to continue with her backpacking adventures? What kind of treatment is she receiving for her RA?

Bjornen: I am very happy to report that my RA symptoms have all but disappeared (I’d say they are 98% gone). I have no idea what exactly it was that made it go away. It was a long 3 years of trying all kinds of different approaches, everything from conventional medication (which I really disliked, and though it helped in the beginning, it gradually lost its power to make me more comfortable) to restrictive diets, to acupuncture, homeopathic remedies, keeping stress out of my life… So I don’t know what it was that helped, maybe a combination of everything, and maybe simply time. I did learn so much in the process though, the most important thing being that you really have to take responsibility for your own health, and that your body can heal itself if it is given even half a chance… it’s an amazing thing! These days I can do everything I used to be able to do. I feel absolutely great! I appreciate everyone’s concern, and hope other people who are dealing with painful illnesses can take some comfort in hearing about my experience, and that I was able to get rid of it. I know I loved to hear about that kind of stuff when I was in pain, it gave me hope.

I wanted to ask if that was actually the only time you caught the wolves making a kill?

Isaac: This is the only time that we saw the wolves make a kill, in fact, it is the only time I have ever seen the wolves make a kill here in Idaho, and that includes my entire 16 years of working on wolves here. I’ve seen a handful of unsuccessful hunts, but this was the only successful hunt. Statistics show that wolves are only successful in 1 of 10 hunts. That’s like working 10 different jobs and only getting paid for one of them. It’s my opinion that getting food isn’t as easy or straightforward for wolves as some make it out to be.

Bjornen: Yes, it was. There were several times when we saw interactions that we were almost sure were going to end up in a kill, but never did (like the lame elk on the ridge interaction). We found several kills that had just happened the night before, or very recently, but had never seen one before.

Isaac and Bjornen Babcock

Isaac: You get an inkling of what you need vs. what you want. Unfortunately the longer I spend back in society, the more I slip back into confusing those two things and justifying wants. It’s human, it’s ok – but it is interesting when you cognescient of it happening.

Bjornen: I’m not sure that we live differently, but that we live with more awareness perhaps… It’s always a good reminder to be present as much as possible, and living in the wilderness it’s just hard to be anything BUT present. It’s a great reminder as to what is really important in this world.

What were you able to carry in your packs? Even with the mail/food drops, what were some of the things you did to hunt, live and eat off the land during the year?

Bjornen: This is an area that I wish we could have been better at… living off the land, that is. Honestly, we brought most of our food with us, but it was stuff that we had made ourselves, and then dehydrated. We did do some fishing, where it was legal (mountain lakes, stocked rainbow trout…which is an interesting issue in itself… but an entirely different subject that I’m not going to get into right now, AND our pole broke almost right away, so it was rather unsuccessful), and of course obvious seasonal foraging along the way (wild strawberries, morel mushrooms, huckleberries).

Would you do it again?

Isaac: Yes and no. I would love to go spend a year, or many years back there filming. I think we barely scratched the surface of wilderness, the Frank Church River of No Return, and what makes it so special. I’d love to spend the rest of my life working on capturing some of that essence. But in truth, our journey may be the only opportunity we’ll have to spend such a concentrated amount of time and effort out there. I’m grateful for the opportunity we had.

I’m not so sure I would bring a small camera to film ourselves again, we never intended to have “our journey” be such a large portion of the story, and that was challenging, both on a relationship and on altering and infringing on one’s own wilderness experience. But I am not sorry that we did, I just don’t know if I would put Bjornen or I through that aspect of it again.

Bjornen: Sure, if it weren’t for being really excited about starting to farm and being rooted in one place. Actually I have to amend that answer. I would NOT go make another film. One is plenty. But spending a significant amount of time in the wilderness, absolutely… if the time were right.

What first interested you in the story of the Pacific Northwest salmon?

One of the great parts of this project was the opportunity to come back around to where I first heard the story – from Jerry Myers, who appears in the film and tells pretty much the same thing he told me shortly after I started guiding in Idaho. I was young, beginning and ending each day in a sleeping bag in the wilderness, well insulated from the burdens of conflicting education or experience… everything seemed perfect to me. And then one afternoon Jerry and I were fishing together, far up a tributary creek of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The Salmon is part of the upper vasculature of the Snake and Columbia River systems, an alpine womb which once produced as many Chinook salmon as anywhere on the planet. We lingered a long time at a place called the “salmon pool,” and Jerry started telling me what used to be there. It was actually a little frustrating at the time; it was hard to honor his more complete version of a landscape I knew as a form of ideal.

As guides, so much of our work involved the language of the pristine, the iconography of wildness, the gin clear water of Salmon Rivers and Redfish Lakes. Although the narrative was very much part of my life, much of that richness is just an anecdote for the generation who arrived in the Pacific Northwest after about the 1970s. It’s a story someone else tells us. Our timeline of memory begins just as that of abundant salmon was ending, and with it the biological and cultural nourishment on which so much depended. My experience as a guide, and the connection I am making now as a full-time resident, initially had no lens through which I could see working on rivers, facilitating what has essentially become a leisure pursuit, as a cultural remnant of once more robust and varied interactions with the land and water. So my interest in this story was originally very personal, an attempt to explore the paradox that a lot of the Pacific Northwest lives within: strong identification with the idea of a natural and cultural heritage derived from abundant salmon, but having just missed out on the heritage itself.

What were you most surprised to learn about salmon and/or the process and effects of harvesting them during the making of this episode?

Without question, I was most impressed by the degree to which we took the original myth of protection through production and never looked back. The scale of the infrastructure that has developed around providing alternatives to salmon swimming up and down streams – the billion dollar “mitigation economy” – is simply staggering.

I was also surprised by the degree to which everyone I met on the ground was genuinely engaged in doing the most they could for salmon, appropriate to the context in which they were working. The hatchery programs are trying to produce as many healthy juveniles as they can; the biologists in the hydropower system are trying to pass as many live fish as possible around the dams; the pilots of the juvenile fish transport barges and trucks are checking stress levels in the tanks; the predator chasers were really trying to reduce the number of salmon eaten by sea lions and terns. Telescoping in on each vignette, it looks like a lot of people doing everything possible to solve their piece of the problem. It’s when you open up and show the accumulation of those contexts that things get ugly, and arguably absurd.

Can you explain the significance of the federal salmon policy decision in the Columbia River Basin that will happen this spring? What is at stake?

In short, the listing of 13 Columbia River salmon and steelhead species as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act requires the government to develop a plan, or biological opinion (“bi-op”), for their protection and restoration. Both the 2000 and 2004 salmon plans were rejected by the courts, meaning that the current administration’s recently submitted plan is the latest in over a decade of modification, argument, and litigation. Technically, the bi-op covers the management of the hydropower system on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. An imminent decision from the federal judge should determine whether the most recent iteration of the proposed plan is legal. Of course, whether our approach to salmon management is actually sufficient for their protection, let alone their restoration, isn’t determined in a courtroom. When Jerry Myers is kept awake by the sound of splashing salmon in Indian Creek, when David Duncan can crouch by the river and find fire in cold stone, when the Tribes are nourished in the many ways derived from abundance…then and only then will we know we’ve done well.

In the episode, it is said that, “If the fish were in any worse shape, they wouldn’t be savable, if they were in any better shape, people wouldn’t care as much. This is the time.” Do you agree with that? Do things have to get bad enough for people to care enough to make a change?

I agree this is the time for a radical re-evaluation of the goals and approach to salmon recovery. Many people have cared, a lot, about declining salmon populations for over a hundred years. Unfortunately, sometimes a response to declining resources is an even tighter grip on the agents of that decline. Even as the situation becomes more desperate, it becomes harder and harder to make big changes because everything feels more fragile. In this film, we wanted to get beyond the documentation of now familiar insults to nature and examine the role, and legacy, of how we have tried to save.

Do you see the salmon situation as proof that human ingenuity is no match for Mother Nature?

No. That proof has been offered too many times before, in too many different ways. The story of the Columbia is, perhaps, an affirmation of that maxim. The modern salmon situation does express interesting components of the relationship between human ingenuity and nature. Something we seem to have lost is the appreciation that the abundance we’re now working so hard, at such cost, to wrestle out of the Columbia is the default condition of the place. Abundance is not something we’re going to tease from the river by being clever. The problem here is shifting baselines. Diminishing abundance determines each new generation’s opportunities on the Columbia; these present opportunities become our memories of a collective past, and together they mark the boundaries of what we imagine it could be again. The thrilling potential of restoration, then, isn’t just about more fish – it’s about expanding our capacity to imagine, increasing opportunities to live a life in the story of our choosing.

How do the Tribes’ relationships to salmon fit into the picture going forward?

The additional levels of complexity and intensity inherent to the tribes’ relationship to this story are humbling. Since no 50-minute program can cover everything, we wanted to focus on the Euro-centric, techno-industrial mitigation component of this story. Of course we make reference to the issue as it concerns the Tribes, but they are still very much in the process of working it out for themselves. I hope they find ways to share their stories, because those stories are so terribly underrepresented in the dialect of salmon science and conservation. There are many expressions of what we know about salmon other than what can be plotted, shaded, extrapolated and correlated, including things we can measure but also things we can’t. This information has been part of indigenous communities for millennia. Comprised of replicated observations over many generations of time, these knowledge systems are not only inherently scientific; they represent our only connection to the deep time on which most ecological systems operate.

Equally meaningful, they also encompass the culture of respect that evolved among people as a function of profoundly intimate experience with the specific environment around them, not only as a form of ritual but as an application of effective governance. Information is shared as a narrative covering many aspects of life in the watershed, not exclusively packaged as data sets. We should be maintaining and promoting this paradigm, where the results of formal research are incorporated into a broader sense of place that includes indigenous understanding and oral histories.

There are so many complicating factors for the Tribes within the context of their separate and collective histories, the struggles they have had getting their treaty rights affirmed legislatively and judicially, how that struggle has influenced their considerations about what to fight for and how, what kind of relationship they will have with commercial fishing and hatcheries. As it concerns the nature and extent of salmon recovery, what the Tribes decide is good enough will have a big effect on what happens with salmon in the Columbia.

What message do you hope audiences will take from this episode?

First, we hope audiences will simply celebrate salmon themselves – their truly extraordinary life history and why they stubbornly remain icons of wildness, resilience, and abundance. Certainly, we hope this episode will contribute to an appreciation of their role in stitching together oceans and continents, estuaries and alpine meadows, coastal rainforests and high deserts. By extension, people should come away with an understanding of why their decline is so consequential on so many levels.

Also, we hope audiences will explore the original assumptions that informed our approach to managing salmon – and how committed we remain to trying to make that story work despite 150 years of evidence that those assumptions might be leading us astray. At incalculable cost, we constructed a reality out of our illusions and have forgotten which is which. Maybe it’s time for a new story.

Wild salmon begin their lives in rivers and streams, migrate to the sea, where they spend the next several years until they mature, then return the to the same rivers and streams to spawn and die. It is a true life cycle, ending where it began. Few organisms spend time as salmon do in both fresh and salt water. Salmon are anadromous (derived from the Greek, meaning running upward), migrating upriver from the sea to spawn, facing myriad obstacles along the way in order to create a new generation. Their journey is arduous and their gifts to the ecosystems they travel through are countless. Here is a brief look at the lifecycle of one of the world’s most popular and most important fish.

Before laying her eggs, the female uses her tail to create a depression in the riverbed, known as a redd. Males compete to fertilize females’ eggs, fighting for position using various courtship displays or mimicry behaviors. The dominant male swims alongside the female, quivering and gaping, which stimulates the female to release her roe into the redd. To fertilize the eggs, the male then deposits milt, or sperm. After the female covers the eggs with gravel, she moves on to create a new redd. During the spawning period, one female may create up to seven separate redds and lay between 2500-7000 eggs.

The embryos hatch into small larval fish called alevins. The highly vulnerable alevins live underneath gravel in the streambed for protection and receive all their nutrients from small yolk sacs attached to their bodies.

Once the yolk sac is fully absorbed, the salmon emerge from the gravel as fry, and begin to move about and feed on their own. Chum and pink fry start swimming toward the estuaries, while other species of salmon wait months, even years, before heading downstream.

The next stage of salmon development, the parr stage, is characterized by the vertical bars that develop on the sides of their bodies. These bars, or parr marks, help camouflage the small fish from predators. This stage can last months or years, depending on the species.

When the dark parr stripes fade, the young salmon are left with bright silver scales—a color that will camouflage them in ocean environments. Now seaward-migrating smolts, these young salmon swim downstream, leaving their familiar fresh-water homes. In the estuaries, smolts go through a series of physiological and morphological changes that allow for a transition to life in salt water. Before entering the ocean, salmon must change their osmoregulation process, undergoing physical adaptations of their gills and kidneys that help build a tolerance for salt water.

In the ocean, salmon travel in large, loose schools, and feed on small fish, krill, and crustaceans. They remain in the ocean for 2 to 8 years, traveling hundreds—even thousands of miles. Here, they develop into adult salmon. After spending a period of time at sea, salmon return to their home rivers and streams to spawn. In the brackish water of the estuaries, salmon change their osmoregulation process once more, this time acclimating to fresh water.

Adult salmon head upstream, toward their spawning grounds—usually the same waters in which their lives began. Once salmon begin the trip, they will not stop to feed, deriving all their energy from stored fats. At this stage, each species develops distinct physical characteristics. Bright colors replace silver scales and some males develop humps or hooked snouts, called kypes; these transformations result from changes to their fat composition, blood chemistry, and hormone levels. Salmon travel an average of 150 miles from the sea to reach their spawning grounds, and each trip contains its own set of obstacles: waterfalls, man-made dams, and hungry predators. If they successfully run that gauntlet, the adults lay and fertilize eggs that will hatch into a new generation of salmon.

Once salmon have spawned they are referred to as either spawned-out salmon, or kelts. Most salmon die within days or weeks of spawning. Nutrients from their carcasses fertilize the streams where their young will hatch and begin to grow. Certain species of salmon, like steelhead, that don’t die after spawning, will re-migrate to the ocean for another season.

Family: Salmonidae

Subfamily: Salmoninae

Genus: Oncorhynchus

Species: The major species of salmon that populate the Pacific Northwest include:
Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha)
Chum (Oncorhynchus keta)
Coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch)
Pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha)
Sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka)
Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

Size and Weight: Size and weight varies depending on species. The length of a mature salmon can range from between 20 inches to almost 5 feet. Adult salmon can weigh anywhere between 3 lbs to over 100 lbs.

Diet: Young salmon feed on small aquatic insects and zooplankton. As salmon grow and mature, they feed on larger animals including shrimp, eels, and smaller fish. Unlike other species of Pacific salmon, zooplankton makes up the majority of the sockeye diet throughout their lifecycle.

Geography: Salmon are anadromous; meaning that they are born in fresh water, migrate to the seas where they spend most of their adult life, and then return to their home range of fresh water to spawn. Certain species, however, stay in their freshwater homes and are known as landlocked salmon. Salmon of the Pacific Northwest are based primarily in and around the Columbia River Basin before migrating out to the Pacific. (Other species of salmon can be found in the western Pacific Ocean in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, and Russia and off both coasts of the Atlantic Ocean.)

Reproduction: After spending one to five years at sea (depending on the species), sexually mature salmon return to fresh-waters to spawn. Accompanied by a male, the female uses her tail to create a depression in the riverbed, known as a redd. To fertilize the eggs, the male then deposits milt, or sperm. After the female covers the depression with gravel, she moves on to create a new redd. During the spawning period, one female may create up to seven separate redds and lay between 2500-7000 eggs.

Lifespan: Salmon live anywhere from 2-8 years, depending on the species. Spawning generally marks the end of the salmon’s lifecycle, with most species dying within days or weeks of reproducing.

Threats: Man-made dams and reservoirs threaten salmon numbers in the wild by blocking their paths, creating obstacles for young salmon heading for the ocean and adult salmon returning to their spawning grounds. Overfishing, habitat loss, and a number of changing environmental conditions also continue to affect many salmon populations. For instance, rising river temperatures have been connected to an increase in marine illnesses that adversely affect salmon growth.

Additional Facts:

• In addition to Oncorhynchus genus, the Salmoninae subfamily also includes the Brachymystax, Hucho, Salmo, Salvelinus, Salvethymus, and Acantholingua genera.
• The genus, Oncorhynchus, derives from the Greek words, onkos (hook) and rynchos (nose), describing the hooked jaws prevalent in many species of sexually mature male salmon.
• Steelhead were grouped with trout until the 1990s, when they were reclassified in the Oncorhynchus genus with salmon.
• Salmon stop eating once they head toward their respective spawning grounds. They rely solely on fat reserves for energy.
• Salmon can jump up to 6.5 feet (2 meters), a skill that helps them in their upstream swim to their spawning grounds.
• It is not until sexually mature salmon return to fresh waters that the different species develop drastically different physical appearances. Males often have brighter coloring than the females. Depending on species, many males also develop humps and hooked jaws, known as kypes.
• Scientists believe that salmon rely heavily on their olfactory senses to find their way to their spawning ground.
• Chinooks travel further to spawn than other salmon. A Chinook salmon tagged in the Aleutian Islands and recovered in Salmon River, Idaho was determined to have traveled 3,500 miles to spawn. Chinook salmon are also the largest of the species – the record is 126 lbs., though most weigh about 30 lbs.
• Pinks are the smallest of Pacific salmon with an average weight of 3.5 to 4 lbs.
• About 75% of the salmon we consume in the United States is farmed salmon.
• Kunimasu salmon, believed to have been extinct since the 1940s, were recently found in a Japanese lake near Mount Fuji in December 2010.

The vocalizations we observe in the film seem to be mostly about aggression. Do koalas make any comforting vocalizations? Or, if not, is there another way they address this?

The koala bellow sounds aggressive, but in reality we think it has a lot to do with males attracting females in the breeding season. Our tracking data for wild koalas shows that females seem to respond to calls when they are looking for a mate.

In addition, when young koalas are separated from their mothers, they will make a small cry – it is a sort of “yip” noise – and the mother will respond and come and collect the joey

In what ways do the vocalizations of male and female koalas differ?

Both male and female koalas can bellow, and we are yet to work out exactly what the purpose of the female bellow is. Also, when in distress, both males and females can let out high-pitched squeals or screams, but other koalas do not seem to respond to these noises.

Dr. Bill Ellis with Koala

Female joeys do leave their mother’s home range, but often they will be found to have returned: the overlap between mother – offspring pairs is greater in proportion than any other pairs of koalas in an area. Koalas are essentially solitary – they don’t seem to form pairs or groups and don’t seem to recognize other animals other than by their bellow or when they are up close. We know that female koalas mate with different males each year and that even the biggest of the males will only sire up to three offspring in a season, so the idea that there is a single male dominating breeding is a bit off the mark. We think that this is explained by the dominance structure changing throughout the breeding season – males don’t spend long at the top. But, we have to study this – and that is what we are doing now.

What happens when former members of a family group encounter each other – a mother, for instance, running into one of her grown joeys?

We are not 100% sure why, but females seem to tolerate their female offspring within their home range – they share more trees and have a larger area of overlap in ranges. This doesn’t seem to apply to their male offspring, although our data show that over a long period (e.g. 10 years) you will find as many large males on a site that were born there as there are immigrants. This might also explain the breeding results we found: if the females are able to recognize males they are related to then perhaps they do not breed with them.

What’s the most interesting or surprising thing you have observed during your research?

Finding that females breed with a different male each year, and finding that non-residents (travelling males) sire so many young at any site. Prior to this it was thought that the “Alpha male” dominated all breeding at a site, but our parentage analysis showed otherwise.

 
 
 
Bill Ellis (BSc (Hons) ANU, M. Env. Law (ANU), PhD (UQld)) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Queensland and CQ University. His PhD project addressed the physiological responses of koalas to drought and disease but his primary research sites now are the central Queensland islands, where he is investigating communication and spatial and breeding dynamics of koalas. Bill was the Clarke Endowed Conservation Post Doctoral Fellow at the San Diego Zoo between 2006 and 2011 and is currently leading the Koala Ecology Group at The University of Queensland. Bill has been studying and working with a range of species including koalas for over 20 years and has published some 40 scientific papers on a range of aspects of koala biology including disease, reproduction and spatial dynamics.

Class: Mammalia
Subclass: Marsupialia
Order: Diprotodontia
Family: Phascolarctidae
Genus: Phascolarctos
Species: cinereus

Size and weight: Koalas average 27-36 in (70 to 90cm) in length and weigh anywhere from 9 to 20 lbs (4-9 kg). Females tend to be both slightly smaller and slightly less heavy than males.  Southern koalas are approximately 30% larger than their northern counterparts. This size difference is most likely an adaptation to deal with colder climates in the south.

Physical Features: Although commonly referred to as bears, koalas are actually marsupials—an infraclass of mammals most commonly known for their pouches. Immediately after birth, underdeveloped newborns migrate to these pouches, or marsupiums, where they will continue to feed and grow for the next several months. Many marsupials have pouches that open upward, toward their heads, but the koala’s pouch opens out toward their hind legs.

Koalas are arboreal (tree dwelling) marsupials and have a number of adaptations advantageous to tree living. Their bodies are lean with long, muscular front and hind limbs and large, sharp claws to help with gripping tree trunks, and rough skin on the bottom of its feet to provide friction good for climbing. The koala has five digits on their front paws, two of which are opposable (this would be like a human having two thumbs). This evolutionary adaptation allows the koala to grip branches as its moves from tree to tree. Its hind paws have one opposable digit with no claw, again for grip, and its second and third digits are fused into one double claw the animal uses for grooming purposes. Its fur is thicker on its rump to provide cushion when sitting on branches.

Lifespan: Koalas generally live an average of 13-17 years and females often live longer than males, whose life expentency is often less than 10 years due to injuries during fights, attacks by dogs, and being hit by cars.

Diet: Koalas are folivores (leaf eaters) and subsist primarily on eucalyptus leaves, though they will occasionally eat non-eucalypt plant species. They eat approximately a pound of leaves daily and rarely drink, obtaining water from its leafy diet. Though there are well over 600 species of eucalypt, koalas will often eat from only a handful of eucalypt species, often specific to the region. Eucalyptus leaves are highly toxic to most mammals, but koalas have digestive systems specially adapted to detoxify the poisonous chemicals in the leaves. They are the only known mammals other than the Greater Glider and Ringtail Possum that live on a eucalypt diet.  Due to the high energy expenditure required to digest their food, which is high in fiber, low in nutrition, and also toxic to most animals and the species low metabolic rate, koalas spend anywhere from 18 to 20 hours of their day sleeping. Koalas are nocturnal and do the vast majority of their eating at night.

Geography: Koalas are native to Australia and are found in the eastern and southern regions of the country. The majority can be found in the four Australian states: South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, and New South Wales.

Habitat: The species lives in tall eucalypt forests, low eucalypt woodlands, as well as coastal and island woodlands. Koalas are primarily found on the Eastern and South-Eastern coastline of the Australian continent.

Breeding and Social Structure: Koalas are generally solitary animals and live in well-defined home ranges. Each home range is often controlled by a single alpha male, with a number of females also living inside that area, These females will mate almost exclusively with the dominant male, who will defend his territory against outside males that may move into the area. Females generally want to reproduce with the largest male, and rely on male vocalizations to assess the potential mate’s size.

Although home ranges may overlap, koalas are mostly solitary animals that avoid confrontations and interactions whenever possible. When males aren’t bellowing to attract mates, communication through sounds and scents is often meant to alert wandering koalas of their presence and prevent encounters. Males are generally more vocal than females, but females will communicate vocally with their young, and both sexes make a variety of noises when in distress.

The koala gestation period is only 34-36 days. The joey is born blind, furless, earless, and only about an inch long. Immediately after being born, it crawls up from the birth canal into the mother’s pouch. There, the joey attaches to one of two teats, and will not emerge from the pouch for approximately six months. After six to seven months of feeding solely on milk, the joey starts consuming its mother’s protein-rich pap, which inoculates the baby’s gut with the necessary microbes for eucalypt digestion. At about 12 months old, the young koala no longer drinks milk or fits in its mother’s pouch. If the mother breeds again, her mature joey will strike out on its own once its younger sibling appears outside the pouch. Female koalas do not always reproduce annually, in which case, the yearling joey may stay with its mother longer. Once independent, the joey remains near its mother’s territory before claiming its own. Koalas become sexually mature at around two or three years, but non-alpha males are far less likely to breed successfully..

Risks: Native predators include goannas, dingoes, predatory birds and pythons. However, human activity poses the most risk to koala populations. Humans hunted koalas for their pelts until koala hunting was outlawed in the late 1930s. Today, koalas face excessive habitat loss due to urban and agricultural development in the region, forcing them to live in smaller areas and closer to human populations. As many as 4,000 koalas are killed each year by run-ins dogs and cars. Isolated populations inbreed, making the animals more susceptible to disease,

Chlamydia is common in koalas, but more likely to develop into dangerous infections when the animals are vulnerable or stressed. Conjunctivitis, caused by chlamydia, can cause pneumonia, blindness, and infections of the reproductive or urinary tract.

Additional Facts:

• In 1816 the koala was given its scientific name, phascolarctos cinereus, which loosely translates to “ash grey pouched bear”.
• Koalas are the only member of the family Phascolarctidae.
• The koala’s closest living relative is the wombat.
• Fossils of koala-like animals have been found dating all the way back to 25-40 million years.
• Koalas are one of the few mammals apart from primates to have fingerprints. Koala fingerprints so closely resemble human fingerprints that it can be hard to distinguish between the two.
• A koala’s brain is smaller, when compared to its body, than other marsupial brains: about 0.2% of its body weight. It’s possible a svelte brain saves the koala energy, which it has little to spare because of its nutrient-poor diet.
• The koala only has 11 pairs of ribs, while most mammals have 13.
• In keeping with its low-energy lifestyle, the koala has a lower body temperature than other animals its size: about 97.9 degrees F (36.6 C). For comparison’s sake, healthy temperature for domestic cats and dogs ranges from 100 to 102.5 (37.8 to 39.2 C).

Chernobyl is widely considered to be the worst nuclear plant accident in history. The meltdown was given the highest rating on the International Nuclear Event Scale, Level 7. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 is the only other event to receive a Level 7 rating. Twenty-five years after the Chernobyl disaster, radiation levels continue to be unsafe in areas surrounding the plant, and meltdown-related environmental and health effects in the region persist.

National Parks Poster by J. Hirt for WPA, Library of Congress

National Parks: In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Act that established Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park. Sequoia and Yosemite followed, both designated as national parks in the year 1890. In 1916, the Organic Act led to the creation of the National Park Service, a bureau of the Department of the Interior, to protect all designated national park land. The fundamental purpose of National Park Service is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”  Hunting, commercial fishing, livestock grazing, mining and logging are all strictly prohibited on national park land.  Today, a total of 84.9 million acres has been designated national park land, approximately 3.6% of all land in the United States. Of the 84.9 million acres in the National Park Service, 55 million acres are located in Alaska.

A few of the 58 National Parks in the United States:
Arcadia, Badlands, Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, Crater Lake, Death Valley, Denali, Everglades, Glacier, Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Great Basin, Hot Springs, Joshua Tree, Katmai, Mammoth Cave, Mesa Verde, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Petrified Forest, Redwood, Sequoia, Shenandoah, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion

National Forests: In 1891, the Forest Reserve Act allowed the president to designate public land reserves. Fourteen years later, the Transfer Act placed these reserves, which were renamed national forests, under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture. The U.S. Forest Service was created within the department specifically to regulate and manage these lands. Similar to national parks, land preservation is one of the primary functions of national forests. However, unlike national parks, these forests and grasslands are open to commercial activities like logging, livestock, as well as recreational activities like camping, hunting, and fishing. Currently, 193 million acres of land is designated national forests, located in 42 states. The first Chief of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, once stated that National Forest land is managed “to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.”

U.S. Wildernesses: Wilderness areas were established in response to heightened concern about pollution in the 1950s and 1960s. The Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. The Act gave a legal definition of the term wilderness:

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

The passage of the Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) to protect the then 9 million acres of federal land officially recognized as U.S. wilderness. Wilderness areas are parts of national parks, wildlife refuges, national forests, and the public domain.  Today, there are 107.5 million acres of wilderness spanning 44 states and Puerto Rico, accounting for 4.82% of the United States. About half of that total is in the state of Alaska. The largest contiguous U.S. wilderness area is the Noatak and Gates of the Arctic Wilderness in Alaska at close to 13 million acres. Broken up by a series of roads into 35 small wilderness areas, Death Valley Wilderness is technically the largest wilderness area outside Alaska. However, at close to 2.4 million acres, Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness is the largest, roadless protected wilderness area in the lower 48.

Wilderness areas are managed by four federal land management agencies: the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Unlike national parks, wilderness areas allow regulated hunting. And although wilderness areas prohibit logging, mining, and motorized vehicles, some resource extraction and livestock grazing persists in areas where those activities occurred prior to its wilderness status.

To be eligible for wilderness designation, an area must be at least 5,000 acres large or a roadless island; appear natural with unnoticeable human presence; provide space for recreational activities and solitude; and contain features that are deemed ecologically, scientifically, or historically significant.