Natural History Articles

"The Yangtze’s Peril, Promise: Exploring Above and Below China's Three Gorges Dam." Fort Collins Coloradoan, August 20, 2015, Xplore sec., Killer River, Monster Dam
The Three Gorges Dam is, by most counts, the largest dam in the world, 1.3 miles wide, and impounds more water than any other dam, creating a lake 400 miles long, about the length of Lake Superior. Three scenic wild gorges were drowned. The Yangtze River flood in 1931 killed 3.7 million. The dam is built to withstand a scale 7 earthquake, and there is uncertainty about the likelihood of an earthquake. The Communists envision what they call an "ecological civilization," although there is an omnipresent grey haze from pollution resulting from development. Three Gorges is a perfect model for Communist glory in heroic labor. This masterpiece of human construction has replaced and tamed three gorges, masterpieces of nature.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/167459

"Learning How to Think Like a Mountain," Fort Collins Coloradoan, August 12, 2012, Xplore sec.
Rolston reports on a search to find the site where Aldo Leopold shot a wolf and watched the green fire in her dying eyes, learning to think like a mountain, Apache National Forest, Arizona. Thinking big in the big outdoors.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/70409

"Wild Horses, Vast Desert: Mongolia's Cultural and Natural History Both Unique on Earth," Fort Collins Coloradoan, October 9, 2014, sec. C, Xplore.
Rolston travels to Mongolia to see Przewalski's horses, or takhi, the only truly wild horse, never domesticated, once extinct in the wild, and now restored to the Mongolian landscape from horses that were captive in European zoos. This distinct species has two more chromosomes than domestic horses. It became extinct in Mongolia in the 1960's and was restored by Dutch veterinarians in the 1990's, after Mongolia became independent, overthrowing the Communists. Rolston finds two groups, stallions with mares, one foal, a dozen takhi. Also, argali, the largest most robust bighorn sheep. Visit to Gobi desert. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/86382

"The Spring Bear Hunt Isn't Fair: End It," The Denver Post, May 6, 1990, sec. H
Article arguing against spring bear hunting in the state of Colorado. In the spring bear hunt, especially with dogs, cubs are separated from their nursing mothers. If the sow is killed, the cubs starve. Bear hunting is seldom for meat, largely trophy and recreational hunting. Does Colorado wish to be a state where macho men shoot nursing mothers for fun? Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/35656

"Great Dismal Swamp is Not a Dismal Place at All," Fort Collins Coloradoan, September 29, 2013, sec. C
Rolston account of paddling the Great Dismal Swamp along a "ditch" (canal) dug by the slaves of George Washington, in southeastern Virginia. Lake Drummond, natural and cultural history, folklore, biodiversity in the swamp, first settlers. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/80604

"Mystery and Majesty in Washington County," Virginia Wildlife, 29, no. 11 (Nov. 1968): 6-7, 22-23
Rolston's accounts exploring fauna, flora, and natural history in Washington County, Southwestern Virginia, during a decade of residence there, 1960s. A tribute to the Southern Appalachian hills that once were home. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/39370

"September Hawking on Clinch Mountain," Virginia Wildlife, 25, no. 9 (Sept. 1964): 9, 21-22
Fall raptor migrations observed from Clinch Mountain, Washington County, Virginia, late 1950s, early 1960s. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/39369

"Madagascar Offers Rare Experience," Fort Collins Coloradoan, Nov. 28, 2010, Xplore sec.
Rolston's account of a trip to Madagascar in October 2010. Lemurs, endemic fauna and flora, flying foxes, conservation in Madagascar, loss of biodiversity, forests, eroded landscape, poverty of Malagasy people. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/39372

"Bristolian Shoots Rapids on America's Wildest River," Bristol Herald Courier (Bristol, Va. and Tenn., Daily), Sunday, Aug. 27, 1967, sec. A.
Rolston's account of a river run through the Grand Canyon, Lee's Ferry to Lake Mead, July 27-August 5, 1967. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/39366

"Wolves Pack in Entertainment," Fort Collins Coloradoan, April 10, 2011, Xplore sec.
Rolston's account of tracking and watching wolves in Yellowstone National Park, March 2011. Agate Creek Pack, and yearling pups. Lamar Pack and elk kills. Grizzly eating bison. Alpha 06 female, pregnant, and recollections of her chasing bears from her den. Sixteen years of wolf restoration in Yellowstone.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/41093

"Searching for Tigers in India," Fort Collins Coloradoan, April 28, 2013, sec. C.
Rolston spots two tigers in the wild, one in Ranthambore National Park, one in Kanha National Park in India. Other wildlife seen: leopard, cheetal, sambar, barasinga, nilgai, gaur, wild pigs, jackals, Sarus cranes, bar headed geese. Conservation of tigers in India. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/79013

"Komodo Dragons Highlight Indonesian Adventure," Fort Collins Coloradoan, Nov. 6, 2011, Xplore sec.
Rolston account of a September 2011 trip to see Komodo dragons in the wild, on Komodo and Rinca Islands, Indonesia. Also Orange-footed Scrubfowl, or Megapodes.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/46012

"The Pasqueflower," Natural History: Magazine of the American Museum of Natural History 88, no. 4 (April 1979): 6-16.
The Pasqueflower surviving through winter, blooming at the Pasque, Easter, offers a glimpse of the precocious exuberance of life, a token of the covenant of life to continue in beauty despite the wintry storms. T o pause at first encountering it in spring is to find a moment of truth, a moment of memory and promise. Let winters come, life will flower on as long as Earth shall last. For video "Rolston viewing a Pasqueflower" see: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/192784
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37703

"We Should Preserve Our Western Skyline," Fort Collins Coloradoan, April 18, 1981, sec. A.
Advocating saving Horsetooth Mountain as a county park, with a referendum for sales tax increase enabling purchase of land owned by a farmer and threatened by development. Horsetooth Mountain should be preserved as the most distinctive of the foothills peaks between Denver and Wyoming. The logo of the city of Fort Collins is this mountain, with a skein of geese, chosen as a scene distinctive to our home landscape. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37434

"Save Poudre as Signature of Eternity," Fort Collins Coloradoan, January 18, 1984, sec. A
Advocating saving the Poudre River as wild and scenic, against development and dams for irrigation and residential water. The Poudre River canyon is an age-old gorge with a river still flowing free, an impressive signature of time and eternity. Having it near a growing metropolitan area, Fort Collins, is especially important for keeping a sense of perspective in the Rocky Mountain West. Saving the Poudre preserves wildness and simultaneously keeps those who visit it better proportioned persons.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37435

"Siberia: Beautiful, Bleak, Full of Uncertainty," Fort Collins Coloradoan, July 29, 1997, sec. D.
Report on a trip to Siberia and Lake Baikal, with a focus on conservation biology, led by Russian scientists, and sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Riding the Trans-Siberian railway across its wildest stretches and exploring the oldest and deepest lake on Earth, with 1,500 endemic species. What should Siberia be? Forever wild? Developed? Certainly, not further exploited and impoverished. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37334

"Call of the Wild: African Safari a Mix of Intrigue, Adventure and Survival," Fort Collins Coloradoan, Oct. 30, 1999, sec. D.
Report on trip to Botswana, environmental conservation and biodiversity, May-June 1999. Encountering a leopard in the night and wild dogs on the hunt gives experience of the ancient struggle to eat and not be eaten. Life persists in the midst of its perpetual perishing. The Dark Continent is exuberant with life. These rare carnivores struggle to survive, endangered species that ought to be conserved. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37333

"Nepal: Sublime Surrounds Simple Life," Fort Collins Coloradoan, March 28, 1998, sec. D.
Report on trip to Nepal, environmental conservation, and human development, 1998. A trek in the Himalayas proves a stimulating mix of the sublime majesty of nature and the simple life of the Nepalis. They eke out a living, terracing steep slopes with manual labor. They seem backward; there is personal integrity in their weathered faces. Everest is an icon of this dialectic of majesty and poverty. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37329

"Nature of the Beast: in Uganda, People and Primates Face Unique Struggles," Fort Collins Coloradoan, Dec. 7, 2003, sec. G.
Report on trip to Uganda: gorilla and chimpanzee conservation and development. Uganda primate encounters leave a more lasting searching both for human origins and future hopes. Here the human species, exemplified in these Ugandans overcoming tragedy and hardship, is seeking to conserve these nearest of our primate kin. Paradoxically, in that very caring, we reveal the still quite stupendous divide that separates us from them. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37332

"Galapagos: Following in Darwin's Footsteps," Fort Collins Coloradoan, June 1, 2008, sec. E.
Report on trip to the Galapagos Islands. Rolston recalls Darwin's experience encountering hundreds of "most disgusting, clumsy lizards," three-foot marine iguanas. Not "pretty," but then again not "disgusting." He is not surprised that the weird wildlife had set the young Darwin thinking. Strangely, Darwin's genius at recognizing these remote islands as an evolutionary hotspot led to a revolution in the human view of who we are, where we are, and even of life itself. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37331

"Exploring the Great Migration of the Serengeti," Fort Collins Coloradoan, June 3, 2007, sec. E.
Report on trip to see the wildebeest migration in the Serengeti, Tanzania. In the vast wildebeest migration, a million and a half ungainly antelope migrate a thousand miles showing an endurance that belies their clumsy appearance. The American West once had a more vast migration: over 30 million bison, and we lost that greater wonder. Tanzanians, among the poorer nations, are quite resolved to keep the wildebeest free on their landscape. Older than human history, today this is the greatest wildlife show on Earth. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37330

"Wolves Resuming Their Rightful Place in Our Ecosystem," Fort Collins Coloradoan, March 24, 1996, sec. E.
Commentary on seeing the recently re-introduced Yellowstone wolves in the wild. First we heard the howl, spine-tingling, raising goose pimples. Seeing a wolf pack on a kill recalls the age-old love-hate relationship of humans with a majestic animal. Misled by Little Red Riding Hood, we have long misunderstood the wolf. Restoring wolves to Yellowstone is making moral progress. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37328

"The Coldest Place on Earth: Forbidding, Foreboding Antarctica Shrouded in Ice and Mystery," Fort Collins Coloradoan, June 24, 2000, sec. D.
Report on trip to Antarctica, environmental conservation, January-February, 2000. Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, loneliest place on Earth--nature in her wildest and most relentless moods. This is the uninhabited continent, not just by humans, but quite forbidding for land animals. The penguins and seals are only marginally on land. Just this extreme wildness proved Antarctica's deepest attraction. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37327

"Hewn and Cleft From This Rock: Meditation at the Precambrian Contact," Main Currents in Modern Thought 27, no. 3 (January-February 1971): 79-83.
Encounter with the Precambrian contact exposed at Pardee Point in Doe River Gorge, East Tennessee, brings reflections about human origins, evolving and cleft from ancient rocks. Geochemistry has its sequel in biochemistry. The hiker crosses that fossil sequence recorded in the strata. A discontinuity is crossed with the coming of humans: A sheriff crossing the contact in search of moonshiners. The rocks are a sacrament that overlie a Presence. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/37104

"Bryum knowltonii New to the United States." Bryologist 85(1982):420. Rolston found the moss in the subalpine Colorado mountains.

Rolston in Taiwan in 2008, including visit to ancient Confucius tree, sprouted when Confucius was born, about 551 B. C.

October 29, 2008, I was in the "Divine Trees Park." at a high elevation for Taiwan. The oldest tree was the Confucius tree, said to have sprouted in 551 B.C. This was a Taiwan Red Cypress, Chamaecyparis formosensis, and some 2,500 years old. The tree was 7 meters in circumference and 44 meters tall (about half a football field). This was not the largest of the trees. The dates given for Confucius are 551 B.C. - 479 B.C. Of some forty old trees, the typical dates varied, from maybe 500 years, often in the 1500 year range, and some 2000, only the Confucius tree was that old. One was named for Genghis Khan, sprouting in 1155 A.D. There were lush ferns on the forest floor.

So I stood there thinking how much had happened since Confucius, also wondering if anything Confucius had to say was relevant to environmental ethics, global issues today, and much doubting it. Also with some fear what Earth might be like 2,500 years hence. I did think this was a marvel of natural history that I was standing before a tree that was alive five centuries before Jesus.

For an account of other Rolston adventures in the natural history of Taiwan. or Formosa, "the beautiful island," see https://docs.google.com/document/d/12UumjiKZAR-NaJaYxwsg5c7diKsQ_XgD/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=102646873080140074008&rtpof=true&sd=true