The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
Over the past four years, the number of endangered Indiana bats in New York State has plummeted about 50 percent. And that’s the good news. The populations of other bat species in the state have fallen as much as 90 percent. State biologist Al Hicks told the Adirondack Park Agency on Thursday that three species—the…
By Phil Brown
In this age of climate change, it’s nice to know that April showers still bring May flowers. This afternoon, I took my customary jaunt up Baker Mountain and found many wildflowers in bloom, including spring beauty, trout lily, red trillium, saxifrage, yellow violets, and Dutchman’s breeches. I am always amused by the last flower—both its…
How logging, fish stocking, acid rain, and other man-made calamities nearly wiped out an Adirondack icon: the wild brookie. By George Earl In early May, vernal patches of birch stood out among the darker evergreens lining the remote kettle-hole pond. As we put our canoe into the icy water, a welcome breeze dispersed the cloud…
By Phil Brown
A year ago, scientists learned that a large bat hibernaculum exists somewhere near Chapel Pond. They inferred as much when dying bats were discovered flying around Route 73 last March, long before bats usually emerge from hibernation. Peregrine falcons that nest near Chapel Pond also discovered the bats. They returned from their winter habitat early…
By Phil Brown
A top-secret confidential source sent me a link to a YouTube clip that offers definitive proof that the government is releasing mountain lions in the Adirondacks. It’s part of a Nazi plot.
By Phil Brown
A coalition of environmental groups launched an ad campaign today to protest Governor David Paterson’s proposed $69 million cut to the Environmental Protection Fund, which is used to pay for a variety of green initiatives, including land preservation. The Adirondack Council sent us the ad below, which features a snapping turtle, eastern bluebird, beaver, and brook…
By Phil Brown
Did you hear they found a dead mountain lion in Black Brook? It was hit by a car. The state Department of Environmental Conservation picked up the carcass and hauled it away the other day. There’s even a photograph to prove it. Naturally, DEC put out a news release denying the whole thing, but what…
By Phil Brown
State wildlife biologists experimented for years with different methods to keep bears from stealing campers’ food in the High Peaks Wilderness. Finally, the state decided to require all campers in the eastern High Peaks to store food in bear-resistant canisters. This not a problem unique to the Adirondacks. The latest issue of the Journal of…
By Phil Brown
Bob Marshall was one of the original Adirondack Forty-Sixers, but he thought he was born too late. He would have preferred to have lived in the nineteenth century, before the Adirondacks were overrun by civilization. Well, Bob is now part of the twenty-first century. John Warren, the guy behind the Adirondack Almanack, reports in his…
Asian longhorned beetle and emerald ash borer poised to decimate Adirondack forests. By Judith Harper and Phil Brown Exotic insects have invaded the Adirondacks before. Since the 1960s, the beech-scale insect has devastated the region’s beech trees—so much so that scientists believe the species may not survive here. More recently, the Sirex woodwasp has infested…