Ask Santa for a donation to the National Wildlife Federation's California program! Donate today and help support our important work in the state. THANK YOU!
California Wildlife Needs YOU!
Bighorn sheep in Anza-Borrego State Park (Photo by Beth Pratt)I enjoy sharing my adventures in Yosemite and the other marvelous natural places that California has to offer. If you like reading this blog, would you consider making a donation to the National Wildlife Federation to help support my organization's work in California? As the new California Director for NWF, I am really excited about the programs and initiatives we are developing in the state that will help protect the wildlife I cherish.
Pacific chorus frog in my backyard (photo by Beth Pratt)My website is entirely volunteer, I take no advertising and I pay all of the expenses myself. So if you can make a small donation to NWF California, I promise to keep posting photos and updates in my spare time to share the special places and remarkable creatures of California with you.
You can donate at my NWF fundraising page on Crowdrise. My goal is to raise $3,000 by 12/31.
See campaign information below and some special gifts you can receive for donating!
THANK YOU! And I also thank you on behalf of the frogs, fairy shrimp, pika, bighorn sheep, desert tortoise and other creatures of California.
Pika in Yosemite at Gaylor Lakes (photo by Beth Pratt)California’s Wildlife Needs YOU!
Remember when you tried to catch your first frog as a child, laughing as you scurried after the leaping creature in your backyard? Or have you witnessed the sheer delight your own children experience when they chase a frog hopping away?
Today, it’s not easy being green, and a third of all amphibian species are on the verge of extinction. That includes two of California’s beloved frogs, the mountain yellow-legged, and the red-legged frogs.
California’s frogs—and other creatures—need your help.
In the California of the future, will the cheerful chirping of the pika disappear from the mountains in Yosemite? Will the Chinook salmon no longer swim in California’s rivers? Will the bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise vanish from the Mojave desert?
Your donation will help support the National Wildlife Federation’s work in California, including important wildlife protection initiatives and vital research, and education and outreach programs to help engage California’s diverse population on wildlife and conservation issues.
As America’s largest conservation organization, the National Wildlife Federation works with more than 4 million members, partners, and supporters across the country to inspire Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future.
Beth with Ranger Rick in YosemiteJoin Team Wildlife today—and help us protect California’s remarkable creatures!
Thank you for your support!
Donate $10 and you'll be entered into a drawing to receive a Ranger Rick OR a Yosemite gift pack.
Donate $75 and you'll receive a free subscription to Ranger Rick Magazine.
Donate $150 and receive a framed wildlife photo of your choice from my collection.
Donate $500 and NWF's California Director, Beth Pratt, will take you on a fun and educational day hike in Yosemite National Park.
Walking across Tenaya Lake in Yosemite
Update: hear about my adventures and the story behind the dry December on KQED news.
Tenaya Lake from the west shore (photo by Beth Pratt)
After hearing the news of Tioga Pass reopening on Friday afternoon, I knew I couldn’t resist the lure of seeing Tuolumne Meadows this late in the season. The road opening this late in the winter is a rarity—since 1980, it’s been open only three times in December and the latest date was December 11 (although it did reopen briefly in 1999 on January 1).
But the statistics don’t capture the magnificence of the sublime season in Tioga Country. I stood on the west shore of Tenaya Lake and listened as the ice shifted and broke—it sounded like whales singing (you can hear this music at the beginning of the video I posted in this entry). At the more solidly frozen eastern shore, I slid across the lake in my sneakers, accompanied by Paul, a resident of Crowley Lake, as he skated and yielded his hockey stick. We both agreed on the sheer awesomeness of being out here so late in the year. Touching one of the tops of the “ghost trees” peeking out of the ice of Tenaya Lake definitely ranked as one of the coolest nature moments of the year for me.
Driving to Tioga Pass, I gazed at my favorite mountain friends, Mt Conness, Mt Dana, Mt Gibbs, and Cathedral Peak—and also noticed their distinct lack of a winter coat. Last year the snowfall shattered a number of records, but so far this season winter seems slow to arrive. Although we need the snow and the water it brings (70% of our water in the west comes from snowpack), I am grateful into this rare glimpse at the winter world of Tuolumne and the Yosemite high country. So my request to Mother Nature (and the National Park Service) is to keep the pass open through the holidays, and then let it snow!
Ghost tree in the ice on Tenaya Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)
Playing hockey on Tenaya Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)
Tioga Lake (photo Beth Pratt)
Tuolumne Meadows from Pothole Dome (photo by Beth Pratt)
Mt Conness from Saddlebag Lake Road (photo by Beth Pratt)
Ice bubbles on Tenaya Lake (photo by Beth Pratt)
Dana Meadows (photo by Beth Pratt)
Mammoth Peak and Dana Fork (photo by Beth Pratt)
What a day in Yosemite! Tioga Pass, Tuolumne Meadows, Gaylor Peak and TWO Bald Eagles
Santa came early for me this year and gave me the gifts of Tioga Pass opening, blue Sierra skies with 50F temperatures at 10,000 feet, and not one but two bald eagle sightings in one day. Maybe I was good this year!
After hearing that Tioga Pass reopened yesterday, I dashed up to the high country this morning, wandered around Tuolumne Meadows and then climbed Gaylor Peak. On my drive up the Merced River Canyon near Briceburg, I spotted a bald eagle perched on a tree. I rarely see bald eagles in this area, so imagine my surprise later in the day when another one soared above me while I hiked up Gaylor Peak. The good weather is supposed to continue this week, so I urge you all to take a trip up to Yosemite National Park and drive to Tuolumne to see the winter landscape. For those who can't make the trip, here's a selection of photos I took today. Enjoy!
Bald eagle in Merced River Canyon on highway 140 near Briceburg (photo by Beth Pratt)
Bald eagle soaring over Gaylor Lakes in Yosemite (photo by Beth Pratt)
Tioga Lake from Gaylor Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)
Granite Lake from Gaylor Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)
Tuolumne Meadows, Cathedral Peak, and Mt Hoffman from Gaylor Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)
Gaylor Lake Basin from Gaylor Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)
Tuolumne Meadows (photo by Beth Pratt)
Tenaya Lake with Mt Conness in background (photo by Beth Pratt)
Gaylor Peak (photo by Beth Pratt)
Mt Dana and Mt Gibbs (photo by Beth Pratt)
Clouds Rest (photo by Beth Pratt)
Why I Am Thankful for Nebraskan Ranchers, Daryl Hannah, Leslie Iwerks, and the Delay of the Keystone XL Pipeline
Nebraskan rancher and anti-pipeline spokesperson Susan Leubbe who is featured in the film Pipe Dreams.Last week I attended the Los Angeles premiere of Pipe Dreams, a documentary by Leslie Iwerks that examines the Keystone Pipeline XL project. The National Wildlife Federation has been campaigning against this environmental travesty for almost two years, and our Senior Vice President for Conservation, Jeremy Symons, appears in the film. Pipe Dreams is one of eight films shortlisted for the Academy Award for best documentary.
As Pipe Dreams demonstrates, the project—despite claims by TransCanada and others—provides very little (if any) economic benefit to the United States, has devastating environmental consequences and poses grave threats to human health, livestock and agriculture. The proposed route crosses some of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the region and through the family lands of hundreds of farmers and ranchers. As Nebraska Republican Senator Mike Johanns has observed: “[There] could not be a worse route in the entire state of Nebraska … Maybe couldn’t be a worse route in the entire country.”
View the trailer for the documentary Pipe Dreams
Viewing the fly-overs in the film of the tar sand mining sites was akin to watching the terrifying scenes of Mordor in Lord of the Rings. Daniel Glick describes the sites in his article “Tar Sands Trouble” in the most recent issue of NWF’sNational Wildlife: “Massive toxic tailings ponds, open-pit mines, chemical-belching smokestacks and processing plants now stretched along hundreds of square miles that were once part of an intact boreal forest wilderness.” These new wastelands threaten numerous wildlife, including moose, caribou, migrating songbirds, and the whooping crane, a bird once on the verge of extinction.
Talking with Daryl Hannah at the Pipe Dreams PremiereTars sands, also known as dirty oil, bears little resemblance to the smooth brown liquid we pour in our cars every three months or 5,000 miles. As a recent NWF report concluded, “The Canadian tar sands industry is, by almost any measure, one of the most wasteful and polluting industries humanity has ever invented.” Producing oil from tar sands creates toxic lakes with cancer-causing chemicals, and emits three times the greenhouse gases of conventional oil. And tar sands oil also has an atrocious safety record—it accounted for over half of all crude oil spilled in the U.S. in 2010. Recent spills in Montana in the Yellowstone River and in Michigan in the Kalamazoo River attest to the destructive nature of the spills—tars sands oil is difficult to clean up as unlike conventional crude, it sinks in water.
So given all these alarming statistics I just cited, why I am thankful?
This pipeline was thought to be a done deal by TransCanada. Yet a grassroots movement by the American people caused President Obama to delay the project and request further environmental review.
The Q&A panel at the Pipe Dreams premiere in Los AngelesAt the screening, I was honored to be a member of a very inspirational panel with director, Leslie Iwerks, the film’s narrator, actress/activist Daryl Hannah, producer Jane Kosek, and mother-daughter Nebraskan ranchers and anti-pipeline spokespeople featured in the film, Susan and Allaura Leubbe. And I give my thanks to all of them for the commitment they displayed in not letting Big Oil bully American citizens into approving a pipeline that threatens people, wildlife and our homelands. Susan and Allaura inspire me with their love of their ranch and their refusal to be intimidated by threats of eminent domain from TransCanada. Daryl Hannah inspires me with her relentless activism for all life on this planet. Leslie Iwerks inspires me with her determination in exposing social and environmental injustices with her excellent filmmaking. And I am inspired by nonprofits like NWF that help citizens with these important fights. So I’ll add them all to my list of what I am thankful for this Thanksgiving.
Although the Obama administration recently delayed the decision of the Keystone Pipeline XL, we still need to take action to ensure the project is permanently halted. Visit NWF’s Tar Sands Action center to find out how you can help.
Pipe Dreams is showing at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theater in Los Angeles through November 24 at 7:30 pm daily. For showings of Pipe Dreams in your area, visit the film’s website.