The Immorality of Extinction

May 20, 2025May 20, 2025 / Mike Fitz

North America was once home to the world’s most abundant wild bird. Although passenger pigeons could be found anywhere east of the Rocky Mountains, they concentrated their abundance between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River, especially from the Great Lakes to the Mid Atlantic and east to Massachusetts. No one knows how many passenger pigeons roamed North America a mere two hundred years ago, but credible estimates suggest three to five billion—a population size that may have exceeded that of any population for any other bird species on Earth. Flocks of pigeons could be so numerous and so dense as to block the light of the sun “as by an eclipse” as John James Audubon experienced in 1813.

Passenger pigeons were also intensely social. Their roosts were communal. So many birds could alight on a tree that branches and sometimes whole trees broke under their collective weight. Their guano collected on the ground like snow. Successful reproduction hinged on a critical mass of birds finding suitable food. They were omnivores, yet fruits and seeds formed the bulk of their diet even when nesting. Masting species such as beech and oaks were preferred. A year with a good acorn crop could sustain breeding flocks that included tens of millions of individuals.

When men arrived with firearms, the pigeon’s sociability and flocking behavior proved to be their Achilles heel. Passenger pigeons lived a nomadic lifestyle—moving between areas with enough food to support their prodigious numbers—but when they settled in an area to breed, people flocked to them like the birds flocked to acorns. Hunters shot into flying flocks and as they roosted in trees, often killing and maiming dozens at a time. Nets and traps were designed to capture hundreds of birds at once. Nestlings, known as squabs, were knocked out of their nests with poles before they could fly or the trees with squabs were cut down or burned. Barrels of dead birds were shipped away and sold in city markets. They were often captured and used for target practice and shooting competitions. “Clay” pigeons in modern shooting sports are replacements for shooting live pigeons, including passenger pigeons.

The human toll was so intense that passenger pigeons went from the planet’s most numerous bird to extinct within one human lifetime.¹ We’ll never experience them again. Martha, the last remaining passenger pigeon, died on September 1, 1914 at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Black and white photo of a pigeon sitting on a branch. The bird is looking to the left and is facing away from the camera so we mostly see its back, left wing, and tail. — *^{Martha, that last surviving passenger pigeon, photographed in 1912. Few photographic subjects are as sad as a photo of the last surviving member of its species.}*

Uncontrolled, unregulated hunting was the ultimate cause of the passenger pigeon’s extinction, although their demise coincided with intense deforestation across the majority of their range. By the late 1800s, all but shreds of forest were removed from the pigeon’s range. They faced unrelenting human pressure on two fronts: direct killing and habitat loss. I wonder if passenger pigeons could have survived the slaughter if enough undisturbed forest remained for them to find refuge and raise their young until market hunting was outlawed in the U.S. and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 provided formal protection.

All this makes a proposed regulatory change to the Endangered Species Act² (ESA) all the more asinine. Segments of our society and culture have yet to understand the necessity of habitat in preventing extinction or realize the immorality of extinction.

Since its passage, the ESA has been the most powerful and impactful regulatory tool in preventing extinction in the United States. The ESA is not perfect, but it has helped prevent the extinction of more than 99 precent of threatened and endangered species under the act’s protection. It works well largely because the ESA includes habitat loss alongside hurting/killing of threatened or endangered individual organisms in its definition of “harm.” If, for example, an endangered plant lives in a wetland then you couldn’t excavate a ditch to drain the wetland. That would prevent the plant from surviving and reproducing. Draining the wetland alters the plant’s habitat negatively when the plant needs the wetland’s hydrology intact to survive. Current federal ESA regulations would consider such a scenario as “take” because draining the wetland would caused clear harm to the endangered plants. The ESA would prohibit altering the wetland even if no person went into the wetland to kill or damage the plants.

For wildlife and plants, habitat is equivalent to home. Protecting habitat is a logical and necessary step to prevent extinction. Often, it is the first step.

Yet the federal government proposes to redefine “harm” as it relates to the ESA so that habitat loss and destruction are not sources of harm for threatened or endangered species. The summary for the rule change states, “The existing regulatory definition of ‘harm,’ which includes habitat modification, runs contrary to the best meaning of the statutory term ‘take.’” In other words, harm to an organism’s home is not equivalent to harm to individuals. (The background and summary info then attempt to justify this point by arguing the ESA was never really meant to protect habitat, and “harm” should be limited to killing, capturing, or injuring. It cites Supreme Court cases and dissents about what “take” means. I’m not a lawyer or legal scholar so I won’t attempt to weigh an opinion on whether the cases are applicable to the ESA but, frankly, if there is any ambiguity then Congress should amend the ESA so that habitat destruction is “take” and “harm.” That’s an unrealistic dream in today’s political climate, I know.)

Limiting the ESA’s definition of harm to only killing and hurting individual organisms is a vastly unscientific and illogical decision. The consequences of the proposed change could be catastrophic for endangered species. It would allow the federal government to ignore the importance of habitat when evaluating development and other activities on threatened and endangered species. Building a dam that blocks endangered salmon from migrating would not be “harm” because the dam didn’t outright kill salmon returning to spawn; they just couldn’t spawn. Cutting down a condor’s nesting tree wouldn’t be “harm” as long the condors weren’t injured when the tree fell. Draining an endemic salamander’s stream wouldn’t be “harm” because you didn’t kill or capture any salamanders; they simply lost their home and food. Building an oil rig in a polar bear maternal denning area wouldn’t be “harm” if the mother polar bears aren’t in the dens; it wouldn’t matter if they couldn’t find denning habitat elsewhere. Building a parking lot on a sage grouse lek wouldn’t be “harm” because the grouse didn’t die during construction; they simply couldn’t court and reproduce. Polluting a river so that sea grass beds die wouldn’t be “harm;” it didn’t directly poison any manatees to death, just led to their slow starvation.

Perhaps with adequate habitat protections in place, passenger pigeons could still be part of our shared landscape. We’ll never know.

Since Martha’s death, extinction rates have accelerated due to human pressure. Market hunting may be a thing of the past in the United States at least, but habitat loss is not. A 2022 study found that habitat destruction was the main threat of extinction for 71 percent of endangered species worldwide. (Overexploitation, which is another way of stating human hunting/harvest was the main factor for 7.4 percent of endangered species.) The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 28 percent of all assessed species as threatened with extinction. Humans and our livestock and pets outweigh wild vertebrates globally. Vertebrate animals populations have declined more than 70 percent worldwide since the 1970s. In North America alone, bird populations are reduced 3 billion compared to the 1970s—a stat that doesn’t include the loss of passenger pigeons. Most fish populations are overexploited and many are near collapse. We’re poised to mine the deep sea even though we have seen almost none of the life that exists there. All this has happened within my lifetime, and while people in our government argue with a straight face that habitat considerations should not be included in ESA’s regulations. The ultimate legacy of my generation and my parents’ generation may be to leave behind an ecologically impoverished planet. It is a moral failing.

I recently read Apocalypse Never, a book that, through a great deal of cherry-picked data, contends (unsuccessfully IMO) that climate change and biodiversity loss aren’t big deals. At the end of the book, the author Michael Shellenberger writes, “Scientists have long named self-interest as the reason for why humans should care about endangered species like the mountain gorilla. But if the mountain gorillas were ever to go extinct, humankind would become spiritually, not materially, poorer.”

In our short time on Earth, segments of humanity have been insulated from the material costs of extinction, largely because the nature supporting different groups of people wasn’t directly tied to the survival of any one species. When the last mammoth died, were people in Australia or Africa affected? When Steller’s sea cow vanished, did the farmer watching pigeons in Pennsylvania notice? When the last passenger pigeon died, did people in Japan or Bangladesh or Sweden mourn?

Yet extinction is an impoverishing event. We don’t know, and can’t know, how we’d value passenger pigeons today. We know that we are materially poorer because we’ve been denied the opportunity to integrate passenger pigeons into a possible sustainable economy—which, yes, could include hunting. Culturally and spiritually, we’ll never experience the joy and awe that some people must have felt as they watched pigeons blot out the sun like an eclipse. We don’t know what else they might have offered. We cannot truly understand or evaluate the possible effects that billions of pigeons had on temperate forests in eastern North America. We were denied the opportunity to know. Likewise, the extinction of mountain gorillas would affect communities in parts of Central Africa. What’s the value—materially, culturally, spiritually—of a gorilla? It is not our place to decide. It is our place to give future generations the opportunity to discover.

When sitting in a comfortable chair surrounded by material wealth it is easy to shrug your shoulders when a species winks out of existence, but allowing extinction is an immoral act. We should know better. Leopold in Sand County Almanac and Kimmerer in The Serviceberry have envisioned better futures. I’m not sure that we are wise enough to heed their advice.

It is immoral to deny future generations the wealth—however you define it—that non-human organisms provide. Moreover, humanity doesn’t own Earth or the organisms we share the planet with. Governments and corporations don’t either. Our non-human neighbors belong to themselves and the future. Morality compels that we don’t arbitrate whether a species is worthy of existence.³ We can continue to be complicit in extinction by allowing governments and corporations to sacrifice species for material wealth or we can build a sustainable future.

Nature is life. Earth is the Ark. We can be its caretakers or simply its takers.

I recommend A Feathered River Across the Sky by Joel Greenberg you want to learn more about passenger pigeons. ↩︎
The public comment period for the proposed regulatory change closed on May 19, before I published this post. ↩︎
This isn’t an absolute. We can defend ourselves from organisms that cause us harm such as the Guinea worm or the protozoan that causes malaria. It is ethical to remedy the suffering certain organisms cause us. These are decisions to make on a case-by-case basis. ↩︎

Tide Watching at Bay of Fundy

December 19, 2024December 22, 2024 / Mike Fitz / 4 Comments

Consider the plight of the northern acorn barnacle. They begin life as planktonic larvae drifting in the vast ocean, motile yet vulnerable. If one survives its many instar stages, it then seeks a more permanent home. The barnacle settles out of the water column and glues their antennae to a rock or other suitable location where they metamorphose into the shelly animal that we’re most familiar with. There’s no going back at this stage of life. The barnacle has become forever sessile with a head cemented to rock and legs filtering food from the water.

GIF from underwater video showing barnacles on a rock. The barnacles are open and filtering food from the water. — *^{“How else would you attach to a rock?” the barnacle asks. “Certainly not with your feet. You could never eat.”}*

Many barnacle larvae never get the opportunity to make a permanent home. Predators or some other hazard culls their numbers. They must be choosy in their settled life too. A forever home needs to be close to other barnacles, since mating takes place between closely neighboring barnacles.

Once secured to the rock, flood tides carry life-sustaining nutrients as well as predators like sea stars and dog whelks. Ebb tides expose the barnacle to suffocating air, potential dehydration, intense summer sun, and winter’s freezing temperatures.

Still, their adaptations provide for success despite the risks. I described it as a plight earlier, and although their journey is filled with uncertainty, perhaps I am being unfair to them. Acorn barnacles are common in North Atlantic intertidal zones. Their shell resists the forces that work against them. The acorn barnacle is a tough critter built for enduring uncertainty and extremes of its intertidal habitat.

Tidal zones and the creatures that make a living amongst the habitat’s extremes have always fascinated me. I’m not aware of any habitat that changes its mood and appearance as much as the intertidal, which is why I found myself earlier this year at Canada’s Fundy National Park, wondering about barnacles and power of the ocean as I watched the biggest tides in the world.

sandy mudflats with a rippled surface border muddy water. Blue skies and tall headlands mark the sky and horizon. — *^{Near Alma, New Brunswick at low tide. The headlands of Fundy National Park encompass the coastline.}*

My first opportunity to really pay attention to tides was at Assateague Island when, fresh out of college, I spent two summers working at the national seashore. Assateague’s modest three-foot tides never became life threatening (not even when I purposefully got myself stuck in quicksand up to my waist). When the tide got inconvenient, I could mosey away. An incoming Fundy tide demands attention, however. Twelve meters—forty feet—of water rise twice a day along Fundy National Park’s headlands. Places farther north and east can experience even larger tides, perhaps 16 meters or greater in height.

I wanted to watch the tides transition fully from low to high, so I planned the trip to coincide with mid morning low tides and mid afternoon high tides. On my first full day in the park, I set up a chair on the Alma Beach about 30 minutes before the predicted nadir of low tide and walked down to the water’s edge.

The outgoing tide opened access to vast mud and sandy flats, which are extraordinarily tempting to explore. After all, who doesn’t see a mile of mud in front on them and not want to be out in it? I had to remain cautious, though. I lacked knowledge of the shorelines topography and the water’s nuanced interactions with it. I worked to always keep an avenue of escape available.

A concrete platform standing on large cyclindrical concrete legs sits against a cliff. A sign on it in red letters says, "Emergency Use Only," and this being Canada, "Sortie d'urgence seulement." — ^{Sortie d’urgence seulement. I found it easy to underestimate the rate at which an incoming Fundy tide swamps the intertidal. Although I avoided it, stranding by incoming tides must have happen often enough to justify the construction of an emergency platform at New Brunswick’s Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park. Respect the water}.

An accident of geography allows Fundy tides to become so large. The bay’s shape accentuates tidal forces. According to NOAA,

“Liquid in a tank, or in this case a basin, will flow back and forth in a characteristic “oscillation” period and, if conditions are right, will oscillate rhythmically. In essence, a standing wave develops. The natural period of oscillation in the Bay of Fundy is approximately 12 hours, which is also about the same length of time for one tidal oscillation (a high/low tide cycle). This coinciding of the tide cycle and the bay oscillation period results in the much larger tidal ranges observed in the bay.”

A graphical map of Bay of Fundy. Header text reads, "Bay of Fundy: Approximate locations of the highest tides." Map shows southern coastal New Brunswick and parts of Nova Scotia. Lines mark the differences in tide levels. — *^{Fundy tide graphic from Siddiqui et al 2015.}*

The shift from ebb to flood tide was easy to see at the water’s edge. Unlike the in-and-out rhythm of waves on a more exposed seashore with smaller tides, the water on the Fundy tide slapped upward with each successive wave once the tide turned.

During a low tide cycle the next day, I walked to the exposed headlands at the Point Wolf River estuary. The shoreline showed all the signs of extreme tides, of course, but I still found the height of the tides hard to fathom. I stood far beneath the lower limit of the acorn barnacles and the rockweeds hanging limp in the dry air. The twisting wrack line from the previous high tide was out of sight on the cliff above. I saw evidence of powerful winter storms that uprooted trees and eroded soils approximately 60 feet above me.

A rocky coastline with muddy water splashing against boulders at bottom center. Seaweed covered rocks lead upward to tall headlands with spruce trees at right. — *^{Headlands at the mouth of Point Wolf River.}*

Within the estuary, the water rolled uphill at the pace of a slow walk.

Tides remain a force that humans cannot control. Like the barnacle, we can only adapt to them. In Alma, the small New Brunswick town adjacent to the national park, lobster boats could leave or enter the harbor only at certain tide levels.

Barnacles seem get on with the business of life no matter the phase of the tide. Yet I can’t help consider what their lives must be like secured to a rock for their entire adult lives, living in a habitat changing at a pace that even a lowly human can see. For them, the intertidal might symbolize perfection.

A Dammed Opportunity

June 4, 2024 / Mike Fitz / 4 Comments

In Maine, Atlantic salmon are highly endangered. Prior to European colonization and, later, industrialization of the landscape’s rivers, hundreds of thousands of salmon returned to spawn in Maine every spring. Now, however, a so-called good year includes the return of 1,500 fish to the Penobscot River, which is Maine’s most productive salmon river, and maybe 2,000 fish total statewide. Maine is also the only state with runs of wild Atlantic salmon.

Kennebec River used to be one of Maine’s great salmon rivers, but its Atlantic salmon are nearly extinct. The recent 10-year average (from 2014-2023) of annual returning adult salmon at the Lockwood fish lift in Waterville, Maine is a mere 51 fish. Salmon fare so poorly in the Kennebec because they encounter four impassible dams between Waterville and Skowhegan. Even so, there’s an opportunity to save the Kennebec’s salmon run if we act now.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is considering relicensing operations on four hydropower dams on the Kennebec River. For decades, these dams have lacked any effective fish passage for salmon and have prevented salmon from reaching upstream spawning areas. If the dams are kept in place, even with improved fish passage efforts, we can expect the dams to continue to harm salmon and heighten their risk of extinction.

Unfortunately, FERC’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for the dams calls for relicensing the facilities at the expense of salmon. At the end of this post, you’ll find the comments that I submitted to FERC about its DEIS. I found reason for extraordinary concern in FERC’s conclusions.

We know that dam removal works to restore fish runs. One of the first and best examples was on the Kennebec in Augusta. The 1999 removal of the Edwards Dam led to a great resurgence of shad, sturgeon, striped bass, river herring, and alewives to the lower Kennebec. Elsewhere in Maine, many people and organizations have worked diligently over the last few decades to restore Atlantic salmon with the largest success occurring on the Penobscot River. (This short podcast explores current efforts to restore sea-run fish in the Penobscot.) On the West Coast, the removal of dams on Washington State’s Elwah River allowed salmon to return in numbers not seen there in 100 years. In California right now, efforts are underway to remove large dams on the Klamath River to open hundreds of miles of river to Chinook and other salmon. In Washington and Idaho there is a growing chorus of support to remove impassible dams on the Snake River for the benefit of salmon and the species (including people) who depend on them.

The upper Kennebec River, though, remains imperiled because four dams block passage of sea-run fish. The few salmon that attempt to return to the upper Kennebec must be captured and transported by truck around the dams to reach any spawning habitat.

In its DEIS, FERC proposes to relicense the dams of the Shawmet Project on the Kennebec. This seems to be another example of conservation minimalism, which was defined in a 2023 paper as “Any minimal standard [that] inevitably excludes some worthwhile conservation targets—values, obligations, and principles that ought to be upheld, or specific ecosystems and species that ought to be protected—by factoring them out as irrelevant to the specified minimum.” That is, humans taking everything but the bare minimum. We allow a species to persist only in greatly restricted ranges or low overall numbers or both. Regarding salmon, the cost-benefit analysis of dams are too often viewed through a lens that obscures the ecological and cultural benefits of fully restored salmon runs. That viewpoint does not allow for the restoration and maintenance of salmon at their fully realized ecologic potential.

Too often, “balancing” the wants of people and needs of wildlife, including fish such as salmon, has meant a cumulative degradation and loss of wildlife habitat. Therefore, the so-called balance is not a compromise with wildlife but harm forced on wildlife and their habitats. These decisions eat away at our natural heritage, piece by piece, leaving each successive human generation with a more impoverished environment than the last. FERC is on the cusp of repeating that mistake on the Kennebec unless the FERC requires stronger, more effective fish passage structures for the Shawmut Project beyond what is already proposed in the DEIS or the dams are removed. These dams are not worth more than salmon. Extinction cannot be an option.

Please comment on the DEIS (docket 2322) if you can (which is not a simple process so see these instructions). But I realize this is a last minute request since the comment period closes today (June 4), and most people don’t have time to wade into a 400-page environmental impact statement. So if you can’t comment this time, then I ask you to keep salmon and other sea-run fish in mind when you make your daily decisions. Vote for people who support wild, sustainable populations of fish and will work to improve protections for salmon, which includes tackling climate change ASAP. Don’t eat farmed salmon, as farmed salmon are one of the greatest threats to the viability of Atlantic salmon in North America, especially in Maritime Canada. Finally, please share the amazing journeys of salmon with people you know. The more people who appreciate the remarkable lives of salmon the better.

Thanks for reading and for your support of wild salmon. Below are my comments on the Shawmut Hydroelectric Project. (FERC restricts comments to 6000 characters, which is quite limiting considering that the documents about relicensing dams often run for hundreds of pages. Nevertheless, I tried my best with the character limit.)

I’m writing to urge FERC to recommend the decommissioning of the Shawmut Hydroelectric Project No. 2322 (Shawmut Project) on the Kennebec river. The fish passage measures outlined in the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) are inadequate and will likely prevent the restoration of self-sustaining runs of sea-run fish, especially Atlantic salmon. FERC should recommend the Shawmut Project’s dams be removed on the Kennebec River.

We lack the necessary skill and knowledge to engineer fish passage that allows all migratory fish species to overcome the challenges created by dams. On the Kennebec River, it is particularly difficult to provide adequate fish passage around dams because the river is home to at least ten diadromous species that migrate at different times of day, different times of the year, and under different hydrologic conditions.

Of utmost concern is the Kennebec’s run of Atlantic salmon, a distinct population that is highly endangered. Their recovery is doubtful as long as dams exist on the Kennebec. The DEIS contains no substantive evidence that adding additional fish passage to the four dams on the lower Kennebec will favor Atlantic salmon and enhance their recovery to a point where the population is no longer endangered.

I’m greatly concerned that Brookfield’s proposed fish passage measures will not provide salmon with the opportunity to migrate rapidly upstream or downstream. For example, page xx of the draft EIS states,

“Brookfield also intends to achieve an adult salmon upstream passage effectiveness standard of 96% within 48 hours of a fish approaching each project, in order to achieve a cumulative upstream effectiveness standard of 84.9% through all four projects within 192 hours.”

“Resident time” is double speak for substantial, harmful migration delays imposed on salmon. A 192-hour delay is an 8-day delay for a salmon to travel about 18 river miles between the lowermost and uppermost dam of the Shawmut Project. Since Atlantic salmon are reliant on stored body fat and protein to fuel upstream migration, this will cost adult salmon vital energy reserves as they attempt to find a way past the dams with negative consequences on their reproductive survival.

Dams make river water warmer and slow its flow. Under future climate conditions, the Kennebec may become warmer during salmon migration periods. Warmer water holds less dissolved oxygen and increases the metabolism of salmon. Therefore, the effects of an 8-day delay will decrease salmon survival and reproduction upstream, regardless of the modeled 84.9% effectiveness.

Pages 55-57 of the DEIS explore the risks of such a delay on salmon, yet somehow the significant, cumulative, and negative consequences of delays due to the dams are deemed acceptable by FERC. Pg 57 of the DEIS states, “Brookfield’s proposal to test the fishway effectiveness and implement additional adaptive management measures … is a reasonable approach.”

However, FERC’s conclusions on page 57 are not consistent with the science cited in the DEIS. For example, page 56 of the DEIS includes the remarkable statistic that under a four dam scenario on the Kennebec 37.4% of the run would die before spawning. As the Kennebec Atlantic salmon population is close to extinction–the recent 10-year average (from 2014-2023) of annual adults returns at the Lockwood fish lift is a mere 51 fish (DEIS page 44)–then a nearly 40% mortality due to dam-caused migration delays is completely unacceptable.

Additionally, on page 52 of the DEIS notes that Brookfield “would modify or construct additional fishways only if needed after its proposed fishways are complete and have been tested for effectiveness.” This position also risks further harm to salmon. If new fish passage structures are ineffective, then the Kennebec’s salmon may already be faring worse than now. The most parsimonious and beneficial strategy for Atlantic salmon would be to require, beyond doubt, reasonable and effective fish passage as part of the relicensing process or decommission the dams. Based on the best scientific evidence, FERC’s position is neither reasonable or scientifically justifiable.

Additionally, the reasons why certain species of fish do not take to artificial fish passageways is sometimes unknown. Rivers are complex systems and artificial fish passageways only grossly approximate the conditions the fish would experience in the absence of dams.

A free-flowing Kennebec River and naturally self sustaining runs of diadromous fish are worth more—economically, ecologically, and culturally—than anything the Shawmut Hydroelectric Project can provide.

Maine’s rivers likely never supported tens of millions of salmon, but they could and should support hundreds of thousands of salmon and tens of millions of sea-run fish collectively. Instead, status quo industrialization threatens to keep our watersheds impoverished. It is difficult to imagine the richness of a river full of salmon in Maine because that phenomenon hasn’t been experienced here in many generations. We suffer from a multi-generational amnesia that has us collectively accepting the near or complete absence of salmon and other sea-run in our rivers when their absence is not at all normal. The DEIS somehow tries, and fails, to justify that the current status quo is okay when it is not.

The electricity generated by the dams can be replaced easily by wind and solar installations. Energy conservation measures across the state could also be implemented to mitigate the loss of the hydropower. As long as these dams exist, the Kennebec’s Atlantic salmon are likely to remain endangered or, at best, exist only as a remnant population, while people and the ecosystem will never experience the full benefits of healthy runs of Atlantic salmon and other diadromous fish. Do not relicense the dams. It is the wrong decision and guarantees, with near certainty, that Atlantic salmon will remain endangered for the foreseeable future.

Fisher and Other Trails

January 28, 2024 / Mike Fitz / 2 Comments

Compared to summer, winter can seem like a dull companion, especially in my corner of the globe. The buzzing of insects ceased months ago. The forest floor rests under one to three feet of snow. Trees, shrubs, invertebrates, amphibians, and fungi lie dormant. Ice insulates wetlands that were vibrating with life not long ago. Migrating birds vanished months ago. Then, there’s the dangers posed by cold weather. Numbed toes and fingers aren’t pleasant, nor are the perpetual threats of frostbite and hypothermia. All-in-all, I could convince myself that winter is a season to be endured rather than embraced. This would be a mistake, though.

While I miss the sheer volume of aliveness that accompanies summertime, winter has many endearing qualities. It helps me appreciate the abundance of summer. Off-trail travel is often easier when wetlands are frozen and snow smooths the terrain. And few experiences are as peaceful as the immense quiet that accompanies a snowstorm in an isolated grove of trees.

But this post isn’t about falling snow. Rather, it’s about a story written in the snow. Instead of looking at the wintertime forest as lonesome and empty, snow allows me to better understand how the landscape is a fully inhabited place.

Last Monday, I highlighted the travels of a fisher during More to Explore, a bi-weekly highlight show on explore.org cohosted by Brian Byrd and me.

In the interest of brevity for the show, I skipped some details of the fisher’s trail. Tracking is an art that I’m still learning and I argue that I’m a slow study, but a few clues revealed I was looking at a fisher’s trail rather than a fox, coyote, marten, or lynx, all of whom inhabit the area.

Claw marks registered in most of the prints that I examined carefully, effectively ruling out felines since their claws are retractable and don’t register reliably in tracks.
The clearest tracks had five toes—an important clue that rules out the canines such as foxes and coyotes. Porcupines, bears, skunks, hares, and rodents can make five-toed tracks too, but they have other features that make them distinctive.*
The tracks’ size were too large for other members of the weasel family who live here such as short- and long-tailed weasels, mink, and marten. I could rule out river otters too since there was no evidence that the animal slid across the snow (something otters routinely do) or sought liquid water. The trackway crossed a beaver-created swamp but the tracks did not lead to water as an otter would have.
The animal’s gait was a mostly loping in a 3 x 4 pattern, which is a common way for fishers to travel. The 3 x 4 lope is a method of travel where a fisher places a front and rear foot from one side of the body in the same place, while the feet on the other side do not overlap. This gives the impression of only three tracks instead of four. Fishers walk, lope in a 2 x 2 pattern, and gallop too, but in my experience they’ll use a 3 x 4 pattern much more often in firm snow than American martens.

A set of fisher tracks in the snow. Four tracks are visible. The fisher moved from left to right. The yellow notebook at bottom center is ~17 cm wide. — ^{A clear set of fisher prints. Her five toes are perhaps easiest to see in the second track from left. Also note that the fisher created four prints here so she slightly deviated from her typical 3 x 4 lope.}

A fisher trackway in snow. The yellow notebook at bottom left is ~17 cm wide. The fisher moves mostly in a 3 x 4 lope. It was headed from left to right in the photo. The tracks are shallow, maybe only a centimeter deep. — ^{A trackway from the fisher. She was moving with a 3 x 4 lope across firm snow. My notebook is about 17 cm wide for scale.}

Several other mammals were active that day as well. Snowshoe hares, red fox, red squirrels, mice, and voles all left tracks or scat to reveal their presence. I was only lucky enough to be chastised by a couple of squirrels and didn’t see any other mammals for the majority of the day but walking slowly and quietly gives one the opportunity to be surprised. In a moment of quiet contemplation, the kind you experience while gazing through trees pondering your next move, a glimmer of movement appeared in the corner of my eye. I turned my head to find a weasel bounding through the snow. I didn’t dare reach for my camera knowing I’d spook it into hiding, although I remember clearly my confusion upon seeing it.

A long-tailed weasel changes its fur color from summer brown to winter white and back again with the seasons. In winter, they are nearly pure white except for the tip of their tail, which is black—a feature that seems to misdirect attacking predators away from the head. This weasel, however, appeared to have a dark tail and head.

My brain needed to register a few more bounds by the weasel to clear the confusion. it wasn’t oddly colored. The weasel was carrying a vole or mouse in his mouth. As he disappeared in a thicket, I was offered a special opportunity to examine its prints for clues about that may help me better understand how small weasels move in snow when they are burdened by the weight of their prey.

Long-tailed weasels and the smaller short-tailed weasel (ermine) travel most often in snow by using a 2 x 2 lope. When you see them traveling in this way, it looks almost like a long hop, with the front feet hitting the ground first. The front feet quickly lift into the air while the hind feet land in the same place. The weasel I watched used this method and he seemed to carry his rodent cargo with ease—an impressive display of relative strength. His prey, though, left an important clue. Each of the weasel’s bounds were accompanied by a slash in the snow, which must have been created by part of the dead rodent (a foot? a tail?) dragging in the snow with each leap of the weasel.

A single set of long-tailed weasel tracks. They make a single depression in snow in the center of the photo. A light slash is visible beneath the weasel prints. The width of the yellow notebook at bottom is about 15 cm. — *^{A long-tailed weasel’s prints are underscored by a slash in the snow created by the rodent prey it carried.}*

Two sets of long-tailed weasel tracks. Each set makes a single depression in snow. A light slash is visible beneath the weasel prints. The width of the yellow notebook at bottom is about 17 cm. — *^{Two sets of prints from a long-tailed weasel. Note the repeating slash next to each track. The weasel traveled from right to left.}*

As I discussed in the video segment above, the life of a fisher would be far more mysterious without the record it leaves in snow. I would have no real clue how much fishers leave scent marks or climb trees without reading their trackways. Likewise, if I’d not been in the right place at the right time or been looking in a different direction I would have missed the weasel and its meal completely. Had I stumbled upon its trail with the strange, repeating mark next to each print I’m not sure I’d reason it was from the weasel’s prey. But now, I’ll be looking for other examples like it.

I hope you have the opportunity to utilize snow to learn more about your neighbors. When the snow pack melts in spring, I welcome the change although I must admit that forest seems a bit lonelier when I don’t know who has been visiting.

*Mammal Tracks and Sign: A Guide to North American Species by Mark Elbroch is an invaluable resource if you want to learn more.

Thirteen Mountain Months

December 17, 2023December 17, 2023 / Mike Fitz / 9 Comments

Truly knowing a place might be a capacity only of the omniscient or for earthly beings, perhaps, something gained through multi-generational experience. Lacking omniscience, living in an area far from where I was raised, and having lived in my home only for a few years, I’m forced to make do as best I can. I’ll never know a place in its totality, but I’ve come to realize that I can get closer if I experience it in every season, which is how I found myself trekking to the top of Mount Chase, Maine during every month of the year.

December 11, 2022
The first trip in the journey and the most treacherous. Snow has yet to establish itself for the winter and ice covers many sections of trail. The summit is frosty. The hike down is much slower than the hike up.

A trail ascends through a thick forest. The trees are generally less than 6 inches in diameter and grow closely together. The trail is covered in ice like a steep stream that has frozen. About 30-40 feet of the trail is visible before it disappears at center. — *^{Ice covers the Mount Chase Trail on Dec. 11, 2022.}*

View of forested landscape. Lightly frosted spruce and fir fill the foreground. A lake is visible at center in the lower elevation forest. A ridge of mountains forms the horizon at left center. — *^{Looking west from the Mount Chase summit toward Upper Shin Pond, Sugarloaf Mountain, and Traveler Mountain.}*

January 8, 2023
With snow now covering the ice, the trip is far easier than last month and the snow is not yet thick enough that I have to ski to the trailhead. My trusty fat tire bike, Large Marge, gets me there. At the summit, visibility is exceptional and perhaps only limited on this day by the curvature of the Earth. On the way down, I hear a raspy-sounding chickadee. A boreal? Yes. I see it fluttering from branch to branch in the spruce-fir forest maybe 200 – 300 feet in elevation below the summit.

View from a mountain of a forested landscape. A ridge of large mountains form the horizon, although they appear small in the photo. Snow covered trees form the foreground just above windswept rock. Frozen ponds and forest sit in between the — *^{The view to the west-southwest from the Mount Chase summit on Jan. 8, 2023. The mountains of Baxter State Park including Katahdin form the horizon.}*

A boreal chickadee perches in a frost covered dead spruce tree. The bird is at left center. It has a brown cap with is diagnostic of boreal chickadees. — *^{A boreal chickadee perches in a dead spruce.}*

February 12
Peak winter. Minus 60˚ F wind chills during the week prior and low air temps approaching -30˚ F at home. I know arctic peoples cope with those temperatures routinely, but I’m too poorly prepared to survive those conditions. Thankfully, this day is warmer, so much so that snow fleas are active on the snow surface. I ski as far as I can up the trail. Eventually, I abandon my skis and walk the rest of the way when the trail steepness beyond my comfort level. The trail is also too narrow to ski down safely and I don’t own the the right style of skis or the skills to do that anyway. On the way up, though, I miss their floatation. The snow pack on the upper mountain must be at least 36 inches. I post-hole to my waist on two occasions.

View of mountain from a low elevation. The mountain is covered in trees that transition from deciduous to coniferous from low to high. The foreground is snow covered. — *^{The destination: Mount Chase on Feb. 12, 2023.}*

View from a mountain of a forested landscape. Only a sliver of the lowlands are visible. Snow and trees fill the fore and middle ground. The trees are snow covered, especially on their left side. — *^{The view looking south from the Mount Chase summit on Feb. 12, 2023.}*

March 11
The snow seems deeper than February, but maybe this will be the last deep snow trip of the year? Along an alternative route I like to take to the main trail, I find a set of lynx prints in the snow. Farther up the mountain I ditch my skis again at a point above the abandoned fire warden’s cabin where the slope gets too steep. A few snowmobiles have made the trip, though, and I continue with relative ease in their trackways.

A single lynx track. Photo is taken from directly above it. The notebook at bottom is about 7 inches long. — *^{A single lynx track. The feline was traveling from right to left.}*

The 3x4 gait of a lynx in snow. Photo is taken from directly above tracks looking down. The tracks are several inches in width and length. — *^{Although these lynx tracks aren’t well defined, the size and shape are distinctive. I find one set of these tracks per winter on average. Lynx are rare in Maine and have large territories.}*

Portrait view of forest. Spruce and fir trees fill the scene with spruce growing the tallest. A narrow trail is visible at bottom center. — *^{The coniferous forest on the upper slopes of Mount Chase.}*

April 22
A difficult trip to the top and back (the hardest of them all, in hindsight). Mud season has fully enveloped the region. The dirt roads that approach the trailhead are slop. Large Marge gets me to the trailhead but not without extra effort from my legs. The trail remains almost wholly snow-covered above the abandoned fire warden’s cabin and the remaining snow is soft. Still, I’m thankful winter’s dormancy is broken. Near the trailhead, I hear wood frogs looking for love in a nearby a vernal pool. The calls of juncos, robins, and sapsuckers—birds that do not overwinter here—fill the deciduous forest nearby.

Two trails intersect at lower right. Both have water flowing on them. A sign at left points to the center of the photo. The sign is mounted on a post has a homemade look. It says "trail." An arrow points to the right toward the trail. Both "trail" and the arrow are outlined in permanent marker. — *^{The official Mount Chase trailhead.}*

A derelict cabin in a forest. Wet, late season snow covered the bare area in front of the cabin. A mixed forest surround the cabin. The windows and door of the cabin is missing and the brick red lead paint is peeling from the outside. — *^{The abandoned fire warden’s cabin on Mount Chase.}*

View from a mountain of a forested landscape. A ridge of large snow capped mountains form the horizon, although they appear small in the photo. Snow covered trees form the foreground just above windswept rock. Frozen ponds and forest fill the middle ground. — *^{Looking west-southwest toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park from the Mount Chase summit on April 22, 2023.}*

May 17
I thought I’d be done with snow on the mountain by now. I was wrong. It falls on the way up and on the summit. Some small patches linger in the shadiest areas among the spruce and fir. Bud break might be advancing fast at lower elevations, but the plant phenology seems at least a week delayed on the mountain’s mid elevations and maybe two weeks behind in the summit area.

GIF of landscape view from a mountain top. Stunted spruce and fir fill the foreground. Forested lowlands fill the middle ground to the cloud obscured horizon. Snow flakes fall in the air.

Close up photo of flower in deciduous forest. The flower petals face the camera. The three petals are maroon. — ^{Trillium erectum}*^{on the lower slopes of Mount Chase.}*

June 19
A busy day on the trail with a whopping three cars at the trailhead! Large Marge, as usual, doesn’t have any other bicycles to keep her company. The forest has come to life. I note more than 20 plant species blooming. Biting insects are surprisingly few in contrast to home where the abundance of mosquitoes and black flies force me to don long sleeves, long pants, and a headnet almost anytime I intend to spend more than a few minutes outside. In the spruce-fir forest, I enjoy listening to the songs of blackpoll warbler. Sadly, they are categorized as a threatened species in the state.

A rocky trail disappears into a green forest. Trees with bright green leaves obscure the sky. The understory is also thick with green plants. — *^{Late spring on the Mount Chase Trail.}*

^{This is the song of a blackpoll warbler recorded in the spruce-fir forest of Mount Chase. The song is a rapid series of high-pitched notes near the beginning of the track. The audio also captures}^{part of the songs of Swainson’s thrush and winter wren}^.

July 21
The air feels and looks heavy due to high humidity and hazy, smoke-filled skies. This isn’t the first day of the summer with these conditions, and the past two summers had days like this too. Is the presence of smoke becoming the new normal for summertime Maine? I concentrate on observing the trees, which are in “peak green,” a phase in summer when the foliage has reached its max yet still retains some of the freshness of spring. Fledgling birds are the latest addition to the animal community. Golden-crowned kinglets and red-eyed vireos feed noisy babies. On the summit, hundreds of dragonflies zip between the stunted trees.

Portrait view of rocky trail through a green forest. The trail starts at lower right and disappears at center.Trees with bright green leaves obscure the sky. The understory is also thick with green plants. — *^{Peak green on Mount Chase trail. July 21, 2023.}*

View of forested landscape from mountain summit. Bare rock covers the ground at bottom while spruce and fir trees slope off the mountain. The lowlands and horizon are obscured by haze in the air. — *^{Looking west-southwest through smoky haze toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park from the Mount Chase summit on July 21, 2023.}*

Close up view of a dragonfly. The insect rests on rock speckled with small crusty lichens. It has a blue-spotted abdomen and holds its wings flat parallel with the rock. — *^{A darner dragonfly of genus}*^Aeshna^{rests on at the summit of Mount Chase. If you know what species it is, please identify it on iNaturalist.}

August 20
A quiet hike now that songbird nesting season is done. Only white-crowned sparrows sing in the summit area. The summer foliage has reached “tired green.” The work of photosynthesis as well as insect attacks have rendered the previously vibrant leaves a darker, less vibrant hue. I experienced a stressful week. Yet, I’m fortunate to have an escape for some brief solace.

View of forest that is a mix of young and old spruce and fir trees. Dead standing trees are among them. A large trunk is at left. — *^{A section of old growth forest on upper Mount Chase.}*

View of forested landscape from mountain summit. Bare rock covers the ground at bottom while spruce and fir trees cover the near slopes. The skies are mostly cloudy. Forest fills the lowlands. A pond and mountains can be seen near the horizon at center left. — *^{Looking west-southwest toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park from the Mount Chase summit on August 20, 2023.}*

September 24
I discover (for myself) the remnants of a long abandoned cabin maybe 20 yards off the trail. It’s collapsed to its foundation. Still, I’m surprised by its presence. I walked by it many times previously without seeing it. The forest tends to make things disappear. Hazy conditions have returned to the area. A thick band of wildfire smoke clouds the north horizon and the mountains of Baxter State Park are mostly obscured. A few red-tailed hawks ride the thermals on the mountainside on their migration south. A raven family doesn’t tolerate their presence. They move to chase one of the soaring hawks. We’re approaching peak fall colors, although the colors are quite muted compared to normal.

A collapsed cabin rests in the forest. Vegetation has yet to grow over the structure but the wood at the base in the foreground is rotted and moss covered. The rest of the structure forms a pyramid shape. — *^{The forest and weather will soon consume this collapsed cabin.}*

*^{The Mount Chase Trail on Sept. 24, 2023.}*

View of forested landscape from mountain summit. Bare rock covers the ground at bottom while spruce and fir trees cover the slopes. A pond is visible at center left. Haze obscures the horizon. The low elevation forest is speckled with yellow foliage. — *^{Looking west-northwest from the Mount Chase summit on Sept. 24, 2023.}*

October 18
The forest trends brown. A solid layer of newly fallen leaves cloaks the forest floor. I somehow sleepwalk most of the way to the summit, a habit I’ve been trying to break for years with greater mindfulness. I find myself stopping to focus on my breath and immediate surroundings. Something distracted me, probably precipitated by a media culture that profits from distraction and rage-inducing social networks. It is possible to walk through a forest and not see it at all.

Landscape view of rocky trail through a forest. The trail starts at bottom center and disappears at left of center. The canopy is mostly bare of leaves. The leaves that remain are mostly yellow. A larger tree bisects the image from top to bottom. — *^{The Mount Chase Trail on October 18, 2023.}*

View of forested landscape from mountain summit. Bare rock covers the ground at bottom while spruce and fir trees cover the upper slopes. The lowland forest is mostly brown and bare of leaves. Tall mountains form the horizon although they look small due to the perspective. A pond is visible in the forest at center right. — *^{Looking west-southwest toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park from the Mount Chase summit on October 18, 2023.}*

November 16
I begin at an alternative trailhead that I’ve used a few times this year. The route isn’t maintained. It’s nothing more than a decades-old skidder trail, but it is a quicker and more secluded course than the main trailhead. The year has been wetter than average, so water has consistently flowed over parts of the trail. Mid fall brought a prolonged stretch of dry weather though, and the trail is drier than it has been over the entire year. Winter will soon be here. The canopy is bare. Patchy snow sits in the shady areas of the mountain’s spruce-fir forest.

View of forest that is a mix of young and old spruce and fir trees. Dead standing trees are among them. A large trunk is at left. Tiny patches of snow sit on fallen tree trunks. — *^{The old growth forest on upper Mount Chase on November 16, 2023.}*

View of forested landscape from mountain summit. Bare rock with some patchy snow covers the ground at bottom while spruce and fir trees cover the upper slopes. The lowland forest is bare of leaves. Tall mountains form the horizon although they look small due to the perspective. A pond is visible in the forest at center right. — *^{Looking west-southwest toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park from the Mount Chase summit on November 16, 2023.}*

December 8, 2023
Winter is a time of dormancy for many life forms, although it brings vibrancy in other ways. None of the previous trips were as beautiful or as quiet. Several inches of snow coat the ground at low elevations and about 12 inches linger higher on the mountain. No human footprints are discernible on the trail. Snow and hoarfrost cover the conifers like cake icing. The landscape appears clean in a way that I don’t find in spring, summer, and fall.

A fat tire bicycle rests against a snow covered bank. Trees fill the background at top. The bike has a rear pannier and bar mitts. — *^{Large Marge}*

view of snowy forest. The trees are mostly deciduous and bare of leaves. Snow covered the ground. — *^{The Mount Chase Trail on December 8, 2023.}*

*^{The final approach to the Mount Chase summit on December 8, 2023.}*

View of snowy conifer trees looking toward mountains on a far horizon. The trees are pyramidal in shape and their branches are covered in thick snow. The ground is fully snow covered. A blue sky fills the upper half of the photo. — *^{Looking down the Mount Chase Trail near the summit on December 8, 2023.}*

View of forested landscape from mountain summit. Snow covers ground at bottom. A single set of human footprints cross them toward the perspective of the camera. Snow-covered spruce and fir trees cover the near slopes. Ice covered ponds and forest fill the lowlands. A line of mountains forms the horizon. — *^{Looking west-southwest toward Katahdin and Baxter State Park from the Mount Chase summit on December 8, 2023.}*

Time spent in the forest is never wasted and every moment offers the potential to discover new perspectives. I’m no closer to profound insights after thirteen trips to the summit of Mount Chase, although I’ve walked away with a greater appreciation for the mountain’s rhythms. The experience is both the same and vastly different every time.

Time and Change Along the South Branch

November 24, 2023December 17, 2023 / Mike Fitz / 6 Comments

There’s a walk I’ve been eager to follow since reading about it in A Guide to the Geology of Baxter State Park and Katahdin. So on a warm day in early September, I found myself meandering downstream along the South Branch of Trout Brook.

I was fortunate to be there at that time of year. Water levels were low, which made for easy walking. Water temperatures were cool, which allowed my wet feet to buffer the heat of the day. Importantly, biting insects were few, which permitted me to enjoy the scenery without taking extraordinary measures to protect exposed skin.

A hike down the South Branch is intriguing because stream erosion exposes a series of rock formations that reveal a 400 million year-old story. In it we find the violence of long extinct volcanoes as well as the marvel of the first plants to colonize land on Earth. It is a story of immense time and change.

A calm portion of a stream surrounded by deciduous trees. The stream flows from lower left to center before disappearing around a bend. — *^{South Branch Trout Brook in Baxter State Park.}*

Maine in the early Devonian Period, about 400 million years ago, would be wholly unrecognizable. The landmasses that would become Maine were located south of the equator. Extensive volcanism scalded the Katahdin region. Terrestrial vertebrates weren’t yet a thing. Dinosaurs were still about 150 million years into the future. Perhaps the oceans would be the only similarity we could recognize.

To explore this age of Earth’s past, I began at South Branch Falls which was empty of people when I arrived in mid-morning. It is an appealing swim spot with shoots and pools carved into Traveler Rhyolite, a rock formation created by ash fall and pyroclastic flows that may have filled a volcanic caldera about 407 million years ago.

A stream flows through a narrow chute carved into bedrock. The stream flows from center to bottom right. Deciduous trees and some white pines overtop the stream and trees. — *^{South Branch Falls. The rock is composed of a type of rhyolite known as welded tuff.}*

Close up photo of rock. The rock is gray and includes light gray inclusions of flattened pumice. The scale at bottom measures about 6 inches. — ^{An example of welded tuff from Peak of the Ridges to the south of the South Branch. While this photo was taken a few miles from South Branch Falls, the rocks formed in the same manner. Ash and pumice from volcanic eruptions were heated and compressed, which deformed and stretched clasts of pumice within it. Instead of loose ash and pumice, it was welded together by heat and pressure.}

In contrast, nearby Katahdin, Maine’s tallest peak, in the southern portion of Baxter State Park is composed of granites.

View of boulder field and alpine vegetation (mostly small sedges tucked between the rocks) looking toward a taller mountain peak in the background. — *^{Mount Katahdin as seen from the North Peaks Trail in Baxter State Park.}*

Despite their differences in appearance and texture, rhyolite and granite are chemical equivalents. Both are formed from silica-rich magma. The difference is a product of time and location. Rhyolite is a volcanic rock formed from viscous lava. Because of its high viscosity it tends to erupt explosively—think Plinian type eruptions such as Krakatoa in 1883. Granite, though, forms underground when silica-rich magma is given the opportunity to crystalize over millions of years. According to the aforementioned Guide to the Geology of Baxter State Park and Katahdin, mineralogical analysis confirms the relatedness of the Katahdin Granite and the Traveler Rhyolite. They both date to about the same age too, although the rhyolite must be younger since it rests on top of the granite and there’s no evidence that the granite intruded into the rhyolite. Katahdin’s granite, therefore, is the solidified core of a magma chamber that fed the eruptions resulting in the Traveler Rhyolite.

The nearest modern analog to the Traveler Rhyolite that I have seen is the pyroclastic flows of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park, but that was result of a single, 60-hour eruption. While Traveler Rhyolite is not a widespread rock formation currently it may have once covered a much more extensive area. It is also voluminous where it remains, perhaps accumulating to a total depth of 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) from the successive accumulations of an unknown number of eruptions. The enormity of the eruptions that created the Traveler Rhyolite is difficult to imagine. The serenity of a quiet morning at South Branch Falls fails to capture the violence of the events that created the bedrock here.

Stream flowing over a small waterfall then through a wider pool. Water flows from center at the waterfall to lower right. Bedrock surrounds the lower portion of the stream, while forest frames it from above. — *^{South Branch Falls.}*

I left the falls to walk downstream before anyone arrived to wonder why I was putting my face so close to the bedrock (I’m not much of a conversationalist when out in public) but not before stopping slightly downstream to watch fish…

GIF of small fish in a stream. Most of the fish are a few centimeters long and have a dark stripe from head to tail on their side.

…and to identify a species of willow I had not seen before.

Close up photo of willow leaves. The leaves are arranged alternately on the stem and taper to a long, sharp point. — *^{Summer foliage of shining willow,}*^{Salix lucida}^.

Much of the rock in Maine has been subject to deformation by plate tectonics and mountain building processes. Occurring between the Late Silurian and Devonian, the Acadian Orogeny saw the convergence of crustal terranes (essentially fragments of crustal plates with different geologic histories) as well as the creation of volcanic arcs and the folding metamorphism that accompanies tectonic collisions. Part of modern Maine and Atlantic Canada belongs to Avalonia, a crustal terrane that is also found in Europe from Ireland to Poland. Still more bedrock was formed under the Iapetus Ocean, an ancestral Atlantic that closed in the Paleozoic. Imagine the mess of geology which would be created by the collision of Sumatra, New Guinea, and Borneo into mainland southeast Asia by future tectonic movement. Something like that happened in the area we now call the Northeast U.S. and Atlantic Canada about 400 million years ago. The geology, as you can infer, gets complicated quickly.

So owing to the forces formerly at work here, it is uncommon to find unaltered sedimentary rocks in this neighborhood. They are usually tilted, folded, and baked. Yet, only few hundred meters downstream of the South Branch falls the bedrock changed and we’re provided with a rare example to the contrary.

The Gifford Conglomerate is a section of the larger Trout Valley Formation, a collection of younger, Devonian-aged sedimentary rocks overtopping the Traveler Rhyolite. This is reportedly one of the few places in Maine where sedimentary rocks formed post Acadian Orogeny and haven’t been extensively altered even though they did experience some metamorphic change. With its rusty cliffs and shallow grottos, this section of stream was also particularly beautiful.

Stream flows past a wall of rock. The rock is rusty in color and composed of cobbles that are cemented together. A series of grottos are enclosed in the rock at stream level. The water flows from bottom left to — ^{This wall of cobbles are eroded pieces of Traveler Rhyolite in a deposit known as the Gifford Conglomerate. It was emplaced during the waning epochs of the Acadian Orogeny. It’s also not found anywhere else, which suggests this spot could have once been an alluvial fan at the base of a canyon or valley on the side of a volcano.}

As I continued downstream, the conglomerate disappeared under rocks with a finer consistency. As these sediments accumulated the plants growing among them seized a revolutionary opportunity.

Steam flowing past a wall of gray rock. The rock wall is at left. The stream flows from lower right to center right. — ^{An exposure of the Trout Valley Formation along the South Branch. Younger portions of the Trout Valley Formation do not include cobbles of rhyolite like the Gifford Conglomerate. In fact, the rock is composed of progressively finer sediments the higher one looks in the formation. Sandstones, shales, siltstones are common.}

The Trout Valley Formation contains some of Earth’s oldest terrestrial plant fossils. At first, finding the fossils was a challenge. I wasn’t sure exactly where to look, but once I developed an eye for them then they popped into view.

A rock containing a branched fossil stem of a plant. The rock with the fossil is wet and sits on a rusty colored dry rock. The scale at bottom measures about 10

Forests of the late Devonian included tree-sized plants, but that was still several million years into the future. The plants found in the Trout Valley Formation had only just begun the colonization of dry land and they remained small in stature. One Psilophyton species reached a foot or two (a few decimeters) in height. Another Psilophyton had dainty 3 millimeter-wide stems. Kaulangiophyton akantha (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) had almost centimeter-wide stems with irregularly spaced spines. Pertica quadrifaria is the tallest known plant of its time. It grew to be about 10 feet (~3 meters) tall with stems about 0.6 inches (1.5 cm) in diameter. They were perhaps fragile as well. Their fossils are often highly fragmented.

An in situ rock with a plant fossil. The rock is dark gray. The fossil is branched and rusty in color. The scale at left measures about 10 centimeters.

Sidenote: I hesitated to include any mention of fossils because certain people are dicks and steal them. But I chose to include them anyway because they are frequently mentioned in the published book I used to guide me. The state park also has a publication noting some fossil locations online. Athough collecting is prohibited in Baxter State Park, there is still a risk someone will read this and steal fossils. Please don’t be that guy. Leave the fossils where they are for others to enjoy and study.

So here are 400 million year-old plant fossils comprising few to several species found in finely grained sediments. What might this tell us about the habitat they lived in? The authors of one of the first papers to formally describe the fossils, published in 1977, stated, “The number of plants found at a single site is very small, usually only one species, occasionally two or three at most. There seems to be a valid comparison with present-day marshland vegetation along the New England coast where the number of species is relatively small over much of the area with scattered peripheral patches of other species that occupy smaller niches in the landscape.” When I read that I immediately thought, “Hmm…sounds like a salt marsh.”

Salt marsh grass with dry, browning stems are bordered by channels of mud on left and right. A line of trees — *^{A salt marsh near Charleston, South Carolina.}*

Salt marshes are harsh environments for plants. For most species, it is an uninhabitable space. Vegetation must be able to survive flooding by tides, oxygen-poor soils, and high salinity. But for the plants that possess the physiological adaptations to cope with the challenges, the salt marsh becomes a richly productive environment.

On the east coast of the United States, salt marshes exist in the wetland transition zone between the sea and land. Salt marsh or smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) dominates the low marsh, the area flooded by tides each day. It grows in sand, clays, and mud. It can tolerate salinities that are double that of sea water by excluding salts from entering its roots, sequestering of sodium in its tissues, and secreting excess salt through its leaves. It counters a lack of oxygen in the soil with stems and roots connected through air pockets. No other plant in its native range copes as well with the salt, flooding, and disturbances that cordgrass experiences.

While smooth cordgrass dominates the low marsh, salt meadow hay (Spartina patens) outcompetes it in places above the average high tide line. Salicornia, a tasty edible, finds space in salt pans where conditions can be too harsh for even the Spartina grasses. When I learned to recognize the dominant plants of salt marshes while working at Assateague Island, I could use that information to note at a glance the approximate average high tide and the driest, saltiest places in the marshes. In east coast salt marshes, the few thriving species grow in habitats that differ in salinity and tide exposure.

A grassy meadow in front of a mud flat. Trees form the horizon at center. — *^{A meadow of}*^Spartina^{grasses in Pembroke, Maine. The cow-licked grasses are}^{Spartina patens (i.e. salt meadow hay) that live in the high marsh. Just to the left of the S. patens is a border of S. alterniflora (i.e. smooth cordgrass) that marks the low marsh.}

Might the first plants that took to the land in the Devonian have created habitats that resembled salt marshes? I do not possess the ability, imagination, or knowledge to adequately envision those environments. But that won’t stop me from trying. There were no grasses or flowering plants or even seed-bearing plants in the Devonian so the scene was different. Even so, perhaps a series of extensive mudflats and braided streams flowed into the sea on the edge of an eroding volcano. Maybe some of the now fossilized species were best adapted for habitats closer to fresh water. Others could have preferred spaces inundated by tides. Disturbance and competition may have partitioned them into habitats perfect for some and harsh for others.

Rock containing plant fossils. The fossils are roughly parallel in the rock and trend horizontally in the photo. The rock with the fossils rests on other rocks. The scale at bottom is about 9 centimeters.

After continuing downstream where most of the Trout Valley Formation became hidden under a veneer of glacial till and not far from the South Branch’s confluence with the main stem of Trout Brook, I paused to admire a large sugar maple.

A large sugar maple stands at center of the photo. It is surrounded by other smaller statured trees in a dense forest. — *^{A beauty of a sugar maple along the lower reaches of the South Branch.}*

Perhaps 75 feet tall, its broad crown of leaves included the first hints of fall color. The tree was a fine representative of its species. A world without sugar maples would be a poor one, I think, and the humble fossils I examined upstream represent a beachhead for land plants to eventually become beings as magnificent as maples. In the Devonian, terrestrial plants began to stabilize landscapes from erosion, create soils rich in nutrients, and provide food for arthropods and vertebrates. It might’ve been the first time in Earth’s history when an organism with my oxygen needs could have breathed the air and survived.

Each fossil I found was a plant that grew for months or years. It died during a specific point in time at specific place. In contrast to the collective millions of years preserved in the rocks and the hundreds of millions of years of evolution represented by the maple tree and me, each fossil represents single moments of life and death. They are, paradoxically, the past and the present and the future.

Although this is an ancient story, I’m not sure “ancient” is an appropriate adjective for it. In my mind, the word implies a connection to human antiquity, while this story of change is a chapter of Deep Time. It is part of the arc of Earth history before humanity’s evolved ability to conceive of it. We can, though, draw a metaphoric line between the volcanoes that once blanketed the area under thousands of feet of ash to the plants which grew in tidal marshes to the forests that now bath my lunges in oxygen. I might live in a different world, but my existence remains rooted in the events preserved in these rocks.

2023 Fat Bear Week Endorsement

October 2, 2023October 11, 2023 / Mike Fitz / 10 Comments

Think of a mama bear. What does that idea conjure in your mind? Perhaps it is fierceness, since mother bears are ornery and defensive when necessary. Maybe it is commitment, because mother bears dedicate years to raise a single litter. Perhaps it is sacrifice, since mother bears provide cubs with time and energy that could otherwise serve to promote her own physical health.

We’re fortunate to watch many different female bears at Brooks River in Katmai National Park. Yet there is one whose maternal efforts are legend. One who can fish successfully almost anywhere. One whose fearsome reputation is long-lived among other brown bears, including large adult males. Don’t get in her way. Don’t lurk near her fishing spot. Don’t look at her cubs. Do give 128 Grazer your 2023 Fat Bear Week vote.

Early and late summer photos of 128 Grazer. Photo on left is Grazer on July 8. She is facing left and walking through water. Photo on right is from September 14, 2023. She is facing left and standing in belly deep water. She is round.

Grazer | ɡrāzər |

(2005 – Present) A female brown bear documented to use Brooks River in Katmai National Park, Alaska. Also known as bear 128.
verb. [with object]
The effort of a mother bear to maul or attack another bear with little provocation, especially in defense of her cubs: She grazered him.
Origin: Bear cam slang. Circa late 2010s and early 2020s.

Grazer is famous among people and (maybe) infamous among brown bears for her extraordinary defensiveness. When she arrived at Brooks River in 2016 with three cubs representing her first known litter, she would confront and attack other bears with little or no provocation. Sometimes it appeared that another bear only had to look in her family’s direction to draw her ire, as bear 83 knows well.

Her behavior didn’t mellow when those first cubs grew into yearlings the following summer. Nor did she rethink her aggressiveness toward other bears when raising her second litter. While mother bears can change their parenting strategy as they gain skill and experience, Grazer continued on the path forged with her first litter—the best defense is a good offense.

Grazer separated from her most recent litter at the beginning of summer 2023. Since then, she’s lived a brown bear bachelorette’s life. Her pheromones attracted the attention of male bears during the mating season. They chased her tail, with varying degrees of success, right bear 164? After the mating season, and also during it, she focused on eating. A lot. Her waistline carries the weight of her success.

Grazer’s formidable reputation carried into this summer. She ranked high in the hierarchy among bears and was perhaps the river’s most dominant female. Notably, 151 Walker deferred to her frequently in early summer. Walker is a big dude and he’s not shy about displacing bears from preferred fishing spots. Bears have good memories, though. Maybe he had too many bad experiences with her in the past and didn’t want to risk more dangerous confrontations.

In this video, Walker is in full dominance mode as he works to displace another adult male at Brooks Falls. But watch his behavior when Grazer shows up on the boulders above.

And in case you need more examples of Grazer bulldozing bears, here you go. (Watch with sound on for the full effect.)

During my brief time at Brooks River early last summer, I watched bears fish largely without success because the expected salmon run was slow to arrive. Some of the big guys caught some fish. 747, for example, sat at Brooks Falls like he always does and let the fish come to him, but even he wasn’t catching many. Most other bears fared worse. They roamed from one place at the river to another, searching for the few early arriving salmon.

Grazer, though, has practiced—no, perfected—her fishing tactics in many different places. If fish are jumping Brooks Falls, she’ll catch them there. If there’s space in the waterfall’s far pool, she’ll catch them there. She’ll work the jacuzzi below the falls. She’ll fish in the middle of the night. She’ll use her strength and agility to chase down salmon.

One evening last summer, I stood on the riffles platform watching her work the river in front of me. While the riffles provides brown bears with fishing opportunities, it is often a more challenging place for bears to catch salmon than the falls. The riffles doesn’t provide the same pinch points in topography as the falls and salmon have many escape routes. There aren’t many bears who can make the best of that situation consistently, especially when few salmon are in the water and bears are forced to run through the water to get them.

Grazer parks herself on the near bank upstream of me. She moves into the water after several minutes and spots a lone salmon. She lunges and misses. She chases. Another lunge, another miss. She continues running at full speed through the water while somehow keeping an eye on the salmon. With a final lunge, she fully submerges into a two to three-foot-deep pool and surfaces with the salmon in her jaws. I can see the fish gasping in the air as blood runs from deep puncture wounds in its body. Grazer eats all of it—tail to head—even the gill plates and mandibles.

In early summer when few bears were catching salmon, Grazer found success. She is perhaps the best angler at Brooks River.

Brown bear standing in river. Water is flowing over boulders forming riffles. Bear is moving in direction of camera. Water drips off her fur. She holds a sockeye salmon in her mouth. — *^{Bear 128 Grazer with a catch in the riffles on July 6, 2023.}*

Let’s not lose sight of Grazer’s goals either. She’s working to build the fat reserves necessary to sustain her survival during winter hibernation. She’s also building fat in case she gives birth in the den. Bear cubs are born mid winter while mother hibernates. Abundant fat reserves are necessary for mother bears to reproduce, so getting fat is vital to a bear’s reproductive success.

In a way, my 2023 Fat Bear Week endorsement is a recognition of Grazer’s full-bodied and fat-addled collection of work since 2016. When she is raising cubs Grazer is the archetypal mama bear. She’s formidable, strong, brave, skilled, and successful. She deserves your vote in Fat Bear Week 2023.

Fat Bear Week bracket. Four bears (806 cub vs 428; 402 vs 901) in two first round matches on left. Two bears (32 and 480) are in bye round on left. Four bears (128 Grazer vs 151; 284 vs 164) in two first round matches on right. Two bears (747 and 435) are in bye round on right. Graphical cartoon bears fill the top and bottom center of the bracket. — ^{My Fat Bear Week bracket predictions for 2023. Yes, yes, I know. I don’t predict that Grazer will win. There’s a difference between who I think should win and who I think will actually win, after all. Which bear’s corner are you in? Download your bracket from FatBearWeek.org.}

A Turd of a Time

May 30, 2023June 3, 2023 / Mike Fitz / 8 Comments

While every season has much to admire, I find springtime especially enthralling. Something new appears nearly every day. At first, maple sap runs heavy during March’s warm days and sub-freezing nights. Around then, a trickle of meltwater in a ditch and a bare patch of matted leaves on the edge of a snow bank promise room for other plants to break dormancy. Soon after, the first golden catkins appear on the hazelnut and gray alder. Rainy evenings bring amphibians out of hibernation. In a short time, the soon-to-flower ephemeral herbs emerge from the crust of leaves. By late April and early May, the forest canopy bursts to life again with bird song, the blossoms of red maple and quaking aspen, and finally the unfurling of leaves that will soon thoroughly shade the ground where I trod.

Each of these are little events that promise a lot more. I’m unsure if non-human animals contemplate these changes like I do. Yet, I’m certain they pay attention to them. Black bears, recently emerged from their dens, know the pattern and are eager to exploit the change of the season to their advantage. If I’m lucky, their efforts to find their first substantial meals of the year might allow me to investigate what they are up to.

A section of Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument sits to the east of Sebois River. It’s a quiet area of the park since there are no campsites, less than a mile of developed hiking trails, and only a few maintained roads. Bicycling through it is fun and is made even more enjoyable when I afford myself the time to go slow and pay attention. It’s one of the best places in park that I’ve yet found to look for bear sign in the spring.

Riding the single lane spur that loops off and back to American Thread Road last weekend I came across many piles of bear scat, which I was hoping to see. Not because I particularly admire turds, but because bears are cryptic here. They are frequently hunted throughout northern Maine and consequently have a substantial fear of people. The thick forest also limits my ability to watch a bear if I happen to see one. The signs that bears leave behind—such as marking trees and scat—are like pages in a book. A single page may not reveal much but look at enough pages and you’ll get a good story.

A large pile of dark colored, almost black, bear scat on gravel. The bear scat is framed by grass blades and wild strawberry leaves. The background is open forest.

In particular, scat can reveal how recently a bear was in the vicinity and what it was eating. Black bears are omnivores that are well adapted to survive on plants, and the vast majority of their annual calories come from plant foods. In north-central Maine, though, there are no calorie-rich berries to eat in the spring. Perhaps there are some leftover acorns, but oak trees are not common in the forests as this area is near the northern end of their range in the northeastern U.S. So other plant foods are a bear’s best springtime bet.

While a black bear’s digestive track remains essentially one of a carnivore, it utilizes adaptations such as an elongated gut and slightly flattened molars to extract nutrition from tough to digest plant foods. A bear also consumes plants when they are most nutritious and digestible. Newly emerged green vegetation like grass, sedge, and clover contains relatively high amounts of protein, for example. As those plants mature, protein content declines while indigestible fiber increases. Fiber helps keep the bear on a so-called regular schedule, but the bear is really after the protein. Even though hibernating bears maintain their muscle health without eating or exercise, if they’ve exhausted their fat reserves by springtime then their body is forced to tap into their lean tissue reserves. Young, tender veg helps bears stave off muscle loss and even build muscle before sugary, fat-building foods become available in mid to late summer.

All but one of the scat piles I found were filled with herbaceous plants. Although most looked older than a day–when bears eat green veg, the resulting scat quickly oxidizes when exposed to air to form a black surface crust–this was a promising sign. I knew that the lightly used roads are good travel corridors for bears and the sunlight reaching the road edges allows vegetation to green-up more quickly than the forest interior, which attracts bears to the roadsides. Perhaps I might see a bear if I pedaled slowly and remained observant.

The effort paid off near the crest of a hill when I spotted a dark mass of animal on the edge of the road. I stopped to watch.

The wind was at my back, which is a welcome push when cycling uphill but also carried my scent to the bear. Once it caught my scent, the bear only needed a couple of seconds to decide to run into the forest. Had the wind been blowing the other way, I probably could’ve watched it much longer with less chance of disturbing it unintentionally. Still, I was grateful for the moment and the small insights into its world.

Before widespread logging and, later, roadbuilding encroached on the area’s forests, grassy areas in northern Maine were likely much less common than today. Black bears always sought the first spring greens, but they had to look in other places—riverbanks, stream sides, and beaver meadows for example. They continue to go to those areas, of course, even as roadsides have opened another foraging opportunity. Roads are risky places that expose bears to people though. Bears weigh the risk along with the potential reward of a good meal.

I knew the bear I saw was eating well even as it still had a long way to go until it was fat enough to enter its winter den next fall. Its effort is a journey recorded in its scat—pages, if you will, in the Book of Turds.

Does Otis the Bear Inspire Support for Conservation?

February 27, 2023 / Mike Fitz / 3 Comments

I’ve long adhered to the opinion that individual animals matter in wildlife conservation. Well-known animals with well communicated stories, such as Otis in Katmai National Park or the mountain lion P-22 in southern California, help provide people with accessible ways to connect with entire species.

This may seem non-controversial. After all, wild animal populations are made of individuals just like human families and communities are composed of individual people. But this idea hasn’t been accepted widely among scientists and managers of national parks.

Thankfully that tide seems to be turning, and I’m pleased to be able to contribute to this scientific effort. Results from a survey of bear cam viewers on explore.org show that people who care about Otis and other individual bears are more likely support conservation efforts for brown bears compared to viewers who do said they could not identify individual bears. Please head over to my post on explore.org to learn more.

bear sitting in water below waterfall — *^{Bear 480 Otis sits in his office at Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park, Alaska.}*

I’d like to thank the researchers who made this study possible—Jeff Skibins (who drafted this paper and did the data analysis) and Lynne Lewis and Leslie Richardson (who were instrumental in the survey design and implementation). I’d also like to thank the Katmai Conservancy for covering the expense to make the paper available to everyone through open access.

Book Talk at Veteran’s Memorial Library

February 14, 2023February 13, 2023 / Mike Fitz / 3 Comments

Mark your calendars if you’re based in northern Maine. I’ll be giving a talk at the Veteran’s Memorial Library in Patten at 6 p.m. on February 28. While I’ll discuss some of the main storylines in my book, The Bears of Brooks Falls: Wildlife and Survival on Alaska’s Brooks River, I also talk about how those stories might provide lessons for our relationship with the Maine landscape.

This will be a new talk, so now it is time for me to stop procrastinating and get to work polishing the presentation. I hope to see you there.

Flyer for a book talk. Background image is a bear swimming through water with two cubs clinging to her back. Above the bears is a book cover with the title "The Bears of Brooks Falls." The descriptive text reads, "What can brown bears and Pacific salmon teach us in Maine? Join Mike Fitz as he discusses his book, The Bears of Brooks Falls: Wildlife and Survival on Alaska’s Brooks River, and how that landscape offers lessons for our relationship with Maine’s wild spaces. Date: Tuesday, February 28, 2023. Time: 6 p.m. Location: Veteran’s Memorial Library at the Patten Lumbermen’s Museum."

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