Painting by Carl S. Buell
The Hidden Desert
The California desert doesn't give up its secrets readily. To get to know the place, you've got to spend time here: watching, waiting, learning. It's hard to do that from behind the safety glass of a vehicle speeding along the Interstate. But if you leave your car, tighten your shoelaces, walk until you find an interesting spot, and sit there for a while, you just might start to see something good. Natural history writer Chris Clarke has been doing just that for more than two decades, and in The Hidden Desert he shares some of what he's found.
The Hidden Desert:
The last time you took a long road trip, did you assume you had enough gas because you checked the gas gauge a couple days ago? That's how California manages its bobcat population: letting the "supply" go uncounted for more than three decades as we burn through a thousand or more each year.
The Hidden Desert:
A painful step on a cactus leads writer Chris Clarke down the path of explaining the fearsome plant family's range of weapons.
The Hidden Desert:
An unprecedented coalition of Native people and other environmental activists fought the State of California to a standstill 15 years ago on a proposal to dump low-level nuclear waste in Ward Valley.
The Hidden Desert:
It's one of those places in the California desert where you can find yourself 20 miles off the pavement without much problem. It's also where California almost put its final dump for low-level nuclear waste.
The Hidden Desert:
The discovery of 13 new desert spider species reminds us that our deserts are largely unexplored by biologists, and that we may be losing species before we know they're there.
The Hidden Desert:
If the Mojave Desert gets some rain in the next six weeks, then we might just see one of the desert's least-understood phenomena take place, as Joshua trees work to create a new generation of themselves.
The Hidden Desert:
I don't know what kind of oak it is, and I don't realize as I take a dead leaf for later identification that I'm about to connect one of humankind's oldest technologies with one of our newest.
The Hidden Desert:
Even exposed as a hoax, the "eagle captures child" video's immediate extreme popularity reminds us of something very real indeed about our place in the natural world.
The Hidden Desert:
All life on earth, every thing that lives and has ever lived, every bird and beetle and box elder tree shares a common ancestor. We are each and every one of us related, each and every one of us the front of an impossibly ancient flood of genes rising from a single spring.
The Hidden Desert:
In November, the California Air Resources Board ruled that according to data from lakebed monitors, the DWP was solely responsible for the horrendous air quality caused by dust blowing off Owens Lake. DWP's response? Get rid of the monitors.
The Hidden Desert:
Here's a Mojave Desert living pro-tip: don't leave your jackalope on the porch in November. If you do, the antelope squirrels will strip off its fur to line their nests.
The Hidden Desert:
Hotter temperatures, the extinction of Joshua trees, more dust storms, and more could become the new normal.
The Hidden Desert:
The controversial Mojave Cross returns to Cima Dome in -- but not in -- the Mojave National Preserve.
The Hidden Desert:
I could only stand there, on the white line in the middle of the two-lane desert road, and hope the oncoming cars saw me in my dark clothing in time to slow and swerve around us.
The Hidden Desert:
The shifting seasons bring changes to the Mojave Desert
The Hidden Desert:
Joshua Tree National Park plans to make it easier for people to leave their cars and see cholla cacti by removing cholla to make more room for cars.
The Hidden Desert:
Keeping your cat inside really is better for everyone concerned: you, your cat, and the wildlife struggling to live outdoors.
The Hidden Desert:
Joshua trees may denote hot deserts in many minds, but the place they live in gets pretty cold as well.
The Hidden Desert:
If you see a woodpeckery-looking woodpecker in the Mojave, it's probably a ladder-backed.
The Hidden Desert:
The world's meteorologists agree: Death Valley holds the record for World's Hottest Place. Sort of.
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