rebeccathenaturalist

[rebeccathenaturalist]

It's been a busy couple of days here! Monday I drove up to Seattle for my book signing at Third Place Books, and stopped at several bookstores and gift shops along the way to promote The Everyday Naturalist. The signing event went so well--great crowd, lots of awesome questions and comments, and it was nice to get to chat with folks while signing their books.

I stayed overnight in Bellevue, then headed out 90 and 97 toward Goldendale for a class at the library. Since I was passing through Ellensburg and Yakima, I dropped in at more bookstores, gift shops, and a REALLY cool plant shop (The Botany Shop in Ellensburg) to drop off book info. It's a gorgeous drive out that way, too; Washington east of the Cascades is a part of the PNW I haven't had as much time to explore as I'd like, and I want more excuses to head out that way.

I made it home last night, and today I'm running around getting stuff ready for heading out to the coast tomorrow so I can teach at the Sitka Center Friday and Saturday. I was too busy to get pictures the past couple of days, but I found that one of my sunflowers had bloomed while I was gone, so here's a photo of that for you.

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One last reminder about tonight's book signing at the Lake Forest Park Third Place Books in Seattle at 7pm! This is my only Seattle-area event scheduled for this year, so here's your chance to hear me talk about some of the benefits of being an everyday naturalist, chat with me, and even get a signed copy of the book in person! You can RSVP here on the Third Place Books website, and you can see my summer/fall book tour dates here on my website.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

One last reminder about tonight's book signing at the Lake Forest Park Third Place Books in Seattle at 7pm! This is my only Seattle-area event scheduled for this year, so here's your chance to hear me talk about some of the benefits of being an everyday naturalist, chat with me, and even get a signed copy of the book in person! You can RSVP here on the Third Place Books website, and you can see my summer/fall book tour dates here on my website.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This is how you do it, folks. You have people familiar with a species' behavior observe the animal and see what it's actually doing, rather than letting fearmongerers and anthropomorphizers make their conjectures. There are probably fewer than a dozen brown bears in all of Lithuania, and this one still displayed natural fear of humans rather than habituation. Thankfully she managed to find her way back out of the city and into the wild without causing anything other than a bit of an uproar.

As European bears repopulate the habitats from which they've been extirpated, it's likely there will be more incidents like this one, just like we've been having with our returning wildlife here in North America. In the U.S. I've seen responses to wildlife in urban areas range from "shoot it before it has a chance to eat your children and your pets" to "oh look, this animal is so beautiful and I feel so special it was in my yard, I'm going to feed it!" Americans aren't unique in that regard, either.

And both of these extreme responses are rooted in ignorance of wild animals and their behavior. A wild animal wandering through a city is not automatically a danger; it should be monitored, of course, but it's not cause for widespread panic. However, a wild animal--particularly a mammal--that is fed by humans and loses its fear of us is now actually dangerous. Even squirrels can do some damage with their sharp little teeth, and they can be quite aggressive in seeking food from us.

(Plus having your local squirrels, or raccoons, or opossums congregating in your yard every day means you're making it easier for them to transmit diseases to each other, even if they aren't in direct physical contact. Think of a buffet setup that never gets sterilized even with lots of people using it day after day. If you're feeding the local small mammals, you're doing more damage than you think.)

In any case, what we should always default to is listening to wildlife experts, people who actually understand animal behavior and the intricacies of restoration ecology as once-extirpated species return home. When wildlife professionals say leave the animal alone, we give it its space. When they say don't feed wild mammals, we don't hand the animals food, and we keep the cat food--and the cat--inside and off the porch. When they observe that the animal has completely lost its fear of humans and is now presenting a real threat, we have to accept that the animal may have to be relocated or euthanized.

In this case, the Lithuanian hunters who are familiar with bear behavior kept an eye on her, and suggested tranquilizing and relocating her as the next step. The kill order was in place as a precaution, but it was left to more experienced people to make the final call, and the result was that a very rare bear got to walk away into the woods unscathed.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

ETA: I wrote up a guide on clues that a foraging book was written by AI here!

[Original Tweet source here.]

[RANT AHEAD]

Okay, yeah. This is a very, very, very bad idea. I understand that there is a certain flavor of techbro who has ABSOLUTELY zero problem with this because "AI is the future, bro", and we're supposed to be reading their articles on how to use AI for side hustles and all that.

I get that ID apps have played into people's tendency to want quick and easy answers to everything (I'm not totally opposed to apps, but please read about how an app does not a Master Naturalist make.) But nature identification is serious stuff, ESPECIALLY when you are trying to identify whether something is safe to eat, handle, etc. You have to be absolutely, completely, 100000% sure of your ID, and then you ALSO have to absolutely verify that it is safely handled and consumed by humans.

As a foraging instructor, I cannot emphasize this enough. My classes, which are intended for a general audience, are very heavy on identification skills for this very reason. I have had (a small subsection of) students complain that I wasn't just spending 2-3 hours listing off bunches of edible plants and fungi, and honestly? They can complain all they want. I am doing MY due diligence to make very sure that the people who take my classes are prepared to go out and start identifying species and then figure out their edibility or lack thereof.

Because it isn't enough to be able to say "Oh, that's a dandelion, and I think this might be an oyster mushroom." It's also not enough to say "Well, such-and-such app says this is Queen Anne's lace and not poison hemlock." You HAVE to have incredibly keen observational skills. You HAVE to be patient enough to take thorough observations and run them through multiple forms of verification (field guides, websites, apps, other foragers/naturalists) to make sure you have a rock-solid identification. And then you ALSO have to be willing to read through multiple sources (NOT just Wikipedia) to determine whether that species is safely consumed by humans, and if so if it needs to be prepared in a particular way or if there are inedible/toxic parts that need to be removed.

AND--this phenomenon of AI-generated crapola emphasizes the fact that in addition to all of the above, you HAVE to have critical thinking skills when it comes to assessing your sources. Just because something is printed on a page doesn't mean it's true. You need to look at the quality of the information being presented. You need to look at the author's sources. You need to compare what this person is saying to other books and resources out there, and make sure there's a consensus.

You also need to look at the author themselves and make absolutely sure they are a real person. Find their website. Find their bio. Find their social media. Find any other manners in which they interact with the world, ESPECIALLY outside of the internet. Contact them. Ask questions. Don't be a jerk about it, because we're just people, but do at least make sure that a book you're interested in buying is by a real person. I guarantee you those of us who are serious about teaching this stuff and who are internet-savvy are going to make it very easy to find who we are (within reason), what we're doing, and why.

Because the OP in that Tweet is absolutely right--people are going to get seriously ill or dead if they try using AI-generated field guides. We have such a wealth of information, both on paper/pixels and in the brains of active, experienced foragers, that we can easily learn from the mistakes of people in the past who got poisoned, and avoid their fate. But it does mean that you MUST have the will and ability to be impeccably thorough in your research--and when in doubt, throw it out.

My inbox is always open. I'm easier caught via email than here, but I will answer. You can always ask me stuff about foraging, about nature identification, etc. And if there's a foraging instructor/author/etc. with a website, chances are they're also going to be more than willing to answer questions. I am happy to direct you to online groups on Facebook and elsewhere where you have a whole slew of people to compare notes with. I want people's foraging to be SAFE and FUN. And AI-generated books aren't the way to make that happen.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.

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he happie

also lower quality but square version

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"A snack? For me?"

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hmmm

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Syrian Jackal | Dudu Marciano

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So last night's book release party was awesome!!! Many thanks to Experiment PDX for hosting the event. In spite of the rain that decided to send the weekend here, we had some people for the walk, some people for the talk, and some went to both. We made it around exactly one (1) block for the walk, and got to discuss everything from invasive species to how soil acidity is affected by your local rocks. My book talk went off (almost) without a hitch, and I (mostly) stayed on track. I do have a few places I want to tighten up my notes, but overall I'm pretty happy.

And yes, I did spend a big chunk of the afternoon making multiple dips using both dairy and vegan cream cheese, and I personally hand-rolled all those little turkey bites. Not pictured are the veggie and fruit trays (which I left to Costco to make), four different sorts of crackers for the aforementioned dips, plus several kinds of cookie and a big bowl of chocolates. If you stayed home, you missed out, because I am NOT going to be bringing snacks to my other book events (but I will have more books, and at least at some events I will have that cool tree shelf that you see in the pictures--totally worth the effort of hauling it along!)

If you weren't able to make it, that's okay--there's still the Powell's City of Books signing/talk at 3pm on July 19, and for those of you in the Seattle area, come see me at Third Place Books this Monday, June 23 at 7pm! And I'll have details about my fall book tour beyond the PNW soon.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

Just a reminder that the release party is tonight! I am up way too early this morning getting ready for the festivities, I made one last grocery run last night for ingredients for the ✨snacks✨, and I'm about to start packing up the car with books and other good stuff. (And then I'm taking a nap before heading over to Experiment.)

By the way, the forecast is calling for sporadic rain and a small chance of thunder (less than 20% chance, last I checked). Rain isn't an issue; just bring rain gear of your choice for the nature walk. However, if there's thunder we're going to have to cancel that portion of the event and hang out inside instead--we'll play it by ear.

Either way, I'll see you folks tonight!

So The Everyday Naturalist comes out in *checks calendar* just under two weeks (June 17, for those who are counting.) Some of you have already preordered signed copies from me (thank you!) which are due to arrive here June 16 and which I will start packing up as soon as they arrive so I can ideally get them out in the mail on the 17th. (I've gotten over 100 preorders, though, so please bear with me as I'm doing all that signing, packing, and labeling myself!)

Even if you've preordered, you are still cordially invited along with everyone else to attend the following in-person book events to hear my talk "Five Reasons to be an Everyday Naturalist" and celebrate the book with me in the Portland and Seattle metro areas:

Friday, June 20, 5pm - 8:30pm: Official Book Launch Party at Experiment PDX, Portland, OR - neighborhood nature walk 5pm, book talk and signing 7pm

Monday, June 23, 7pm: The Everyday Naturalist Talk and Signing Event, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park/Bothell, WA

Saturday, July 19, 3pm: The Everyday Naturalist Talk and Signing Event, Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR

[rebeccathenaturalist]

In case you haven't heard, the U.S. Senate's version of the "Big, Beautiful Bill" includes the sell-off of 250 million acres of public land. The map above shows the lands that would be available for private purchase--ending public access for hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, and other recreational activities. [EDIT: To clarify, it is likely only 3.3 million acres would be sold, not the entire 250 million, but this is still unacceptable.]

Look at all the areas in Oregon and Washington, for example--that includes the majority of the forests in the Cascade Mountains, some of the best remaining places in the Coast Range and Olympics, and large portions of the Blue Mountains, spilling over into Idaho and beyond. We're a region known for our natural beauty, but this bill would put it up for sale to the highest bidders. Who's going to come here to view empty slopes where there were once trees, or waterways polluted with mining sludge? We've already seen what's been done to the Appalachians with timber harvest and mountaintop removal mining.

It's no coincidence that Montana isn't included in this map, by the way. Montana's representatives have already said they wouldn't back anything that would allow federal lands in Montana to be sold, but what's to say they won't throw the rest of us under the bus in order to push the bill through? Not shown in the map, by the way, is the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, one of the biggest areas with old-growth left in the Northern Hemisphere.

What's really galling is that the American people--we who are out there hiking, hunting, horseback riding--are not getting a say in this. Instead, this sale is shoved into a multi-pronged bill that would also gut Medicaid, and raises the debt ceiling by $5 billion (wasn't lowering debt the justification for gutting public services?) And once that land is sold, whether to U.S.-based timber, mining and other special interests, or those in other countries, it's gone. We will never get it back.

And that means that a lot of special places that the people who actually live, work, and play in the Western states enjoy will be destroyed without our consent. People who live across the country play with our natural resources like Monopoly money, without considering the impact on our local economies or our connections to the land that these sales would have. Even those who just come here to visit deserve to be able to explore them as much as we do, without encountering more locked gates across roads, clearcuts, and mining pits.

All of this is to say nothing of the deep insult to indigenous people, who have already lost so much in the past few centuries; this sale would remove so many opportunities to try to undo at least a small portion of the damage done. It also doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how much ecological progress will be lost, as these areas contain some of the best remaining wildlife habitats left in the country. Habitat loss is THE single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction, and the loss of the protection of these lands WILL lead to more habitat fragmentation and more species going extinct forever.

If you're not happy about this, now's the time to be making some serious ruckus. Contact your elected officials. Educate others and get the word out. Get in touch with conservation groups to see what organized efforts they have planned to meet this threat to our public lands. I have a lot more words about this whole situation--many of them containing four letters--but I'll keep things civil here.

[rebeccathenaturalist]

This was an incredibly beautiful nurse stump I found on Alder Ridge at Oxbow Regional Park in Oregon (it's near the flight path for Portland International Airport, hence the plane sounds near the end.) This is likely an old western red cedar (Thuja plicata) stump, hollowed out by decay and hosting a wide variety of mosses, lichens, fungi and other living beings. It was probably a good four feet in diameter at the base, perhaps a little larger, and while large portions of it have long since returned to the soil and the nutrient cycle, this ancient tree continues to feed the forest.

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Beargrass above the clouds.

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Book release day is serious business.

The Everyday Naturalist has been officially released into the wild! You can get signed copies from me at TheEverydayNaturalist.com, or see if your local bookstore has it in stock or can order it for you. Ask your friendly neighborhood librarian, too!)