Nature Notes Previous Episodes

In Operation Ponderosa, DNA Research for the Big Trees of West Texas
“You can never hear enough sound of wind in the pines,” the writer Gary Snyder says in a poem. It’s like a vast breath, enthralling as crashing surf. In West Texas, that sound, and the presence of the towering evergreens, … Continue reading
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In Ancient DNA Findings, Profound Implications for Big Bend’s Past, and Present
It is – to put it mildly – a fraught history. Thousands of Native American burials were exhumed in the 19th and 20th centuries, by white scientists and collectors – the human remains displayed in “bone rooms,” or used in … Continue reading
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West Texas Croc: Fossil Find Illumines a Dynamic Epoch in Earth’s History
It’s a time in the Earth’s history that speaks clearly to our own. The Eocene Epoch began – some 56 million years ago – with massive greenhouse gas emissions. Temperatures rose – the planet’s life was transformed. But the epoch, … Continue reading
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In Presidio County, Archeologists Document the Ancient Architecture of Warfare
Our region’s Native American legacy endures in communities and living cultural traditions – and in countless emblems and traces on the West Texas landscape: in images on cave walls and boulders; in pottery and shards of flint from stone-tool making; … Continue reading
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The Rio Grande Cooter: A Desert Turtle is the Lovable Face of an Endangered Watershed
There are few things as magical as flowing water in the desert. Such places refresh both the body and the spirit, and in a land like ours, their presence can feel like an unearned gift. We immediately sense such places … Continue reading
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