End Pavement

When I was a kid, somebody got me an awesome subscription. You began with a set of cards (approx. 4-inch square) with dividers, and a cool red plastic tray to store them in upright — each card represented a different animal, with a great picture on the front and info on the back. Every month, if I remember correctly, you got another small set of cards to add to your collection. This was, for the type of kid I was (and am), obsession-producing.

I daren’t poke around eBay or other auction sites for fear of actually finding, and therefore being compulsed to buy, the full set.

The next best thing might be a website. Actually, a much better thing would be an online Encyclopedia of Life. And while there’s no relationship that I know of between EOL and those old-school cards, there sure is one in my brain.

And this isn’t the old non-interactive days, no sir.

Comprehensive, collaborative, ever-growing, and personalized, the Encyclopedia of Life is an ecosystem of websites that makes all key information about life on Earth accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world. Our goal is to create a constantly evolving encyclopedia that lives on the Internet, with contributions from scientists and amateurs alike. To transform the science of biology, and inspire a new generation of scientists, by aggregating all known data about every living species. And ultimately, to increase our collective understanding of life on Earth, and safeguard the richest possible spectrum of biodiversity.

Now, do you think I’ll be able to resist looking up information for or even contributing on Southern Californian specimens while I’m running around the great outdoors?

Yeah, me neither. ;)

Where most of our hikes take place, the worst we have to worry about are rattlesnakes, mountain lions, and maybe black bears.

For Johan Otter and his daughter Jenna, traveling from California to hike in Glacier National Park in northernmost Montana, a beautiful trip took a tragic turn for a much bigger reason. Their story is being told in the LA Times in two parts, the first installment of which is in today’s paper — “A hike into horror and an act of courage”.

Johan and Jenna had been on the trail little more than an hour. They had just followed a series of switchbacks above Grinnell Lake and were on a narrow ledge cut into a cliff. It was an easy ascent, rocky and just slightly muddy from yesterday’s rain.

Johan took some pictures. Jenna pushed ahead. It was one of the most spectacular hikes they’d taken on this trip, a father-daughter getaway to celebrate her graduation from high school. There were some steps, a small outcropping, a blind turn, and there it was, the worst possibility: a surprised bear with two yearling cubs.

Today’s powerful article covers the attack and rescue, and tomorrow’s will be focused on recovery. I had tears in my eyes reading it earlier, as it was all-to-easy to put myself in the shoes of Johan trying to protect his daughter.

Even if the threats are relatively minor compared to a protective grizzly bear mother, it’s still a sobering experience to think of being out on the local trails, with no idea of what’s around the next bend.

Will something happen to you on any given day? Almost certainly not. But it’s the “almost” that provides motivation for preparing for the worst as best you can.

Update: Part Two was published today: “Pain, gratitude and a long fight back”.

His daughter was safe and he was recovering, but months later, he knew the bear still had him.

His halo was a cage, and all Johan Otter could do was stare out through the carbon graphite rods that pinned his head in place.

My friend and fellow hiker Alex writes the Ravens in Hollywood blog. He was quite concerned about the wildlife that were threatened in yesterday’s fire, not that far from his house.

He sent me an awesome picture he managed to capture recently (before the fire) that has become his new masthead banner.

(Click to see in context and full size.)

Flickr has a ton of shots of the fire from various folks. Unfortunately, with the apparently even-worsening drought situation, we’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing.

Let’s hope all the wildlife in Hollywood (not to mention the numerous hairless primates) are okay.

Commercials for Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel have been thick and furious for a while now, which is just fine thanks to the amazing footage and music. I’m fascinated already, and I’ve only seen commercials.

It’s an 11-part mini-series (though with 11 parts, it seems perilously close to a full-blown series ;) that starts tonight with the first three hour-long episodes.

• Planet Earth: Pole to Pole
• Planet Earth: Mountains
• Planet Earth: Deep Ocean

This is the best excuse for HD I’ve seen so far. :) Can’t wait!

More than five years in the making, PLANET EARTH redefines blue-chip natural history filmmaking and continues the Discovery Channel mission to provide the highest quality programming in the world. The 11-part series will amaze viewers with never-before-seen animal behaviors, startling views of locations captured by cameras for the first time, and unprecedented high-definition production techniques. Award-winning actress and conservationist Sigourney Weaver is the series’ narrator.

PLANET EARTH airs on consecutive Sundays from March 25 through April 22, 2007, on Discovery Channel and in high definition on Discovery HD Theater.

February 3rd, 2007. A couple of hours before my bike accident.

Click for larger. Cameraphone shot. Here it is zoomed in a bit.

Now this I could have told you without looking at the numbers, but Southern California is in the middle of its driest year on record.

The LA Times has a story on it in today’s paper. Downtown Los Angeles, as an example, has received 2.4 inches of rain since July 1st 2006.

“We’ve never had a drier year on record so far,” said Eric Boldt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. “If nothing significant happens in March, then we’ve pretty much run out of time.”

Those in the outdoors will see the effects throughout the year, from a prolonged fire danger season, to upset insect migrations, to threatened crops and other plant life.

Even native California plants are suffering under the dry conditions. Gardeners at South Coast Botanic Garden on the Palos Verdes Peninsula have seen more dry and brown leaves in their drought-resistant Mediterranean and California plants.

Those plants usually rely exclusively on California’s winter rains, said Tanya Finney, who leads the gardening staff on the 87-acre property.

“We don’t normally have to supplement the water in the winter,” she said. “But this year it’s been so dry that we’ve started hand-watering things we usually don’t, like our rosemary and salvia.”

So keep those canteens handy. And if you have your pets along for the hikes, bring extra for them.