Aside from humans, perhaps no other species can modify its surroundings for its own purposes as much as beaver.
Throughout much of North America, these busy critters take down trees and dam streams to create waterways safe from predators and to lay up enough woody food stores to last the winter.
This exuberant activity is why beavers are known as “ecosystem engineers,” or species that profoundly change their environment in out-sized proportion to their numbers. [Read more…] about How Beavers Modify Forests: New Understandings
Adirondack scientist, photographer, and conservation advocate Brendan Wiltse has joined Paul Smith’s College as Visiting Assistant Professor with its new Masters of Science program and Water Quality Director with the college’s Adirondack Watershed Institute (AWI). Wiltse is a graduate of Paul Smith’s College and earned his Ph.D. from Queen’s University in Ontario. 
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced that several otherwise restricted Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties will be opening to the public from Saturday, August 15th, through Sunday, August 30th, 2020.
DEC’s Division of Water has asked people who recreate on or near waterways in Central New York to participate in the Citizen Recreational Evaluation of Environmental Quality (CREEQ) citizen-science initiative.
New York State Hunting and trapping licenses and Deer Management Permits (DMPs) for the 2020-2021 season are now on sale.
I first became acquainted with my neighborhood red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) when it visited my bird feeders last winter. Sporting a black-and-white-striped back with a red nape, this medium-sized woodpecker certainly made a visual impression.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced that emerald ash borer (EAB) has been confirmed in Warren County.
On July 27th, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) notified DEC’s Division of Law Enforcement and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries of a distressed humpback whale in Ambrose Channel, one of the busiest waterways in New York Harbor. 
NorthWind Fine Arts has announced “Paint & Pixels,” a dual show of new works by award-winning area artists painter Catherine Hartung and photographer Russ Hartung. 
The term psithurism (sith-er-ism) doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’s not meant to. The word, from the Greek psithuros (whispering), indicates the melody that rolls off pine needles in a gentle wind. It also means the sound of “proper” leaves shaking in the treetops.