“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” — Jacques Yves Cousteau By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Even more so than the Baja California peninsula itself, the islands in the Gulf of California are a naturalists’ paradise. Each island is populated by a different assemblage of species, and many...
“The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it.” — Robert Edison Fulton Jr. By DR. CAMERON BARROWS The southern backdrop of the Coachella Valley, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains forms the northern edge of Baja California. While the political boundary with Mexico is still 70-80 miles further south, depending...
"Animals, like us ... are not things. They are not objects. Neither are they human. Yet they mourn. They love. They dance. They suffer. They know the peaks and chasms of being." — Gary Kowalski By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Through recorded history we humans have sought to find characteristics that separate, and elevate, people from...
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." — Carl Sagan By DR. CAMERON BARROWS My love affair with California deserts and their sky island mountains began the moment I arrived here in December 1985. I had grown up in coastal southern California, but spent no time in our deserts, accepting the conventional wisdom that...
“Death from a thousand cuts” – Lingchi By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Change is constant, only the rates of change vary. The Grand Canyon and the Colorado River that carved it are a mere six million years old. Just twenty thousand years ago much of the earth’s northern hemisphere was enveloped in an ice age. Mammoths...
“There is always a storm…. some live through it and others are made from it.” — Shannon Alder “Extraordinary weather begets extraordinary landscapes.” Gentle desert rain and light winds are pleasant respites from the hot summer days and in winters can spur spectacular wildflower displays, but that is not what sculpted our desert mountains, or...
“Wherever there are birds, there is hope.” — Mehmet Murat Ildan By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Birds can often be a “gateway” for exploring nature. Wherever you are, as long as you are outside, there are birds. Visit Antarctica, you could see up to 62 species of birds. No lizards, few if any insects, but there...
"The wealth of the nation is in its air, water, soil, forests, minerals, rivers, lakes, oceans, scenic beauty, wildlife habitats, and biodiversity ... that's all there is. That's the whole economy. That's where all the economic activity and jobs come from. These biological systems are the sustaining wealth of the world." — Gaylord Nelson By...
“In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the Earth.” — David Attenborough By DR. CAMERON BARROWS In early November of 1805, after traversing much of North America, the Corps of Discovery Expedition finally reached the shore of the Pacific Ocean at...
“Biodiversity starts in the distant past and it points toward the future.” — Frans Lanting By DR. CAMERON BARROWS There is a strongly held belief among most naturalists and ecologists that biodiversity is highest in the tropics and then diminishes across arid, temperate, and then arctic biomes. What separates science from other beliefs or knowledge...
“Of these three essential factors, space might be said to be one with which biogeography is primarily concerned. However, space necessarily interplays with time and form, therefore the three factors are as one of biogeographic concern.” — Leon Croizat By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Biogeography is a science aimed at understanding how life is distributed across...
“If a god or divine being had created all living organisms on Earth, then that creator must have an inordinate fondness for beetles.” — J.B.S. Haldane By DR. CAMERON BARROWS The context for this quote was at a meeting attended by a diverse array of intellectuals. J.B.S. Haldane, a British geneticist and evolutionary biologist, found...
“Don't let the tall weeds cast a shadow on the beautiful flowers in your garden.” — Steve Maraboli I am typing this at 7,000 feet, at the foot of the 12,637’ San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona near the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau. The “Peaks” are collectively the rim of a dormant volcano...
“The Horned Toad represents longevity and self-reliance. He also represents the conservation of native bounty. He is believed to empower a person or group with self-sufficiency.” — Perry Null Trading By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Hopi, Navajo, Tohono O'odham, Pima, Tarahumara, and Zuni cultures portray horned lizards in their ceremonies and stories as symbols of strength...
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet” — William Shakespeare By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Proper identification and attributing correct names to what we see in nature are keys to natural history, and indeed all science. Prior to 1735, there were no standards or rules...
“There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” — Margaret J. Wheatley By DR. CAMERON BARROWS There was a time not long ago, roughly the Victorian period (1700s-1800s), when those who had free time often spent that time “naturalizing,” exploring and studying nature. Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel...
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know.” – Donald Rumsfeld By CAMERON BARROWS Over the...
“The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” — Robert Swan By CAMERON BARROWS Dramatic climate shifts in the past, most recently during the Pleistocene, catalyzed ecological changes, including extinctions. Without those extinctions we would currently be sharing North America with mammoths, mastodons, dire wolves, and dozens of...
"I hold no preference among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous." — Edward Abbey By CAMERON BARROWS Desert wildflowers illustrate the often-hidden biodiversity of deserts. For months, sometimes years on end, deserts are bathed in a subtle yet beautiful kaleidoscope of beige, tan, gray, and brown. Then, when the rain finally comes...
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” — Peter Drucker By CAMERON BARROWS Birds sing using a specialized organ called the syrinx. The syrinx is similar to our larynx, but while our larynx consists of a single air passage, a bird’s syrinx branches into two tubes like an upside-down...