“ If there is a Creator, he must have an inordinate fondness for beetles. ” – JBS Haldane This quote reflects the 400,000+ known species of beetles in the world, constituting almost 40% of all known insect species and 25% of all known animal life-forms. If there was a box filled with all the animals...
"A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let's emulate that wise old bird." — Flann O'Brien Truth be told, owls are probably no more or less wise than most birds. Yet, perhaps because of their round head...
“ Sometimes when things are falling apart, they may actually be falling into place.” — J. Lynn Passing a critical eye across desert landscapes, at the lowest elevations we see a possible future for much of our desert. Dry, rocky slopes and otherwise common plants without any recruitment, just scattered aging brittlebushes and creosote bushes...
“… creation is never over. It had a beginning but it has no ending. Creation is always busy making new scenes, new things, new worlds” — Immanuel Kant By DR. CAMERON BARROWS Charles Darwin got so much right. He identified what he called “natural selection” as a process in nature that was akin to what...
“ There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” — Henri Matisse In May of 1999, the “Juniper Complex Fire” burned 13,894 acres of Joshua trees and blackbrush within Joshua Tree National Park. Desert wildfires of such magnitude were exceptionally rare prior to this, otherwise usually limited to less than a few...
“Though we sometimes think of the 'last ice age' as one long, cold period, it wasn't. Ice advanced and retreated as the Earth cycled between glacial (colder) and interglacial (warmer) periods.” — Anonymous ( thehorseshoecrab.org) Oscillations of the earth’s orbit around the sun, involving both the tilt of the earth and how near the sun...
“ This [biodiversity] is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms-folded them into its genes-and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady.” — E.O. Wilson Describing and understanding patterns of biodiversity is the avocation of naturalists. Animals and plants are not evenly...
“ I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune and sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs and gleams …” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry “ T his is a desert. There is nothing out here. Nothing.” — M. Kararasiles Sitting atop a granite boulder on the...
“ 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...
“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...
“ 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...
“ 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...
"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...
“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...
“ 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...