July 10, 2015 – Wildlife Conference Spokane Washington. The presenter’s heart raced as she presented her dissertation results on motion detection wildlife photography in Montana’s Blackfoot River watershed.   To ease the audience she flashes a photo taken with her wildlife camera of an un-groomed man.   His face was directly in front of the camera, looking as if to figure out what it was.   A caption under the photo  says “new species of hominid found in Montana”.   The audience laughs loudly, and this transformation allows her to gain footing and continue her talk.   The photo was not of an undiscovered hominoid species but rather an unshaven forest ecologist with a rugged and wild look.  

July 10, 2011

Like the abrupt mountains rising from the plains, arrival of summer in Montana was not subtle. Afternoon temperatures were in the 90′s, and both the land and I were thirsty. I was wandering the mountains above the Blackfoot River looking for remnant patches of old growth ponderosa pine and larch trees. Most of Montana’s forests are second growth, but remnant pockets of virgin old growth forests remain. These trees often occur on terrain that was too difficult to log when the forests were first harvested early in the 20^th century. Excited and distracted by the search, I wandered off the trail long enough to become lost. I had been lost for a couple hours when I discovered what I had been looking for. It was a small stand of old growth pine trees, and a good candidate for restoration work. Underneath the majestic 300  year old towering pine trees rose a carpet of small diameter Douglas-fir trees that stressed the ancient trees above. The excitement of the discovery distracted me from my lost state.