Yes, still here, and still curious about those portions of the earth that are most unlike my own. Thus my recent interest in the goings on Heard Island, an uninhabited blob that can lay fair claim to the title “Remotest Place on the Planet.” It’s perhaps best known as the headquarters for the Heard Island […]
The Jenga-like nature of markets is revealed in the tale of Australia’s kangaroo-meat crisis. There was a time when steaks and chops taken from Down Under’s most celebrated marsupials seemed destined to become a staple of butcher’s shops the world over. No country developed a more ravenous appetite for kangaroo meat than Russia, which came […]
Tags:agriculture·Australia·economics·hunting·kangaroos·marketing·Russia
I have exactly one week to go before my book deadline, so expect the next few posts to spin off my last-minute writing struggles. Over the past several months, I’ve occasionally shouted out great examples of single descriptive details that elevated non-fiction tales into the realm of high art. There was Barbara Demick’s retelling of […]
I am sure that hunting alligators on the Bayou is an especially tricky way to make one’s living. But according to this profile of a lady far tougher than I’ll ever be, the vocation is at least somewhat easier if you have the good fortune to belong to a favored family: Victoria Bouvier, a 41-year-old […]
It is a good time to be a squirrel in the United States. For starters, the bushy-tailed rodents are no longer coveted by hunters, to the great distress of many aging sportsmen. The latest numbers out of Pennsylvania don’t lie: The wider availability of squirrel species has not been enough to buoy squirrel hunting participation. […]
Legal wolf hunting has finally returned to the Lower 48, ostensibly as a way to control the species’ population while also earning Idaho’s state government a few bucks. The program obviously has some folks in a lather, as history shows that rapacious hunting was responsible for the gray wolf‘s longtime residency on the endangered species […]
Tags:economics·hunting·Idaho·Nebraska·wildlife management·wolves
We’ve always been puzzled by the fact that the two main holdouts against international whaling laws are Japan and Norway—nations from opposite ends of the globe, with no apparent shared culture or history. How did these two countries form such a strong alliance in favor of the continued slaughter of aquatic mammals? The stock explanation […]
