We all connect with nature in different ways, and they are all valid. You can prefer to pee inside and still enjoy being outside. You can simultaneously love your mattress and the mountains, A/C and the AT, Netflix and beaver-chewed sticks. The depth of your love for the earth and its creatures is not provenContinue reading “Quick Thoughts on…Nature Connection”

I read 193 books this year. Yes, that includes picture books, because picture books are books too! (How do I keep count? On Goodreads!) Here are all my favorite, human/nature-related books that I READ in 2020 and rated 4 or 5 stars: Nonfiction Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants byContinue reading “The Almost Anthropologist’s Favorite Books of 2020”

I lived a good twenty years in Florida before realizing how many primates, both wild and captive, shared my home state. This post explores the idea that introduced species like the Silver River macaques and Dania Beach vervets are not the only primates in Florida. According to some, an ape roams the swamps that isContinue reading “Skunk Ape: Primatologists Ponder the Possibility”

The Appalachian mountains 30,000 feet below resembled a crumpled, dark green blanket. As we flew east, nearing D.C., I looked down upon the gleaming Potomac. I loved that damn river with its tidy banks, neatly lined, and milky brown waters swirling into mesmerizing patterns. The plane crossed the river and turned immediately so its noseContinue reading “Not the Same Old River”

The wonderful thing about finding reptiles and amphibians in the wild is that they are often slow-moving enough to safely enjoy a satisfying glimpse. So, WHY must so many herpers catch and handle every critter they find? In the wise words of my friend KT Hanson’s herpetologist grandpa, Robert ‘Bob’ Gordon, “Unless it’s roadkill orContinue reading “Quick Thoughts on…Handsy Herpers”

Do mountains actually think? Maybe they just feel. Perhaps they simply know. From Aldo Leopold’s classic essay (read ‘Thinking Like A Mountain’ here) to my current favorites by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (check out her newest book here), nature writing has changed a lot over the years, but there is a common thematic thread: interdependence. The mountainContinue reading “How to Think Like a Mountain”

What if we don’t need to RE-wild* because we’ve been wild all along? What if we just need to prioritize the wild within and around us? What if we don’t need to RE-connect to nature, but instead better value and prioritize our enduring and existing relationship with nature? *I mean rewilding in the personal, metaphoricalContinue reading “Quick Thoughts on…Rewilding”

I have a confession: I don’t know WHAT I study. I still struggle to summarize my research in a very basic way because of terminology… Crop-WHAT? Raiding? Feeding? Foraging? Monkeys eat fruit that farmers grow. That’s what I know. Initially I used the term crop-raiding. During interviews, I translated the phrase literally in Bahasa Indonesia:Continue reading “Conflict or Coexistence: Why Words Matter”

Selamat Lebaran and Eid Mubarak to all who celebrated yesterday! “Mau lihat?” Do you want to watch? My friends repeated until finally, anxiously, I walked from the porch over the to corral. People and animals around me seemed stressed and excited, stimulated by lots of activity and new smells in the air. In the IslamicContinue reading “Sacrifice, Sapi, and Selamat Lebaran”

“Feeling after God is dangerous business,” wrote Dennis Covington in Salvation on Sand Mountain. Dangerous for who, exactly? Years ago, Covington’s remarkable book introduced me to one of the most intriguing human-animal relationships I’ve ever studied. In short, believers “take up serpents,” drink deadly substances, speak in tongues, and follow other signs from Mark 16:17-18.Continue reading “Serpents Taken Up: Snake-Handling From the Snake’s Perspective”

I learned about pawpaw trees when I moved to West Virginia in 2016. One dry, fall day the Potomac was so shallow I could shuffle over rocks and through knee-deep water from the Mountain State to the Free State and back again. That’s when I tasted pawpaw fruit for the first time. The flavor wasContinue reading “Pawpaw: The Plant, The Person, Home”