Notebook of a Digital Naturalist

A contentious meeting with the Forest Service over logging 120 ancient trees at Black Mountain reveals the conflict between traditional forestry and modern ecosystem science.

An investigation of proposed logging in Dark Canyon reveals an ecological refugia harboring rare salamander hybrids, Mountain Yellow-legged Frogs, and the only Pacific Dogwood population in the San Jacinto Mountains.

The pile of cut and stacked logs towered thirty feet over our heads as my colleagues and I diligently counted the minuscule rings. Two hundred and fifty rings—more than qualifying this stand as an Old Growth Forest.