Author Archives Bruce Byers

About Bruce Byers

Bruce Byers Bruce Byers is an ecologist, writer, and international ecological consultant. His creative nonfiction writing tells stories of science and conservation from around the world. As an independent consultant, he assists government agencies, NGOs, and the private sector in the United States and worldwide with strategies for conserving biodiversity and improving the human-nature relationship.

Belizean Blues

Earth is a water planet. Over seventy percent of her surface is water (the word “earth” comes from roots in ancient Germanic languages, and she was portrayed as a goddess, hence “her”), and the atmosphere is full of gaseous water.
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Ecological Musings in the Maya Forest

March 2013. On our second night in Belize we camped at Caracol, now the ruins of what once was the largest and most powerful Mayan city in what is now that country.  In the 7th Century AD – or better
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Ukrainian Spring Continued: Into the Dark Forests of Polissya

March 2011: In my last episode, recounting a trip to the Russian-speaking steppe region of eastern Ukraine in March, 2011, I described the larks singing, the crocus blooming, the blue sky and sunshine on the golden steppe as it was
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Ukrainian Spring

March 2014. Almost exactly three years ago, in March, 2011, serendipity handed me the opportunity to lead a biodiversity conservation assessment for the U.S. Agency for International Development in Ukraine, and I worked with a team of exceptional Ukrainian consultants.
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Outer Banks Encounters

November 2013. In the second week of November I found myself in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, watching the ocean from a beachfront balcony.  Last year at about this time I wrote about thoughts triggered by a hike in Nags Head
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Following John Muir’s Footsteps in the Petrified Forest

October 30, 2013. Just after the death of his wife Louie Strenzel Muir in August, 1905, seeking to escape his grief and find relief for his youngest daughter Helen’s tuberculosis, John Muir travelled with his daughters to eastern Arizona. They settled
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Searching the Black Forest for Fire Scars on Halloween

October 31st, 2013. In my last story I described how my dad and I found a piece of a fossil tree trunk thirty years ago with what turned out to be the first fossil fire scar ever reported or described. I
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Fire Scar on a Triassic Tree

November 2013. Fire scars on trees have fascinated me since I first learned to recognize them.  Maybe because of their metaphorical quality: fire burns through the forest, but this tree survives with only part of its bark burned and cambium killed.
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Peregrination to Cape May for Hawks and Monarchs

October 14th, 2013. This was my annual pilgrimage to Cape May, New Jersey, which I’ve written about in past years.  I call it a “pilgrimage,” because it is a journey – although not too far, really – that for me has
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Turtle Beaches on the Gulf of Fonseca

September 2013. The Olive Ridley, Lepidochelys olivacea, the smallest of the sea turtles, comes ashore to lay eggs on the Pacific beaches of the Honduran Golfo de Fonseca. September is the peak nesting month. We wanted to see them if we
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