Writing

Bruce Byers has been writing to inform and inspire readers about natural history, ecology, and conservation for decades. “In Our Place,” his monthly column in the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper (Boulder, Colorado) ran from 1991 to 1992. Since 2011 he has posted almost 150 stories on his blog, Ecologia: Essays and Adventures from Bruce Byers Consulting. The essays combine elements of travel writing and creative nonfiction nature writing, and are illustrated with photos, in a photojournalistic style. They take readers along on consulting trips and personal travels to diverse ecosystems in dozens of countries.

The View from Cascade Head: Lessons for the Biosphere from the Oregon Coast, a book of creative nonfiction nature essays about the UNESCO Cascade Head Biosphere Reserve, was published by Oregon State University Press in 2020. His second book, Nature on the Edge: Lessons for the Biosphere from the California Coast, a sequel focusing on California’s two coastal biosphere reserves, Golden Gate and Channel Islands, was published by the OSU Press in 2024.

Bruce’s writing has been supported by writer’s residencies at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology (Otis, Oregon; Fall, 2018) and the Mesa Refuge (Point Reyes Station, California; June 2021), and nourished by his experiences as a visiting scientist at the University of California-Santa Barbara’s Sedgwick and Santa Cruz Island Reserves (October 2021), the University of California-Berkeley’s Point Reyes Field Station (April 2022), and the U.S. Forest Service H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the Oregon Cascades (under the auspices of the Oregon State University’s Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word; October 2019).