The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
Environmentalists lobby for stricter development controls in wake of subdivision of Woodworth Lake property. By Phil Brown Environmentalists say the approval of a housing development at a former Boy Scouts camp underscores the need for tighter regulation of privately owned backcountry lands in the Adirondacks. All four of the Adirondack Park’s major environmental groups opposed…
By Mike Lynch
Climate change threatens to reduce the cold-water habitat preferred by this Adirondack native. By Mike Lynch In one traditional method of lake-trout fishing, an angler holds in his or her hand a weighted line while trolling from a boat. To collect the line, the angler uses a jerry-rigged Victrola record player with a spool in…
By Mike Lynch
Wildlife advocates believe wolves could come back to the Adirondacks someday and want the state to facilitate their return. By Mike Lynch Standing in a snowy meadow in Wilmington, a wolf lifts its head and howls, breaking the near silence on a cold winter day. Just a few feet away Steve Hall watches the scene,…
By Phil Brown
Environmental groups are threatening to take to a higher court their battle against a mining company’s plan to drill for wollastonite in the Jay Mountain Wilderness. On Thursday, Earthjustice filed a notice of appeal with the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, a step that preserves its right to appeal the dismissal of a lawsuit…
Public remains split over the best use of 80-mile corridor running through wild lands. By Phil Brown After four public meetings on the future of the eighty-mile rail corridor between Big Moose and Lake Placid, the public seems as divided as ever, and the state now must make a decision sure to leave many people…
By Mike Lynch
Wildlife advocates say the state should prepare the public now for the possibility that mountain lions will be back in the future. By Mike Lynch Darcy Wiltse, a veterinarian, was driving on Route 458 near Meacham Lake one night early last winter when she saw a large animal crossing the road. She’s convinced it was…
The giants among us For all the vaunted magnitude of the largest animal that ever lived, and still lives, consider the largest living trees. A few giant coast redwoods skyscrape nearly four hundred feet above their California roots, while the tallest tree of our eastern forests, the white pine, may shoot nearly two hundred feet toward the energy…
By Mike Lynch
DEC bolsters the Adirondacks’ shrinking population of spruce grouse by bringing in specimens from Maine and Canada. By Mike Lynch Once abundant in the Adirondacks, the spruce grouse has struggled for much of the past century, but now scientists are trying to bolster the dwindling population by importing birds from out of state. The state Department of Environmental Conservation released three spruce grouse…
By Mike Lynch
Experts and officials look for ways to reduce the use of road salt, which can persist in the environment for many years. By Mike Lynch Standing next to a small, unnamed stream near where it empties into Mountain Pond on a cool September day, scientist Dan Kelting reads a sensor he just dipped in the water to measure…
ALTHOUGH I’VE READ several books about loons, a couple of them gloriously illustrated, Journey with the Loon strikes me as the most scientifically informed and appropriately illustrated study of loons I’ve ever experienced. David C. Evers is the executive director, founder, and chief scientist of the Biodiversity Research Institute and has been studying loons since 1987; his wife, Kate M. Taylor, has worked…