- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Enormous wildfires spark scramble to improve fire models
(Nature) Jeff Tollefson, Aug. 31
…“Something is definitely different, and it raises questions about how much we really know,” says Max Moritz, a fire scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
… The problem, Moritz says, is that most of the fire models in use today are based on data from the past two or three decades. But it seems that fire behaviour might be shifting in response to climate faster than anybody expected, and that makes it increasingly problematic to extrapolate from past trends, he adds.
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
UC Cooperative Extension is asking California farmers and landowners to help track the the state's wild pig population, reported Julia Mitric on Capitol Public Radio News. Signs of the pig's presence are hard to miss, UCCE advisor John Harper told the reporter.
"It looks like you came in with a rototiller and just uprooted everything," he says. "It's like ground squirrel mounds or gopher mounds on steroids because the pigs can go over such a large area."
California's wild pigs have a variety of...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The drought is a wake-up call to water users all over California, except perhaps its bears. The San Francisco Chronicle suggested in a front page article recently that the winter is too warm for bears to sleep. However, wildlife experts quoted by Mother Jones said the weather isn't to blame.
What motivates some bears to stay awake while others hibernate is still a mystery to scientists, according to Roger Baldwin, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of...
