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conservation

close up of an African American man wearing a long sleeve blue shirt fly fishing
Profiles

Casting Comedy and Conservation: Eeland Stribling

For fisherman, outdoorsman, and comedian Eeland Stribing, comedy and fishing are very similar. Creating a joke and making a cast both take thoughtful preparation, the perfect setup, and impeccable timing to land the hook.

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5 Min
man wearing a US forest service attire standing next to a black and white dog perched on a high stump
Profiles

Karelian Bear Dogs: Hunter Turned Protector

A better way to mitigate non-lethal interactions between humans and bears: an ancient breed of hunting dogs, Karelian’s have been used by Finnish hunters for centuries to hunt large animals such as bears and elk

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5 Min
Aerial of ocean in Alaska
Profiles

Oceans Initiative: on a mission to protect marine life

Conservation scientist Erin Ashe, PhD, says we all have a “cetacean story”: the moment in our lives when we realize that whales and dolphins—the spellbinding mammals she studies—exist. Ashe was four years old when hers happened. A family of orcas swam below her aunt’s cliffside home on San Juan Island in the state of Washington, announcing their presence with the unmistakable whoosh of air being exhaled through blowholes. Ashe was awestruck, and insatiably curious about the 12,000-pound creatures—a feeling that would direct the course of her studies and, eventually, her life’s work.

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2 Min
Wolf running near Yellowstone, MT
Field Notes

Western Wolves Swept Up In Culture Wars

Many animals kill for a living, but wolves compete with Homo sapiens in that they eat elk, deer, moose, and sometimes livestock. The debates about wolves are in part about biology, economics, and disagreements over the consequences of having wolves on the land. But the debate also reveals how much we are willing to share, and how we see our place in the world.

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3 Min
teal blue background with a sketch of a fish, white text overlay reading, HUNT GATHER TALK
Field Notes

Hunt Gather Talk Podcast | Season 3

Renowned wild game chef, Hank Shaw, has spent a lifetime gathering wild edible plants, hunting, and fishing the land and waters of North America. This season of ‘Hunt Gather Talk’ dives deep into, fish and seafood.

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7 Min
a blonde haired woman wearing hiking gear standing in a forest looking off into the distance
Field Notes

A Sea Change in Southeast Alaska

The USDA’s proposed Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy charts new management direction for the Tongass, centered on the responsible stewardship of public land and water. Learn more about the initiatives taking place and how you can support the Tongass.

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9 Min

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a muskox standing stoiclyon rocky snow covered ground looking off into the distance
Field Notes

The Survivors: Alaskan Arctic Musk Oxen

With no reason to fear mankind, the muskox was almost driven to extinction by the advent of guns that ripped through the slow-moving herds. In Alaska and on the rest of the planet, they simply disappeared by the late 1800s. All that was left of an animal that had been around since the time of the caveman were fuzzy stories passed down through Indigenous communities.

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4 Min
a black and white image of a helicopter flying up to pull the hanging log to the drop zone away from the logging site
Field Notes

A Short History of Helicopter Logging

The practice of helicopter logging is still employed in parts of the world today, including the US and Canada. Often the USFS will use it to thin forest lands in the wildland-urban interface near cities and towns to mitigate wildfire danger. Several logging companies employ it to target specific types of wood and to work in rugged, steep mountainous slopes.

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2 Min
Small figure hanging from a gigantic fir tree.
Profiles

Logger Dennis Cronin’s Unexpected Legacy

In 2011, logger Dennis Cronin was flagging cutblock 7190 near Port Renfrew, British Columbia for clear-cutting when a massive tree stopped him in his tracks.

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2 Min
drew 2
Profiles

The Margins of Art, Science, & Superstition: Dr. J. Drew Lanham

J. Drew Lanham is an ornithologist, a professor of wildlife ecology at Clemson University, and a poet, naturalist, and hunter-conservationist. A prolific writer, he has authored the award-winning memoir, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature. A passionate outdoorsman, Lanham lives his subject matter, fully committed to a life integrated with nature.

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5 Min
Anne LaBastille_1200x628
Profiles

Anne LaBastille: True to Nature

At the age of 31, after securing a small plot of private land studded with mixed spruce, balsam fir, and hardwood forests, LaBastille embarked on a solitary life in the wilderness of the Adirondacks. The closest village lay five miles away to the west over the mountain, and was accessible only by boat. She was an example of how to live in harmony with nature and still gain satisfaction from this solitary existence.

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3 Min
logger standing on a large downed log in the middle of a dense forest
Field Notes

Sustainable Logging For Healthy Forests

Over the last five decades, the logging industry in the united states has evolved considerably, and that is a good thing. Nowadays, when you hear a chainsaw roar to life or see a semi-truck rumble by loaded down with freshly felled trees, you’re witnessing the final stages of an incredibly complex process. A myriad of groups have weighed in, each one with a straightforward goal in mind, ensuring that the logging industry is sustainable and causes as little environmental damage as possible.

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5 Min
river running through stone cliffs in southwest desert area
Field Notes

Impact of the Rio Grande: Lifeline of the Southwest

“In 2014, I followed the 1,900-mile-long river course from source to sea by foot, kayak, and canoe. I followed a broken river caught between trying to meet 19th-century ideals with 20th-century infrastructure while facing the demands of the 21st century.”

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5 Min
man holding oars while standing in boat
Profiles

Lael Johnson – Olympic Peninsula Fly Guide

Lael Johnson is a fly fisherman and guide on the Olympic Peninsula. His passion for the anadromous fish of Washington’s coastal rivers is contagious. He loves these fish, these rivers, and the people he is lucky enough to experience them with. Filson Contributor Ben Matthews spent a few days on the river with Lael to ask a few questions about guiding, steelhead, and life in general. If you’re interested in heading out on the river with Lael yourself, check out his website and book a trip. You won’t regret it.

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5 Min
mountain peaks rising away from an alpine lake with towering pines in the foreground
Field Notes

The Puyallup: one of North America’s most endangered rivers

The Puyallup River flows roughly 65 miles through Mt. Rainier National Park, with its origins in glacial snowmelt. Home to the only spring Chinook salmon population in the South Puget Sound region, it is vital to the survival of endangered orcas and the local fishing industry. The Electron Hydropower Project threatens this population, killing an estimated 40% of Chinook juveniles on their way to Puget Sound.

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5 Min
sun shining through pine boughs on the side of a river meandering through piles of river rocks
Profiles

Why the Skagit River Watershed Matters

Nothing feels small on the Skagit River. It emerges from the Cascade Mountains, the ridgelines rising suddenly and severely, compressing the landscape and framing the view with their immense, sharp mass. For much of its length, the river is wide enough that three or four drift boats could easily pass side by side with plenty of room to spare. Anglers standing in its flow could never dream of reaching the far bank with a cast. If that angler is fly fishing, then they are likely to be using a two-hand rod to throw a Skagit head, a short specialty fly line developed on its namesake river a generation earlier to deliver big flies and sinking lines to winter steelhead-holding water.

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4 Min
grizzly bear in river trying to catch fish in running water
Profiles

Return of the Icons: Grizzly Bear Reintroduction

Grizzly bears. An icon of the West. A keystone predator that can weigh up to 600 pounds. Their thick, lush fur can range from dark brown to nearly towhead blonde. They are capable of surviving the harshest of conditions, if allowed to. They once ranged from Northern Alaska to Central Mexico, but while Alaska and western British Columbia still have large numbers of bears, their southern range has shrunk dramatically to just a handful of areas in the lower 48, including the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Wyoming, western Montana, northern and eastern Idaho.

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4 Min
team of vets and forestry service personnel inspect an animal on a towel on top of a table with a breathing apparatus attached to its face
Profiles

Conservation Northwest: Keeping the Northwest Wild

For the 7.5 million residents of Washington state, most, if not all, have used or will use I-90 at some point. This interstate connects the two largest cities in the state: Seattle to the west and Spokane to the east. It also runs right through the southern end of the North Cascade mountains, home to great populations of blacktail deer, Roosevelt elk, coyotes, and black bears, among other species. As you drive east from Seattle, you might notice a bridge with no roads connected to it that spans the interstate just before you get to the city of Easton. This bridge is a wildlife crossing that will help keep these animals safe from vehicles. The bridge is there thanks to a Seattle-based organization, Conservation Northwest, and is just one of many projects this organization has helped fund, design and implement in this region.

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2 Min
black and white portrait of man wearing a puffy coat standing in a rocky field with a large sheer snowy cliff in the background
Profiles

Climber Fred Beckey: Spirit of the Mountains

If you listen hard enough, you can hear Fred Beckey’s spirit whispering among the towering peaks and hidden valleys of the Northern Cascades. Around campfires, bar tops, or anywhere that people gather, his name tends to pop up. He is an outdoors urban legend, the mythical mountaineer who spent eight decades solely focused on one thing and one thing only: climbing.

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3 Min
Kathy Burek in green overalls gathering organic material from a beachhead
Profiles

The Puzzle Master: Kathy Burek

Anyone who has ever spent hours huddled over a puzzle knows the joy of finally figuring it out. Whether it’s an obscure image coming together piece by piece, that head-scratcher of a rhyme finally making sense, or completing the last box in a crossword, the endorphin rush of finally getting the right answer makes all of the effort worthwhile. But imagine devoting your life to untangling complicated mysteries but rarely knowing if you have solved the puzzle correctly. Most people couldn’t handle it, it might even drive them mad. But, Kathy Burek has done this almost every day for the last twenty-five years, and she loves it.

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5 Min
Man draws in a sketchbook at an aquarium
Profiles

Renowned Artist and Activist: Ray Troll

Ray’s Alaska adventure started in 1983, when he moved here to help his sister open a seafood retail store in Ketchikan. Ray soon turned to art to document his experiences in the unique fishing culture that permeated the town.

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4 Min
orca swimming just beneath the surface of the ocean
Profiles

The Ocean’s Top Predator: Puget Sound Orcas

Black fins sliced the water and rose higher and higher, close to our boat. With a puff and a blow, the orcas surfaced: members of J pod, the southern resident whales that frequent Puget Sound. The whales blew mighty breaths. They are mammals,
like us.

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4 Min
three members of Puget Sound keepers, a middle aged man and two 20 year old women pulling aboard ocean trash
Profiles

Puget Soundkeeper: On the Water Every Week, Stopping Pollution Every Day

On any given day, Puget Soundkeeper’s boat patrol team can be seen monitoring the waters of Puget Sound for illegal pollution and activities that violate the health of our waterways. The signs are often masked and hard to catch but, if you know what to look for, you can find them.

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5 Min
close up image from the top down of over a dozen wild horses in varying hues of brown and black running towards something
Field Notes

History of America’s Wild Horses

The wild horses of the West have occupied the minds of people here since they were reintroduced to the North American continent by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. These first mustangs (from the Spanish mestengo, which means “ownerless beast” or “stray horse”) were the predecessors of the wild horses that roam the desert and grassland ecosystems of the Midwest and Western United States today.

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9 Min
snowy white covered landscape with a dozen snowy bison walking towards you
Field Notes

Rebisoning America’s West

As we bounce across the prairie, small groups of bison close to the dirt track watch us roll by, while two bands of elk stare at us from a distance. Meandering along in search of the two bison cows, Austin talks of seeing the landscape restored to its pre-nineteenth-century vigor.

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6 Min
a close up of a US Fish and Wildlife silver duck band
Field Notes

Duck Banding: Hunter-Backed Conservation Work Helps Waterfowl Thrive

Banding has been used for centuries. In 218 B.C., besieged Roman soldiers reportedly used thread to tie a message on a crow’s leg and then released the bird. John James Audubon and Ernest Thompson Seton pioneered early banding methods in the United States. Federal banding programs were established in the 1920s after the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918.

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5 Min
a black and white x-ray of a two headed fawn skeleton from the top down
Profiles

University of Georgia Deer Lab Boosts Our Knowledge of America’s No. 1 Game Animal

For about 50 years, students and faculty at the University of Georgia’s famous Deer Research Laboratory have conducted far-reaching studies across the country and beyond to improve our understanding of deer biology, behavior, and management. With an extensive list of published research and many graduates in high-ranking wildlife positions, the lab’s influence on the knowledge and management of deer is undeniable.

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8 Min
wild goose jack setting a goose free, the goose is taking off from his arms into the air
Profiles

Wild Goose Jack

At the turn of the 20th century, sportsman John (Jack) Miner found himself amidst an unregulated commercial market, and local grassroots hunting. In the small town of Kingsville, Ontario, along the northern shore of Lake Erie, young Jack and his brother Ted spent their minimal free time carving and painting decoys in preparation for when the ducks would return.

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8 Min
vintage green United States Forest Service and Filson jacket with department patch on brown canvas backdrop
Field Notes

Filson and The Forest Service

Because of our shared history in the wildlands of America and mutual need for tough gear in remote places, Filson and the U.S. Forest Service have been likely partners since we were both founded (1897 and 1905, respectively). As the Klondike Gold Rush ended, Filson found new customers in the loggers and workers of the Pacific Northwest, many of whom would become or were members of the Forest Service.

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2 Min
monument peak lookout with sunsetting
Field Notes

Monument Peak Lookout Tower

In 2019 Filson partnered with the National Forest Foundation (NFF) to restore Montana’s Monument Peak Lookout in Montana; originally built in 1936, using a classic L-4 tower and cabin plans from 1933.

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7 Min
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