The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 (41 page)

Stiles left Washington for coastal Virginia after twenty-two years as chief of staff to the late California Democratic representative George Brown, who in 1978 launched the first federal climate-change research program. But it was not until Stiles saw Norfolk's frequent flooding that he realized climate change, far from a distant threat, was a disaster well under way. “I thought, ‘Oh, the feds are going to fix this,'” he says. “BS, ain't happening. It's local government—and man, the politics at the local level.”

So Stiles started showing up at local planning commission meetings, begging officials to stop approving new shoreline developments in the face of inevitable sea-level rise. Back when he began, in 2006, “they looked at us like we were crazy”—coastal land is often the most valuable in a county, and it generates the highest property taxes. But then he stopped talking about climate change and started talking about budgets. “Suddenly it was like a key in the lock,” he says. “What quickly happens is the money you put into those neighborhoods exceeds the property tax you get out. These neighborhoods turn into money pits. There just isn't enough money to raise all of the structures that need to be raised.”

For Stiles, it doesn't matter whether local officials will actually utter the words “climate change,” so long as they start dealing with the impacts. “Our perspective is just, ‘Look, get on the bus, and we'll figure out together where the destination is,'” he says.

It's all about good, old-fashioned fiscal conservatism, says Conrad, the water consultant: “If this is all done by just pots of money being thrown around, most of the residents will be inclined to just take the money, do what's immediately convenient, and ignore the elephant in the room, which is that the Atlantic Ocean wants to move inland.”

Matthias Ruth, an economist at Northeastern University who focuses on climate impacts, says the key is to provide a financial return for planning ahead. “We know that what once was the hundred-year floodplain now is the ten- or five-year floodplain. So what we need to do is give the incentives to either fortify buildings, elevate them, flood-proof them, or have a controlled retreat.” Instead “we pretend it's not an issue, and we put ever more infrastructure into the coasts and ever more people.”

Ruth ticks off the expected costs of climate change on the coasts—seawalls, flood insurance claims, disaster response, not to mention dislocation, stress on communities, and lost social connections. And what if, after a major storm like Sandy, there were an ice storm or maybe another hurricane the following year? “It's these one-two punches, the cumulative effect that they have on our infrastructure, our social systems,” he says. “What we already see is worrisome, but this is going to be an order of magnitude more worrisome.”

And with every year that goes by without shifting the incentives, both the costs and the future fiscal liabilities get larger. Many observers believe that after a major disaster, particularly one of Sandy's size and scope, there's a window—maybe six months, maybe a year—for a real shift in direction. Even with Congress frozen in denial, there's a lot the Obama administration could do: the Veterans Administration could stop underwriting mortgages on homes in flood-prone areas, and the Department of Commerce could deny economic development grants to projects on the coast. The Department of Housing and Urban Development could situate new low-income housing away from flood zones, and the Department of Transportation could build roads where they won't be under water in the near future.

We're already spending billions on responding to storms and disasters made worse by climate change, notes Ruth; Sandy gave us a chance to think differently. “Why don't we take [that money] and invest in infrastructure in ways to overcome the existing inefficiencies and improve quality of life?” he asks. “And then as we do this, reduce the vulnerability. Instead of having this downward spiral, have an upward one.”

In the end, says Stiles, it might be a matter of how many disasters it takes to generate momentum. “I look at these little moments, this incremental progress, but I wonder, ‘Is there enough time? Can we make it?'” he says. “Are there enough of these events coming up, and are we smart enough to catch up with the change that nature is going through?”

FROM
Anchorage Press

 

1.

 

The image is a sentimental favorite, a portrait of two wild sheep that's suitable for framing or getting published in a book. A Dall sheep ewe and her lamb gaze directly at the viewer, only their white upper bodies and heads visible behind gray, lichen-splattered rocks. The faces of both appear calm. Inquisitive. Yet their large golden eyes, erect ears, and pursed lips also suggest caution. And maybe some uncertainty. There's a sense that the sheep will bound away if the human they're intently watching steps any closer or makes some sudden, awkward move.

The ewe-lamb pair were captured in this picture while perched on a steep hillside that looms above the Seward Highway south of Anchorage. They were among a half-dozen or so sheep visible from the highway that day, yet high enough on the cliff face and far enough from Windy Corner—a place known for its sheep-viewing opportunities—that most travelers missed their presence.

Unlike those who rushed past on their way to farther destinations, I'd come looking for these animals, which I knew to be highly tolerant of people. Armed with a high-quality camera, a newly purchased telephoto lens, and a burning desire to get some close-up wildlife shots, I painstakingly ascended the steep, wooded and rocky slope, hopeful that the sheep would allow me near them.

Though I'd come to Anchorage in the early 1980s to work as a sportswriter, I had other long-term (and at that point largely unspoken) ambitions: to someday be the newspaper's outdoors writer and to supplement that writing with my own photography.

Eventually I would delve into the nature, the life stories of Alaska's Dall sheep. But on this day I was less interested in observing their behaviors and habits than sharing their company and, especially, getting their pictures. In that regard, the day proved a heady success. A mix of mature ewes, adolescents, and lambs, the sheep allowed me to briefly join their company. At times we came within 15 or 20 feet of each other, their curiosity a match for mine, or so it seemed. Perhaps they wondered what foolish sort of human would risk his life to walk and stumble along such steep and crumbly slopes.

 

2.

 

The Brooks Range is where I saw my first wild sheep, while working as a geologist in the mid-1970s. During one daylong traverse I made in bright sunshine and energy-sapping heat, two short-spiked ewes appeared atop a ledge, like some far north mirage. Less then 50 feet above me, the sheep seemed more inquisitive than wary when I slowly passed beneath them. And why not? Deep in the Arctic wilderness, dozens of miles from the nearest road or village, I may have been the first human they'd ever met. The two continued to watch until I walked out of sight, my mood brightened and body enlivened by the surprise encounter with luminously white animals.

 

3.

 

It can be argued that Dall sheep, as much as 20,320-foot-high Denali (Mount McKinley), grizzly bears, wolves, or vast tundra expanses, are perfect symbols of what the famed biologist Adolph Murie called Denali National Park's “wilderness spirit.” The snow-white mountain sheep are what drew naturalist-hunter-author Charles Sheldon in 1906. And their preservation, as much as anything, inspired him to seek park status for this wildlife-rich part of Alaska, a quest that led to the creation of Alaska's first national park—then named Mount McKinley—in 1917.

Later in the park's history, severe Dall sheep declines in the 1930s and '40s caused great alarm and forced park officials to confront wildlife-management policies that favored one species (sheep) over another (wolves). Thanks largely to Murie, the sheep crisis—and the species' eventual recovery—ultimately led to a strengthening of ecosystem rather than favored-game management in Denali. Here all native species would be protected.

Nowadays, an estimated 2,500 Dall sheep inhabit Denali National Park and Preserve's alpine heights; based on 2008–2009 surveys and those done in the mid-1990s, park biologists believe sheep numbers to be “fairly stable.” The large majority live on the park's northern side, in both the Alaska Range and the Outer Range.

Because the Denali Park Road borders some of the sheep's prime habitat, visitors have an excellent chance of seeing these animals, though usually from a distance of several hundred yards to a half-mile or more. They are most often seen as tiny white dots on the upper flanks of tundra-covered hills, though occasionally they can be spotted near or even on the road. Visitors willing to climb hills are more likely to see the sheep up close, though park regulations prohibit people from approaching closer than 75 feet.

A small percentage of Denali's Dall sheep actually cross the park road on seasonal journeys between the park's two mountain ranges. These migratory sheep spend their winters in the Outer Range, where snowfall is light and high winds often keep exposed ridges free of snow. In May or June they form groups of up to seventy animals and cross wide lowlands to reach the Alaska Range's northern foothills for summer's green-up. There the sheep remain until autumn, when they retrace their steps. Biologists since Adolph Murie have known that a portion of Denali's sheep migrate, but it remains a mystery why some do and others don't.

 

4.

 

With a nod of thanks to all of those who've studied
Ovis dalli
and shared what they have learned, I'll now present a potpourri of natural-history facts about the white, wild sheep, which is named after the American naturalist William Healy Dall and inhabits mountain ranges throughout much of inland Alaska and neighboring western Canada.

Adult male and female members of the species live apart except during the early winter mating season in November and December. Just prior to the rut (and occasionally throughout the year), mature rams butt heads in fierce battles that scientists say determines their place in the band's social order and, consequently, its breeding order. Facing each other, two rams rear up on their hind legs, then charge and “clash horns” with a loud bang that's been compared to that of a baseball bat slammed into a barn door. Adult females too will sometimes knock heads, apparently to determine social rankings.

Ewes produce a single lamb in late May or early June. As the birth approaches, a pregnant ewe will go off by itself and head for steep, rugged terrain where predators are less likely to be. Lambs usually do fine their first summer, when food is abundant, but half or more may die their first winter. Sheep that survive their first couple of winters may live into their teens, though biologists consider twelve to be “very old” for a wild sheep. Mature rams in their prime may weigh 200 pounds or more, ewes 110 to 130 pounds on average.

Both sexes of adult sheep have horns, though only males grow the large, sweeping, and outward-curling horns so often seen in photos. As rams mature, their horns gradually form a circle when viewed from the side and reach a full circle or “curl” in seven to eight years. The amber-colored horns are male status symbols; large mature rams can sometimes be seen displaying their horns to other sheep as a sign of their dominance. Those of females are shorter, slender spikes that resemble the horns of mountain goats, which sometimes causes people to confuse the two species. But goat horns are shiny black and sharper than sheep horns, and goats also have more massive chests. Besides that, their ranges rarely overlap, goats being most common in coastal mountains and sheep inland.

Unlike the antlers of moose and caribou, horns are never shed. Their growth occurs only from spring through fall; winters are marked by a narrow ridge or ring. So, much like a tree's age, the age of a sheep can be determined by counting its “annual rings,” also called annuli.

Dall sheep are grazing animals that feed on a variety of plants, including grasses, sedges, willows, and herbaceous plants; in winter they survive on lichens, moss, and dried or frozen grass. They prefer to stay up high, in places that combine open alpine ridges and meadows with steep slopes, because their hill-climbing skills make it easier to escape predators in such sheer, rugged, mountainous terrain. Wolves are the most efficient predators of sheep, but grizzlies, coyotes, lynx, and wolverines sometimes successfully hunt the species, and golden eagles prey on young lambs.

 

5.

 

In the early 1900s, when prospectors and pioneering mountaineers were lured into the Denali region by gold and summit fever, respectively, an easterner, Charles Sheldon, came north to the Alaska Range on a different sort of quest: a big-game hunt. What Sheldon found in 1906 proved far more valuable than any trophy animal. Denali's wilderness and wildlife sparked the idea for a park-refuge unlike any other in the nation.

By all accounts a skilled hunter, passionate naturalist, devout conservationist, successful businessman, gifted writer, and astute political lobbyist, the Vermont-born and Yale-educated Sheldon was passionate about all species of mountain sheep, which he believed were the noblest of wild animals. He studied and hunted them throughout their North American range, finally pursuing his passion to the most remote part of the continent, in search of Alaska's fabled white sheep. For a guide he chose Harry Karstens, a transplanted Midwesterner known to be a first-rate explorer (Karstens would later become the first superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park).

Accompanied by a horse packer, Sheldon and Karstens lived off the land while they explored the Alaska Range's northern slopes. By mid-August they had seen hundreds of sheep, but all were ewes, lambs, adolescents, or young adults. Finally, while hiking Cathedral Mountain alone on August 17, Sheldon discovered a band of mature rams, including nine with “strikingly big horns.” In great and dramatic detail, he described his solo stalk of those “big rams!” in
The Wilderness of Denali.
Here I'll share a short excerpt that recounts the climax of his hunt: