Journey Back in Time II

(Continued from the preceding post)

Writing and publishing has been so much a part of my life in conservation biology and has so much to do with developing a transdisciplinary perspective about things, I thought I might list a dozen or so publications from over the decades that had a particular interest for me. I’ve leaned more heavily here on natural history writing than scientific journal publications.

Baugh, T.M. 1972. The muskrat - Nature’s mini-engineer. High Country News 4(24):10.

Baugh, T.M. 1973. The lonely land. Nevada Outdoors 7(3):l0-12.

Baugh, T. Michael. 1975. Land at river’s end. Pacific Search 9(9):44-45.

Baugh, T. 1978. Beyond the seventh dune. Pacific Discovery 31(3):16-21.

The Naturalist series published by Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine were well received and represented very good natural history.

Baugh, T. 1981. Southern comfort: A naturalist on the Gulf Coast, Part I. Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine 4(11):40-43, 69. (The entire five-part series.)

Baugh, T.M. 1985. The edge of the sea, Part I: Rocky shores. Freshwater and Marine Aquarium Magazine 8(9):68-72. (The entire eight-part series.)

In the 1980’s I published fairly frequently in the scientific literature and the following manuscripts made some contribution to the information on the conservation biology of threatened and endangered species.

Baugh, T.M. and James E. Deacon. 1983. Daily and yearly movement of the Devil’s Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis Wales in Devil’s Hole, Nevada. Great Basin Naturalist 43(4):592-596.
(https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/ojs/index.php/wnan/article/viewArticle/2188)

Baugh, T.M., J.A. Valade, and B. Zootsma. 1988. Manatee use of Spartina alterniflora in Cumberland Sound. J. Marine Mammal Science 5(10):26-27.
(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1748-7692.1989.tb00217.x/abstract)

Magazines stop the presses, insitutes close their doors, and things get lost in the shuffle.  With that in mind, I want to briefly slide into the most recent past decades and the present so that these things don't get lost.

During my fellowship with the Green Institute, I began to publish online at the Institute’s web site.  Online publication was a new departure for me feeling as I did that if it wasn’t on paper, it wasn’t published.  Some of the Green Institute material is archived and some has been offered in this blog in an abbreviated version.  Several not offered on the blog are noted as follows:

Baugh, Tom. 2006. A politics of plague. The Green Institute.
(http://greeninstitute.deanmyerson.org/node/59)

Baugh, T. 2007. Ecocaust and ecological wisdom. The Green Institute.
(http://greeninstitute.deanmyerson.org/subpages/baugh_ecocaust.asp)

More recently, among many other things, I have been working on the restoration of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Bog. The manuscripts noted here reflect my continuingly active field and research orientation.

Baugh, T. R.E. Evans, C.J. Steward, and S. Artabane. 2011. Restoration of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Bog: Phase I. Reed Canary Grass Removal. Ecological Restoration 29(1&2): 13-14.
(http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/ecological_restoration/v029/29.1.baugh.html)

Baugh, T. and R.E. Evans. 2011. Restoration of a Southern Appalachian Mountain Bog:Phase II-Hydrology. Natural Areas Journal 31(1):88-91.
(http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.3375/043.031.0110?journalCode=naar)

Returning to the decade beginning in 1971 and into the mid-1980's, in no way can the above fully represent my work during this period, But it does skim the surface of what was an enjoyable and challenging time…filled with high professional productivity and adventures throughout the American West, Southwest, Rocky Mountains, the Gulf Coast, and out into the Caribbean. 

Journey Back in Time I

How about a little time travel?  In looking back over the past year’s postings I see that I have done myself, and my mentors over the earlier years of my professional life a disservice and lopped-off a decade of creativity and productivity…and it was a good decade.  I tend to lump all of my work under the definition of conservation biology, and most of it was.  But from the early 1970’s through the early 1980’s much of that work was represented by science education and natural history explorations and writings. 

Over this period my bibliography shows that I published several hundred natural history articles beginning with Wyoming Wildlife Through the Lens in High Country News in 1971.  Unfortunately, this is also the time just before humanity stepped off into cyperspace and much of this material doesn’t seem to be archived anywhere.  (Perhaps life didn’t exist before the WEB?).

Some of this was pipeline time, a period of smoke-filled flights, chock-full of oil field humanity, flying back and forth from Oregon to Alaska. During this decade, as part of my US federal agency work, I was instrumental in publishing the very popular brochure Land at River’s End: The Copper River Delta that was later made into a natural history program for television.  I was also deeply involved in a publication called the Forester’s Almanac.

This is also the time of expeditions into what were then still some very remote corners of the American West. Toward the end of this period my fieldwork began to be reported not just in popular magazines but more and more in the technical and scientific literature such as the Western Naturalist, Great Basin Naturalist, and Southwest Naturalist.

Much of my early work was with small fish, many of them called killifish, and the American Killifish Association lists a dozen and half published articles on this subject alone during the latter part of this period from 1979 into the early 1980’s (see below). But not all of the articles dealt with fish. One example would be my study of the dune lakes systems along the Oregon coast that begins “Back beyond the seventh dune…” and was published in Pacific Discovery magazine.

During this time I wandered from Southern California’s Salton Sea, to pocket-sized lagoons on the California coast, to high mountain valleys in Nevada where, as one of my field partners said, it was so cold it felt like there was “…nothing between us and the north pole but a two-strand barbed wire fence.”  I worked with strangely-name species such as pupfish, chub, and mummichog.

My contributions to the popular literature were good work. But it was my increasing contributions to the scientific literature that got me thinking and that sent me from my federal job back to Weber State University in Ogden, Utah for a second undergraduate degree, this one in Zoology. From there it was on to a graduate student stipend in the laboratory of Professor James E. Deacon at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and, into what we call these days, conservation biology. Jim has become a life-long friend.

Some References at (http://www.aka.org/aka/modules/lexikon/letter.php?init=B)

Baugh, T. M. 1979. In search of the desert pupfish: Part One. Freshwater and

Marine Aquarium (FAMA) 2 (9): 44-45, 63, color photos; Part Two. 2 (10): 35, 82-83.

Baugh, T. M. 1981a. Adapting Salt Creek pupfish (Cyprinodon salinus) to fresh water.

The Great Basin Naturalist 41 (3): 341-342.

Baugh, T. M. 1981b. Apparent cleaning behavior of two killifishes. Journal of the American

Killifish Association 14 (5): 170-171.

Baugh, T. M. 1981c. The aquarium maintenance requirements of 4 species of genus Fundulus.     

The Journal of Aquariculture 2 (3): 73-77.

Baugh, T. M. 1981d,e. Southern Comfort, a naturalist on the Gulf Coast, Part One.

 Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) 4 (11): 40-43, 69, photos; Part Two. 4 (12): 15-18.

Baugh, T. M. 1982a,b,c. Southern Comfort, a naturalist on the Gulf Coast, Part Three.

Freshwater and Marine Aquarium (FAMA) 5 (1): 16-18, photos; Part Four. 5 (2): 18-20, 84-87, photos; Part Five. 5 (3): 14-17, 76-79.

Baugh, T. M. 1983a,b. In search of Crenichthys nevadae. Part I. Freshwater and Marine

Aquarium (FAMA) 6 (10): 16-17, 77-78, photos; Part II. 6 (11): 14-16.

Baugh, T. M. 1984a,b. In search of the Salt Creek pupfish. Part 1. Freshwater and Marine

quarium (FAMA) 7 (5): 34-35, 44-45, color photos; Part 2. 7 (6): 31-33, 54.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1983a. Daily and yearly movement of the Devil's Hole pupfish

Cyprinodon diabolis Wales in Devil's Hole, Nevada. The Great Basin Naturalist

43 (4): 592-596, 5 figs.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1983b. Maintaining the Devil’s Hole pupfish Cyprinodon

Diabolis Wales in aquaria. Journal of Aquariculture and Aquatic Sciences 3 (4): 73-75.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1983c. The most endangered pupfish. Freshwater and Marine

Aquarium 6 (6): 22-26, 78-79, 12.

Baugh, T. M. and J. E. Deacon. 1988. Evaluation of the role of refugia in conservation efforts

for the Devils Hole pupfish, Cyprinodon diabolis Wales. Zoo Biology 7 (4): 351-358.

Baugh, T. M., J. E. Deacon, and D. Withers. 1985. Conservation efforts with the Hiko White

 River Springfish Crenichthys baileyi grandis (Williams and Wilde). Journal of

Aquariculture & Aquatic Sciences 4 (3): 49-53, 3 figs.

Baugh, T. M., et al. 1986. New distributional records for Cyprinodon nevadensis mionectes,

an endangered pupfish from Ash Meadows, Nye County, Nevada. Southwestern

Naturalist 31 (4): 544-546.

Baugh, T. M., J. E. Deacon, and P. Fitzpatrick. 1988. Reproduction and growth of the Pahrump

poolfish (Empetrichthys latos latos Miller) in the laboratory and nature. Journal of

Aquariculture & Aquatic Sciences 5 (1): 1-5, 6 tables.

(Continued in the next post.)