Pinyon & Juniper

EPISODE #223: THE BLUE CROW

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Destruction of High Desert forest on public land has led to a 78% drop in pinyon jay populations over the past 50 years. This is EPISODE #223: THE BLUE CROW.

The pinyon jay is the steward of the pinyon forests, for which the forest feeds and houses this crucial blue crow. Of the thousands of pinyon nuts the blue crow puts away for the winter, usually working with its mate and both returning to the spot throughout the year to store or collect, the few pine nuts left behind grow into new pinyons, expanding the reach of the woodland. More woodland means more wildlife, more carbon-breathing conifers, more precious Western water stored in the ground, more wildlife corridors that connect mule deer and desert bighorn and mountain lions along mountain and valley to vast zones of wilderness. Now this iconic corvid of the West is threatened with extinction, and up for Endangered Species designation. You can take action, and the Pinyon Juniper Alliance and Great Basin Bird Observatory are good places to start.

Listen tonight on KCDZ 107.7 FM in the Mojave High Desert, or on the podcast now, and thanks for supporting DESERT ORACLE via our Patreon page and online store at DesertOracle.com. Back issues, signed hardcover books & our classic yellow-vinyl bumper stickers are currently in stock, as we dig our way out of many mysterious boxes.

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New soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver. Written & hosted by Ken Layne. Thanks for supporting this advertising-free podcast at our Desert Oracle Patreon page.

EPISODE #215: AMONG THE STATELY TREES

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The Sacred Grove

Where’s the beautiful part, anyway? Well, start by walking about a mile past the last parking lot or dirt road or residential car-parts dump or informal halfway house or accidental pit-bull breeding farm, and keep going in the direction of the difficult terrain: the hills and the mountains and the boulders. Not the hills covered in radio relay towers, but the ones with nothing up there at all, nothing except more boulders, more spiky yucca trees that slash your arms, gnarled junipers and needle-armed Joshua trees, up to the craggy peak where the stately pinyons stand proud. Keep going that way.

On the second half of the program, Patrick Donnelly (newsletter) from the Center for Biological Diversity returns to talk about an international land grab dreamt up by a local commissioner in Lincoln County, Nevada, along with the nation of Denmark, which plans to destroy centuries-old forests of pinyon and juniper on your public lands to mush into “bio-fuel” for container ships. What?!

Thanks for supporting this advertising-free show via our Desert Oracle Patreon.

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Soundscapes by RedBlueBlackSilver; written & produced by Ken Layne. This is EPISODE #215: AMONG THE STATELY TREES. Listen to the radio broadcast Friday nights at 10 p.m. on KCDZ 107.7 FM in Joshua Tree & the Mojave High Desert, or enjoy the podcast right now: