Adirondack Wild

05/29/2026

This week friends and admirers of Jeanne Robert Foster (1879-1970) gathered to share her poetry born of the Adirondacks, Town of Johnsburg, where she was born, and whose reflections on the nature of beauty, wilderness, family, aging, dying, and legacy still resonates in many hearts around the world. Hosted by the Kelly Adirondack Center of Union College, the setting was Paul Schaefer's Adirondack Room, where Paul corresponded with Jeanne about his epic struggles to keep Adirondack wild rivers flowing free. Adirondack singer/songwriter Dan Berggren was there to read Jeanne's poem "The Wilderness is Strong," and then sang his unforgettable "Song of the Wilderness" - in front of Paul Schaefer's Raised Relief Map of the Adirondacks.

05/20/2026

While Adirondack Wild is completing our comments re. High Peaks to DEC, I wanted to share our appreciation for Jack Drury and his latest post and comments about passing on an enduring legacy of Wilderness.

While some people are furious about the Visitor Use Management Report for the High Peaks Wilderness Complex, I think it’s an excellent report with long overdue recommendations. The report establishes that the current levels of use cause traffic, parking, and crowding issues. Some feel the issues a...

05/09/2026

Spent an enjoyable morning on the trail to Santanoni Great Camp in Newcomb with some fine Adirondack naturalists. Birds heard or seen included black and white warbler, winter wren, yellow-bellied sapsucker, red-breasted nuthatch, and rose-breasted grosbeak. Carpets of wildflowers were just beginning to bloom along the trail: red trillium, sessile bellwort, and trout lily. Spotted salamander egg cases were in the vernal pools along the way. Thank you, Charlotte, and other Adk naturalists for our walk on the wild's side.

05/06/2026

Good reporting and coverage of the health of our lakes.

View the Daily Gazette for Wednesday, May 6, 2026

04/22/2026

Thanks to Historic Saranac Lake for the chance tomorrow to speak with their guests about Paul Schaefer, Adirondack wilderness coalition leader, founder of Friends of the Forest Preserve, and the subject of the 2025 book, A Force for Nature.

04/03/2026

Was the public consulted about moving their United States Forest Service out of the nation's capitol ? And the disruption it is causing? No. The trend, greatly accelerated by the Trump administration, is to weaken a national forest system and minimize public discourse about how national forests are to be managed, including federal Wilderness areas, and to strengthen local and commercial recreational management of our national forests, with the least possible amount of public attention, comment, opposition to those decisions.

The Pacific Northwest Region office in Portland is set to close under the massive reorganization.

03/25/2026

Barred owls have reunited in the woods today. It appeared like a reunion as I have not heard them all winter long. But last evening they issued a duet, back and forth, for half an hour, inspiring a hike, and photograph of her (him) on a limb. Perhaps the male went elsewhere this winter to find sufficient food while the female remained on her territory. Perhaps they are now reunited to mate and nest. I hope so. They are welcome.

03/22/2026

Writing in the cabin's logbook, picking up sticks and branches, and watching the Hudson on this vernal equinox. Great to be in Cabin Country.

03/03/2026

Gov. Hochul: Please invest in the future of SUNY ESF!

Adirondack Wild and our predecessors have benefited enormously from educators, scientists, research ecologists, and students at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and the ESF Adirondack campuses at Newcomb, Cranberry Lake, & Wanakena. 100 years of wildlife, freshwater, forest ecology research is the country's longest running ecological laboratory - now needed more than ever. The visitor center in Newcomb would not be there without SUNY ESF.

At a time of devastating loss of federal environmental protection now is not the time to starve our state's crown jewel of environmental science and research. Please send this e-letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul urging her to support an $10 million increase to SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, which is needed to financially stabilize this vital public institution.

This fiscal crisis is not due to college mismanagement, mission drift or enrollment declines. It’s a direct result of SUNY's 2012 decision to reduce annual state operating aid to the college. That reduction, followed by a decade of flat funding, equates to annual cuts to ESF's budget. While the college has received $6 million in additional state funding since 2023, this incremental increase doesn’t replace the cumulative loss of state funding over the past decade.

The SUNY Chancellor and Board of Trustees are making the college’s difficult financial situation worse by placing it into SUNY’s one-size-fits-all “stability planning” process. This austerity program has gutted programs and staff at other SUNY campuses such as Buffalo State, Fredonia and Potsdam.

ESF has already consolidated administrative units with other SUNY campuses and has announced a voluntary employee separation program. The college has also been told to terminate its graduate program as it currently exists. The Stability Plan also calls for significant cuts to the Forest Properties budget, the very labs and land that our institution’s reputation is built on.
If instituted, the plan will diminish ESF's ability to retain students through unspecified cuts to our athletics programs and steep cuts to faculty and staff positions—while simultaneously calling for increased enrollment and retention.

The letter points out that at a time when the federal government is attacking science, cutting and freezing federal research funding, ending longstanding environmental protections and literally extorting colleges and universities, it is inconceivable that SUNY would choose this moment to further undermine one of the country’s most prestigious environmental schools.

Can you join me and write a letter?

Click here: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/gov-hochul-invest-in-the-future-of-suny-esf/?source=email&

Pictured: The SUNY ESF Visitor Center, Rick Lake, and Adirondack Ecological Center, Newcomb; High Peaks Wilderness beyond, from Goodnow Mt. by Dave Gibson, Adirondack Wild

12/21/2025

An influential founder of the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, and of Adirondack Wild, Union College professor of biology Carl J. George, died on Thursday Dec. 18. Carl was 95. He joined the faculty of Union College in 1967, having created the first marine biological laboratory at American University, Beirut, Lebanon, where he taught for six years. Earlier this year, Carl received special recognition from the Adirondack chapter of The Nature Conservancy for his crucial role - along with that of his wife Gail - in starting the Adirondack chapter c. 1971. After that he authored Fishes of the Adirondacks, and with his students undertook pioneering underwater vegetative surveys of Lake George. In 1998 Carl joined the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks. In 2010, Carl was there at the start of Adirondack Wild. In 2011, he brought Union College president Stephen Ainlay to see Paul Schaefer's home, and that led directly to creation of the college's Kelly Adirondack Center. Carl and his colleague Prof. Twitty Styles helped form UNITAS at Union College, led the effort to restore the college's iconic Nott Memorial. He was vitally involved in the formation and work of the Environmental Awareness Network for Diversity in Conservation. He is like a great oak or maple who has spread his fungal roots, or mycorrhizae, to sustain and nurture an enormous forest all around him. "Wondrous," he would say. Our condolences to his wife Christine, and to his legion of former students and friends all over the world.
Pictured are Carl receiving recognition from the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, and Carl with coordinator of the Kelly Adirondack Center of Union College, Margie Amodeo, in front of a painting of Adirondack surveyor Verplanck Colvin. Photos by D. Gibson