Category: Wildlife

His Favourite Map: Natural Heritage of Texas

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Natural Heritage of Texas, 1986. Map, 54.8″×56.4″. Map #10786, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.
Natural Heritage of Texas, 1986. Map, 54.8″×56.4″. Map #10786, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

James Harkins of the Texas General Land Office shares his favourite map: the 1986 Natural Heritage of Texas map, which featured endangered and vulnerable Texas wildlife.

I was three years old when this map was released. When I was at Moore Elementary (home of the fighting Armadillos!) in the late 1980s, and early 1990s, I specifically remembered this map because it was huge! The Natural Heritage Map of Texas is 4-feet by 4-feet, and it hung in the school cafeteria, to the left of the stage where so many school assemblies had occurred. The map is colorful, big and filled with animals. To be honest, at the time, the animals are what drew my attention, but the map always stuck in my mind because it was the first large wall map I had ever seen. More than anything, though, there was an ocelot in my face, and in the face of every other elementary student in the building who walked up to look at this map. At the time, I thought an ocelot was kind of like a mix between a house cat and a lion or a tiger, and a lion or tiger was really cool. I was hooked! I would always look at the ocelot, as well as the other animals, and the map, and think about what it all meant.

[Texas Map Society]

Where the Animals Go

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
where-the-animals-go-excerpt
From James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti, Where the Animals Go (Particular Books, 2016), pp. 100-101.

Co-authored by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti, Where the Animals Go: Tracking Wildlife with Technology in 50 Maps and Graphics (Particular Books, 2016) is a book of maps by wild animals. It’s a compendium of tracking data from field biologists’ research projects, ably curated and turned into some spectacular maps (if the excerpts on the authors’ website are any indication). Greg has written a piece at All Over the Map.

where-the-animals-goWhere the Animals Go is available now in the U.K.; the U.S. edition comes out in September 2017.

Cheshire and Uberti first teamed up to produce London: The Information Capital (2014), which should be out in paperback any time now.

Migrations in Motion

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

migrations-in-motion

Migrations in Motion models the average directions wildlife will need to move in order to survive the effects of climate change. As Canadian Geographic explains, “As climate change disrupts habitats, researchers believe wildlife will instinctively migrate to higher elevations and latitudes, but for many species, that will mean navigating around, over or through human settlements and infrastructure.” The map, the design of which is modeled on the hint.fm wind map, covers both North and South America and does not purport to model the path of individual species; rather it’s an average based on computer modelling.

Mayfly Hatch Shows Up on Radar

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

When mayflies “hatch”—that is to say, moult into their final, adult “imago” form—they emerge in truly enormous numbers. Numerous enough to turn up on the National Weather Service’s radar earlier this month. [CBC News]