Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Geology, Climate (Timber Press Field Guide) - Softcover
Book 5 of 12: A Timber Press Field Guide
Synopsis
&;Everything you could possibly want to know about the plants, animals, geology, climate and fungi of the Pacific Northwest mountains.&; &;The Oregonian
Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains is an engagingly written, portable history of Cascadia. It includes details about and identification tips for the flora, fauna, and geology of the region. If you are looking for a simple way to discover the great outdoors, this is the perfect overview of the Pacific Northwest.
- Covers the Coastal and Cascade Mountain Ranges, as well as the Olympic Mountains and Coast Mountains of southern British Columbia
- Describes more than 950 species of plants, animals, and mushrooms with helpful keys for easy identification
- User-friendly, color coded layout 
- Compelling stories of the region&;s plants, animals, and people bring the mountains alive
- The essential trailside reference for naturalists, hikers, and campers
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Daniel Mathews lives for backpacking and hiking in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of America From the Air and Rocky Mountain Natural History.
From the Back Cover
- Covers the Coastal and Cascade Mountain Ranges, as well as the Olympic Mountains and Coast Mountains of southern British Columbia
- Describes more than 950 species of plants, animals, and mushrooms with helpful keys for easy identification
- User-friendly, color coded layout
- Compelling stories of the region’s plants, animals, and people bring the mountains alive
- The essential trailside reference for naturalists, hikers, and campers
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
This book is a field guide to everything Northwest and montane: it wraps together all of the usual field guide categories under the sun. The key is in the wrapping together, as nature’s parts are infinitely intertwined. So I’m going with “Natural History” in the title to highlight that grand symbiosis, as well as to give a nod to my forebears, the science writers of earlier centuries.
This is essentially an expanded and updated third edition of Cascade-Olympic Natural History. I enlarged the geographic range to include the mountains of southwestern British Columbia and coastal Oregon—mountain ranges with different geologic stories, but absolutely part of the same region as defined by what lives there.
I expanded the coverage with 132 species that I could no longer bear to leave out. (How did I ever think I could skip dragonflies?) More than 100 scientific names have been updated.
I haven’t stopped traipsing around in the mountains, noticing new details, and coming up with new questions I have to find answers to. So revisions are salted throughout the book. And I read scientific literature as it comes out, and go to scientific conferences, gleaning countless fresh bits of information to add or adjust.
In the years since the second edition, hikers have seen wolves and wolverines in the Cascades. You could be the first to spot a fisher, following their reintroduction here, or a grizzly bear. The exceedingly rare Cascades red fox, on the other hand, is seen up close by all too many National Park visitors, since a few foxes have become habituated to food handouts.
That makes five charismatic carnivores with upticks in visibility. Yet threats outweigh the good news for biodiversity overall. Bees, bats, and amphibians, for example, are huge, numerous, ecologically invaluable groups of animals that are seeing dramatic declines.
Salmon populations have put up exciting numbers in some years: Fraser River sockeye in 2010 and Columbia River chinook in 2015 each had their best year in almost a century. These ups and downs remain mysterious. The 2014 Fraser run, after predictions that it would rival 2010, did not. Then “the blob,” a huge pool of abnormally warm water in the northeast Pacific that lasted for most of 2015, took a severe toll on that year’s Fraser run. Indirectly, the blob helped make 2015 Washington’s worst wildfire year since the days when fires ran unimpeded by humans.
Fire is an element in the one subtle but pervasive increased emphasis in this edition: how plants, animals, fungi, rivers, fires, and glaciers are responding to climate change, and what changes scientists predict during our lifetimes. The changes seen here, both in recent decades and in the few decades to come, are milder than those in many parts of the world. But the predictions are sobering. I hope that by spreading awareness of warming’s ramifications I can help spur action to progress beyond the massive release of greenhouse gases.
This book is a field guide to everything Northwest and montane: it wraps together all of the usual field guide categories under the sun. The key is in the wrapping together, as nature’s parts are infinitely intertwined. So I’m going with “Natural History” in the title to highlight that grand symbiosis, as well as to give a nod to my forebears, the science writers of earlier centuries.
This is essentially an expanded and updated third edition of Cascade-Olympic Natural History. I enlarged the geographic range to include the mountains of southwestern British Columbia and coastal Oregon—mountain ranges with different geologic stories, but absolutely part of the same region as defined by what lives there.
I expanded the coverage with 132 species that I could no longer bear to leave out. (How did I ever think I could skip dragonflies?) More than 100 scientific names have been updated.
I haven’t stopped traipsing around in the mountains, noticing new details, and coming up with new questions I have to find answers to. So revisions are salted throughout the book. And I read scientific literature as it comes out, and go to scientific conferences, gleaning countless fresh bits of information to add or adjust.
In the years since the second edition, hikers have seen wolves and wolverines in the Cascades. You could be the first to spot a fisher, following their reintroduction here, or a grizzly bear. The exceedingly rare Cascades red fox, on the other hand, is seen up close by all too many National Park visitors, since a few foxes have become habituated to food handouts.
That makes five charismatic carnivores with upticks in visibility. Yet threats outweigh the good news for biodiversity overall. Bees, bats, and amphibians, for example, are huge, numerous, ecologically invaluable groups of animals that are seeing dramatic declines.
Salmon populations have put up exciting numbers in some years: Fraser River sockeye in 2010 and Columbia River chinook in 2015 each had their best year in almost a century. These ups and downs remain mysterious. The 2014 Fraser run, after predictions that it would rival 2010, did not. Then “the blob,” a huge pool of abnormally warm water in the northeast Pacific that lasted for most of 2015, took a severe toll on that year’s Fraser run. Indirectly, the blob helped make 2015 Washington’s worst wildfire year since the days when fires ran unimpeded by humans.
Fire is an element in the one subtle but pervasive increased emphasis in this edition: how plants, animals, fungi, rivers, fires, and glaciers are responding to climate change, and what changes scientists predict during our lifetimes. The changes seen here, both in recent decades and in the few decades to come, are milder than those in many parts of the world. But the predictions are sobering. I hope that by spreading awareness of warming’s ramifications I can help spur action to progress beyond the massive release of greenhouse gases.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Search results for Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains:...
Seller Image
Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Geology, Climate (Timber Press Field Guide)
Seller: Goodwill Books, Hillsboro, OR, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: acceptable. Fairly worn, but readable and intact. If applicable: Dust jacket, disc or access code may not be included. Seller Inventory # GICWV.1604696354.A
Seller Image
Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains
Seller: ThriftBooksVintage, Tukwila, WA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. Minor shelf and handling wear, overall a clean solid copy with minimal signs of use. Secure packaging for safe delivery. Seller Inventory # 1772265390
Stock Image
Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Geology, Climate (Timber Press Field Guide)
Seller: Oblivion Books, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Seller rating 4 out of 5 stars
paperback. Condition: Very Good. Softcover. Clean text - NO writing, NO highlighting to text. Light wear to cover and a crease to front panel. Very good- reading copy. Seller Inventory # mon0000230261
Stock Image
Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Geology, Climate (Timber Press Field Guide)
Seller: World of Books (was SecondSale), Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Acceptable. Item in acceptable condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00102803367
Stock Image
Natural History of the Pacific Northwest Mountains: Plants, Animals, Fungi, Geology, Climate (Timber Press Field Guide)
Seller: GoldBooks, Denver, CO, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # 5J36_86_1604696354