171–180 of 237 posts
OT - One of my most personal profound moments was chasing this winter photo [0] and sharing it with a coyote. I wanted to take a night shot of the Cathedral Rock (that I had seen a few years earlier but didn't take a good photo of it) under the full moon and fresh snow. It took me several years of driving up to Yosemite when there was snow storm and one night I got lucky. It was around 11 PM when the storm stopped an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You do know that the bear population hasn't quadrupled in the park since the covid-19 shutdown, right? Bears don't have a gestation period of a month.
The population of my neighborhood has doubled since the shutdown as everyone's kids came back from college. No gestation involved.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s happening all around the world. Places like India has seen a remarkable drop in pollution levels. People are able to see Himalayas for the first time from their homes near by. Everest gets a break from the climbers. And even Ganges is showing levels of purity never seen before : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/destinations/gang... [..] When the ancient Yamuna River in Delhi has reached a remarkable le…
or treat your effluent, or avoid it in the first place? Pretty sure it would cost less than shutting everything down...
But it isn’t..it is because of consumption and population growth(which leads to more consumption)
It's nice to know that the earth starts to heal so quickly after humans are gone. Although by the time we are actually gone we might make it uninhabitable for other life too.
Philosophical question: if humans are gone, does it really matter what happens to the earth?
OT - One of my most personal profound moments was chasing this winter photo [0] and sharing it with a coyote. I wanted to take a night shot of the Cathedral Rock (that I had seen a few years earlier but didn't take a good photo of it) under the full moon and fresh snow. It took me several years of driving up to Yosemite when there was snow storm and one night I got lucky. It was around 11 PM when the storm stopped an…
I visited Yosemite, while beautiful, it is so commercialized. It feels like disney world for nature. It did not seem wild at all in the valley. More like a hippy tent city, with a pioneer village. I saw some deer, wanted to take a photo from maybe 200 feet away. And I literally could take photo with two other photographers in my line sight with the deer. It was a little ridiculous. 3 in one head shot. And a little mo…
I visited Yosemite, while beautiful, it is so commercialized. It feels like disney world for nature. It did not seem wild at all in the valley. More like a hippy tent city, with a pioneer village. I saw some deer, wanted to take a photo from maybe 200 feet away. And I literally could take photo with two other photographers in my line sight with the deer. It was a little ridiculous. 3 in one head shot. And a little mo…
That's a problem I have with Parks. There is a conflicting mandate. They 'protect' but they also 'promote'. My parents took us up to Yosemite on weekend trips in the summer growing up. 50 years ago they tended to studiously avoid the valley proper. The farther you're willing to hike the fewer people and more bears and Germans.
> This month is typically a busy month in Yosemite: Of the almost 4.6 million tourists that visited the valley in 2019, about 308,000 came during April. "This month is typically a busy one: less than 1/12th of the number of annual visitors." ️
Traffic jams getting into and out of the park in July and August can last for 4-5 hours and extend nearly 30 miles.
As noted in the article, the headline is misleading. The population obviously hasn't quadrupled since Yosemite closed to visitors on March 20th. It is remarkable though to see how quickly wildlife is willing to re-enter areas that have historically been overrun with humans!
The typical ranger response is either paintball guns or pepper spray so the animals don't think humans are a threat, just that the food is not worth paintballs and pepper spray. With no humans to push them back, they'll take over the park scouring for the food that they expect to find.
Most national parks operate on a strike system for the wildlife, Yosemite is the only one I'm aware of that will keep annoying a bear away even if it steals food every day for a week.