Marcia Bonta

  • Theodora Cope Gray – Nature’s Own Child

    She died as she had wished, propped up in her bed so she could watch the birds at her feeder. At 94 years of age, Teddy Gray had lived a long and interesting life. She would say that her happiest days were those spent when she was married to Philip Gray whom she wed when…

  • Continental Habitat Islands

    Bob Gruver held the small snake by the back of its head as we gathered around to look. The owner of the shale barren we were exploring, John Cantrell, was aghast. “That’s a copperhead,” he said. “No, no,” Gruver answered. “Look at the turned-up snout. This is a young hognose snake.” The rest of us…

  • Saving Riparian Forests

    Our Plummer’s Hollow stream is a faint, unnamed blue line on Highbee’s stream map of Pennsylvania. Although it is only a mile and a half long and its streambed is less than ten feet wide, it greatly influences the streamside or riparian forest through which it flows. The riparian forest, in turn, is essential to…

  • Arizona’s Passenger Pigeon

    Habitat loss is affecting wildlife populations worldwide. Although the loss of forests has received the most attention, the loss of native grasslands is even more devastating. Scientists estimate that 99% of our native prairie is gone. Here in Pennsylvania grassland bird populations have declined significantly in the southeast and south central parts of the state…

  • Winter Survival Champions

    “It’s amazing. I can’t believe there’s anything here,” exclaimed Dr. Joseph Merritt. Resident Director of Powdermill Nature Reserve, the biological field station of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History and author of Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania, Merritt is a specialist in small mammals. To learn more about the lives of such creatures as…