The Sumatran Rhino: Hard to Save
March 18, 2021
This is the second video in a series of animated shorts that I’m helping to create for the good people at Mongabay.com. It’s an animated explainer that aims to describe…
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Today's Extinct Animal
Roger's posts about vanishing fauna. 
Early 2021 Projects
February 5, 2021
I’ve just returned to Portland from a swing through the high plateaus of the southwest, escaping the Portland cloud and retaining social distance. Being away from the studio meant that…
The Sumatran Rhino: Not Doomed
December 8, 2020
This summer I worked on a really interesting project that was something pretty new to me: an animated explainer about the current situation of the endangered Sumatran Rhinoceros, created for…
The Witch in the Smoke
September 14, 2020
David Graeber died last week, and in mourning his loss and considering his contributions, I read, at a friend’s suggestion, his 2011 summary of Occupy on the Al Jazeera website….
Art and Protest, and Extinction is Forever
June 16, 2020
Since my main gig painting murals has been postponed indefinitely due to COVID, I’ve been looking elsewhere for ways to make a living making art, and I’ve been lucky to…
Rocky Mountain Locust print process
May 7, 2020
This image represents an individual Rocky Mountain locust, Melanoplus spretus, a representative of what was once one of the most numerous species in the history of the entire planet, and…
Endangered Species Mural Project #21: Species of the Gila
August 15, 2019
It’s the 21st installment in the Endangered Species Mural Project! This one happened in Silver City, New Mexico, a beautiful mountain town on the edge of the Gila National Forest,…
Exquisite Gorge: Whose story is this?
July 8, 2019
For the past few weeks I’ve been carving a 4 foot by 6 foot block of birch plywood, depicting a section of the Columbia River Gorge. I live about half…
Today’s Extinct Animal: Lystrosaurus
April 13, 2019
250 million years ago an extinction event wiped out 95% of all species on Earth, the greatest such winnowing ever to occur. It’s referred to as the Permian/Triassic extinction, or…
Hanford and the Reactionary Imagination, a Journey into Nuclearity pt 2
September 13, 2018
This is the second in a series of posts about a visit to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington state, and the fate of the uranium ores found in…
Endangered Species Mural #16: Borderlands Wildlife in El Paso
September 1, 2018
The sixteenth of the Endangered Species Murals is finished! This big wall is located near the Convention Center in downtown El Paso, Texas, and features five endangered species from the…
Ghostfish aboard the R/V Falkor
July 28, 2018
I’ve spent the last six days on the Pacific Ocean, in transit from San Diego, CA to Astoria, OR aboard the R/V Falkor, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s big research vessel….
Hanford and the Reactionary Imagination: a Journey into Nuclearity, Part 1
July 19, 2018
This is the first in a series of posts about a visit to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Eastern Washington state, and the fate of the uranium ores found in…
Wilderness of Possibility
May 30, 2018
I left Portland at about eight o’clock on a Thursday night, after a cruise through the art shows downtown. The sun had set by the time I reached Celilo Park,…
Endangered Species Mural #14: A Bear-Shaped Hole
October 5, 2017
The fourteenth Endangered Species mural is finished! This one is located in the Laurel District of Oakland, CA, and is a little different in theme and execution form the other…
Jaguar Mural in Tucson: progress!
January 18, 2016
The fifth of the Endangered Species Murals is taking shape in Tucson, on the side of the Solar Culture complex in downtown. The mural is being painted by local artist…
American Cheetah: process
October 30, 2015
I’ve been at a residency in the grassy hills of northeastern Wyoming for the past few weeks. I realized the other day that I had passed quite close to…
St. Helena Giant Earwig
December 23, 2014
When considering the death of species and the grim biological impoverishment of earth, we have to take the lesser with the larger, and the less lovely as well. Recent news…
100 Years of Silent Skies
September 1, 2014
Today is September 1st, 2014, and marks the 100th anniversary of the death of the last Passenger Pigeon in a Cincinnati zoo. That last bird, named Martha, represented the culmination…
Today’s Extinct Animal: Pig-footed Bandicoot
May 26, 2013
Fire is part of the suite of factors on the short list for major contributions to human development. When we learned to control fire, we started using it to harden…
Today’s Extinct (Plant): Acalypha Dikuluwensis
April 3, 2013
Image from Copperflora.org. When I decided to reembark on this series of posts about extinct species, I did a check through my copious bookmarks to see if anything jumped out…
Today’s Extinct Animal: Falkland Islands Wolf
March 5, 2013
Islands: they’re good places to show up at if you are looking to evolutionarily diverge. If your species manages to arrive at an island with no native predators on it,…
A World of Wounds
March 28, 2010
Here’s a list of ten of my favorite quotes pertaining to the state of the world that I’ve gleaned in the past several years: A: “We don’t change our behavior,…
Today’s Extinct Animal: Christmas Island Pipistrelle
October 31, 2009
Alas, time’s up for the Christmas Island pipistrelle bat. The tiny winged mammals, endemic to Australia’s Christmas island, are overrun by human-introduced yellow crazy ants, giant centipedes and wolf snakes….
No More Jaguars
April 8, 2009
That’s all, folks! The last Jaguar in the United States has been killed. The beast in question, a sixteen year old male named “Macho B”, was euthanized by state biologists…
The Totoaba Croaks
April 3, 2009
It’s been a while since I’ve posted any depressing stories about doomed animal life on this blog. Now that I’ve actually gone through with the whole moving-to-portland, thing, maybe I’ll…
Today’s Extinct Animal- The Lake Atitlan Grebe
August 26, 2008
I’ve decided that this blog thing might be useful for regular, depressing updates on the subject that I think about most, namely, extinction. To start off with, I think I’ll…
