About Bruce

  • Bruce Barcott is a contributing editor at Outside Magazine and the author of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One woman's fight to save the world's most beautiful bird, published on Feb 5, 2008, by Random House.

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April 26, 2008

How many scarlet macaws are left in Central America?

The conservation status of Ara macao, the scarlet macaw, is one of the central issues in The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw. The bird's relatively healthy populations in South America keep it off the IUCN's Scarlet_macaw_photo  Red List of endangered species, but that designation hides the bird's threatened status in Central America, where its habitat is quickly dwindling--and with it, the last flocks of the area's wild macaws. I'm continuing to track the region's macaw populations, and am building some pages that contain general information and deeper source material, which you can find here.

February 21, 2008

Home for the Harpies campaign unveiled

Over the past three years, Sharon Matola, the hero of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, has worked with the Peregrine Fund to re-introduce the harpy eagle to the subtropical forests of Belize. The harpy, Harpy_photo_2_dec_07 one of the world's largest forest birds, was once considered nearly extirpated in Belize but is now coming back to life. Releasing them into the wild is only half the challenge, though. A generation ago, the birds were lost through human fear and ignorance. Sharon is safeguarding the new population through education--every schoolchild in Belize knows and loves Panama, the Belize Zoo's lone harpy. To continue that work, Sharon needs to expand the harpy exhibit and add a mate for Panama. So she recently unveiled the "Home for the Harpies" campaign, a bid to raise the $30,000 that a new exhibit will cost. I'm proud to support her in this effort. To find out more and contribute to the cause, click here: Download home_for_the_harpies.doc

February 16, 2008

New York Times Book Review front-covers "Last Flight"

Amazing but true: The February 17, 2008, cover of the New York Times Book Review features a rave review of Last Flight by Elizabeth Royte. Click here (nyt_book_review_last_flight.pdf) to read the full piece.

February 14, 2008

Last Flight Of The Scarlet Macaw readings in February and March

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19: DENVER

TATTERED COVER BOOKSTORE 7:30pm  Come to Denver's legendary independent bookstore Lf_jacket_for_mass_email for a post-President's Day holiday reading and slide show.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 29: SEATTLE

ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY 7:30pm  Homecoming! It's been ten years since I've had the pleasure of reading at Elliott Bay, and we plan to pack the joint. We're making plans for a post-reading bash in the Pioneer Square area, so keep your ears open.

SATURDAY, MARCH 1: SEATTLE

THIRD PLACE BOOKS (Kenmore), 6:30pm I love Third Place, North Seattle's mighty mighty indie. Grab some BBQ or sushi, spread out on those big old wooden tables, and enjoy the show. This'll be a down-home event, with plenty of Barcott relatives roadtripping down from Everett and other points north.

February 10, 2008

Scoundrels Swept Out of Office

The headlines shouted: "Red, Red, Red!" (the colors of the UDP party) this past week in Belize, as the Dean_barrow_victory corrupt Musa-Fonseca regime was swept out of office in a landslide national victory for the opposition UDP party. Uncle Said kept his local seat, and will remain the nominal leader of the PUP, but the Big Wheel, Ralph Fonseca, was fully ousted, losing his seat in Belize's House of Representatives as well as his grip on power. Dean Barrow, who briefly argued against the Chalillo Dam before Belize's highest court, now takes office as Belizean Prime Minister. Check out full coverage in Amandala, Belize's largest paper, and in The Reporter, and at 7 News Belize.

January 29, 2008

Going to Belize? Stay in Sharon's bungalow.

As word starts to spread about Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, more friends are asking me for advice about where to stay when they go to Belize. I tell them, "Stay where I wrote the damn book!" Belize_zoo_pond_house

Seriously. Sharon Matola, the hero of Last Flight, keeps a handful of cabins and cabanas on the grounds of the Belize Zoo. They're fabulous. My favorite, the Pond House, at left, perches on stilts over a pond where turtles, crocodiles, cychlids, and dozens of species of birds roam about all day. (And night.) I wrote chunks of Last Flight there, on the screened-in porch, while listening to the calls of the forest falcons and melodious blackbirds. It ain't the Ritz. It's better. It's sleeping in the backabush. And man, it's cheap. Like $70 a night. Try finding that in Belize City. To find out more go to this link at the Belize Zoo.

January 27, 2008

Bruce's Bio

Did I mention me? I'm a contributing editor at Outside magazine and the author of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One woman's fight to save the world's most beautiful bird, published this month by Random House.Img_1796_2  I'm a former Ted Scripps Fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and this year I'm teaching feature writing at CU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication while living in a fabulous hideout high in the snowy reaches of the Rocky Mountains. (The picture at left is the view from my office.) My environmental writing continues to appear in Outside, the New York Times Magazine, and other national publications.

Deep background: I've been writing on the outdoors and environmental issues for the past fifteen years. My previous book, The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier, a biography of the Pacific Northwest’s premiere geographic icon, won the Washington State Governor’s Writers Award, and was recently reprinted in a 10th anniversary edition. My feature articles have appeared in Outside, the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Slate, Mother Jones, Sports Illustrated, Backpacker, Life, and Legal Affairs. A few years ago my New York Times Magazine article on the Bush Administration's campaign to gut the Clean Air Act won the Society of Environmental Journalists' top award for explanatory reporting. (There's a link at left.) My book reviews appear about three times a year in the New York Times Book Review, and once in a while you can hear my commentaries on books and media on the nationally syndicated public radio show Living On Earth. I was born in Everett, Washington, and was raised in Alaska, California, and Washington State. After graduating from the University of Washington, I worked for the Seattle Weekly for ten years as a writer and editor. At home, I play Dunne to my wife's Didion. She's Claire Dederer, and her book reviews and essays appear in the New York Times, Real Simple, Vogue, and other publications. The view from her office is even better. We have two kids and have become masters at the art of intramural deadline negotiation.

November 22, 2007

Last Flight update: Two more harpy eagles released in Belize

Sharon's campaign to revive the harpy eagle in Belize continues to be a smashing success. Last month she and Humberto Wohlers, of the Belize Zoo, along with three officials with the Peregrine Fund, released a male and female harpy into the subtropical forest near the Rio Bravo research station in northwestern Belize. Harpyrel_oct07_5 The pair represent the 12th and 13th harpys released into the wild in the past four years.

The birds are apparently taking to the Belizean backcountry quite well. Researchers tracking the 13 eagles with radio telemetry report that the birds are feasting on a wide variety of prey, including anteaters, kinkajous, coatimundis, grey foxes, porcupines, and white tail deer.

For more info on the harpy project, click on this link to Belize biologist Jan Meerman's excellent Biological Diversity in Belize web site.