Natural History Wanderings

The Center For Investigative reported about the Boy Scouts’ expulsion of Naturalist and Biology teacher, Kim Kuska. His crime was documenting the Boy Scouts of Monterey county’s environmental destruction. Boy Scouts from this area have a history of poor environment protection around their Camp Pico Blanco in the mountains near the Little Sur River in Monterey County. A few quotes from the article documenting their bad behavior:

In 1989, for instance, Monterey County cited the Scouts for their “repeated destruction of Dudley’s lousewort and its habitat,” the documents show. threatened its existence repeatedly by harvesting old-growth trees it needs to survive, crushing some of the few remaining plants and introducing potentially competitive species. Under state law, it is illegal to harm a plant that is classified as rare.

The camp also cut down several trees in the old-growth forest in 2011 without a permit

In 2009, Hearst Newspapers reported that the Scouts clear-cut tens of thousands of acres of forestland across the country and operated a dam at Camp Pico Blanco that killed at least 30 federally protected steelhead trout. The camp installed a fish ladder as part of a no-fault settlement.

Read the full story at: Boy Scouts put rare plant in danger | The Center for Investigative Reporting.

There is also a petition to have Kim Kuska reinstated at: http://forcechange.com/66842/reinstate-environmental-activist-into-boy-scouts/#gf_1