Lorrie and I spent a great day yesterday with our good friends Sharon & Moose Peterson. Moose was in town to give a talk at Google, where he kept a good-sized crowd glued to their seats with tales of his adventures as a conservation-minded wildlife photographer. As always, his images of critters – and many from his new passion of aviation photography – were the highlights of the talk.

It is always a little bittersweet to hear about work with endangered species, since so many of them are in so much trouble from population pressure, a changing climate, and often decades of ignorance. But it is heartwarming to see the efforts of those, like Moose, who have a true passion for protecting the environment – coupled in his case with a pragmatic sense of how people can co-exist with that environment.

Many of the images brought back memories – especially the one of a Moose licking my camera lens (long story, best told over a beer…). Everyone there was impressed by the long hours in adverse climates Moose and his family have put in on projects like their Collared Pika and Alaskan Marmot research.