#eric york

[atlantes96]

☢ Pete of Finland - Eric York (Peter Karjalainen) 🇪🇺 🇫🇮 🇺🇸 🏳️‍🌈 18.6.25

[thefrankshow]

The Inner Lives Of Mailmen

[chronivore]

Dreams in the Witch-House by Eric York

https://www.instagram.com/tillinghast23/

[rjzimmerman]

The Lion Catcher

Biologist Eric York lived to help wild carnivores, but he didn’t get a chance to finish his life’s work.

Sad story, but when you read about what Eric York did in his short life, you have to be impressed and inspired.

Excerpt and some great photos:

For a long time, many doubted the existence of mountain lions at the Grand Canyon. Elaine Leslie, a park wildlife biologist, was determined not only to prove their presence, but to track their movements. She wanted to learn more about the role lions play in the canyon’s ecosystem and how these predators affect deer and elk herds. To study the whereabouts of mountain lions, biologists first need to capture them and place tracking collars on them, though capturing lions is no simple task. Trappers usually capture the animals (also known as pumas, cougars or panthers) by chasing them with hounds until they are cornered in trees, but Leslie wanted to find a biologist who could capture mountain lions without having to hunt them down. “I knew some hunters and trappers, but I was looking for somebody a little different who respected what a park as a protected area was all about,” she said. One of her colleagues recommended York, who was working as a wildlife biologist at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. In his career, York had trapped carnivores of all sizes — including mountain lions.

York began his field work in Grand Canyon in 2003, and before long he had captured several South Rim cats and fitted them with radio collars. The collars produced unexpected information: From the data York and his colleagues collected, they learned, for example, that lions swam the Colorado River and that they journeyed 150 miles to Flagstaff and back again. One by one, data points created a picture of the species’ abundance, distribution and role in the Colorado Plateau ecosystem.

(1) York holds a mountain lion kitten in the Grand Canyon. For a long time, many had doubted the existence of mountain lions there, but that changed after York’s arrival in the park. NPS (2) A mountain lion kitten from the Grand Canyon with a red ear tag attached for future identification. NPS

Shortly after my puma sighting in October, a collar indicated that one of the mountain lions was no longer moving, suggesting the animal had died. Always happy to share hands-on experiences, York invited me to retrieve the dead cat with him. I was busy at the visitor center, so I declined the invitation, and he went alone. York carried the lion’s 90-pound body to his vehicle and drove home to conduct a necropsy and determine the cause of death. “He had this innate curiosity. He wanted to discover how things worked,” Leslie said. “It wasn’t good enough to find a dead lion; he had to find out why it died.” York had performed many post-mortem examinations during his career, and this lion seemed no different from the other dead animals he had examined.

Grand Canyon did not have a suitable laboratory, so York took the mountain lion to his garage. Shortly after working on the open carcass, he started to experience flu-like symptoms. He visited the Grand Canyon clinic and was sent home to rest and recover. A few days later, his co-workers found him at his home, dead from respiratory failure. York had unknowingly inhaled airborne Yersinia pestis, bacteria relatively uncommon in lions and even more so in humans. The bacteria had proliferated in his body, and he had died of the pneumonic plague. He was 37 years old.

Eric York (right) with Jeff Sikich, a biologist at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Staff there recruited York when they were looking for a skilled trapper.  NPS

(1) York’s ashes were spread around the country in places he loved, including the Grand Canyon, and some were buried in a country cemetery visible from his family’s Massachusetts farm.   PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREA YORK STOLTZFUS (2) York carrying a cat in the Grand Canyon. “Even now, when it’s been a long day, I’ve been hiking hours on end and there’s one more thing I can do, I’ll think, ‘What would Eric do?’” one of York’s park colleagues said.    NPS

[chronivore]

The King in Yellow by Eric York

https://www.instagram.com/tillinghast23/

[chronivore]

The Eltdown Shards by Eric York

[dungeonlust]

Eric York