Mountain Caribou Project presents: Cowboy Coffee
Everything you ever needed to know about making a really bad cup of coffee in the wilderness....and a little bit about endangered mountain caribou too!
Long days in the field searching for endangered mountain caribou and documenting the conservation challenges they face require a good cup of coffee. The Mountain Caribou Initiative is a visual journey into the imperiled world of mountain caribou. For more information on the topic visit davidmoskowitz.net/mci
In the summer of 2015 I launched a new photography and conservation project, revolving around the crumbling world of mountain caribou in western Canada and the northwestern continental United States. As their habitat has been steadily altered or destroyed by a myriad of human activities, mountain caribou have been declining rapidly. Unsure of whether this project would be documentation of the end of a distinct ecotype of this iconic species or possibly a step along the path to inspiring the change in human behavior that will need to happen to save these animals, I set out to learn about and capture images of these reclusive animals across the Selkirk, Columbia and Rocky mountains in British Columbia and Alberta.
What I have discovered so far is a compelling and complicated story which is being played out in a strikingly beautiful and, in places, deeply scarred landscape. It is a story that defies easy answers for the problems we have created and one that illuminates the complicated web of ecological relationships which humans have altered in ways not easily undone—forcing us as a species to chart a new way forward as we strive to meet our own needs while attempting to preserve the biological diversity and integrity of the landscape around us.
