USDA Blog

The fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) sits on the forest floor in Alaska as if it is waiting to be cast in an Alice in Wonderland movie. Its recognizable bright red cap dotted with white warts belies their toxic nature. Although the effects vary, experts warn against eating them. In Alaska, fly agaric...

Chips the bobcat, who was only four weeks old when she was rescued last August by U.S. Forest Service firefighter Tad Hair and his Mad River Hand hotshot crew, is now 8 months old and back in bobcat territory in Lassen County, Calif. Because of early human handling to treat her second-degree burns...

The U.S. Forest Service wants you to remember the last time you lay on the grass and looked up and were inspired by tree branches swaying in the breeze—or when you sat under an old oak tree feeling the rough bark of its trunk against your back. If you can’t remember, or you’ve never done these...

One of America’s most well-known, beloved and important icons is going to have a little work done over the next several weeks in preparation for his upcoming 70 th birthday in 2014. The mechanical Smokey Bear that welcomes scores of visitors to the U.S. Forest Service headquarters building in...

In conjunction with National Park Week, the National Park Service conducted the tree planting at the Flight 93 National Memorial on April 20, one of four tree planting days planned at the site this year.

If Morgan Grove had 30 seconds to brief any high-level official, he would simply describe his job as working to make cities better and safer places for people to live. “Our Forest Service research benefits the public in many ways -- including having clean water to drink, safer living environments...

Today, roughly half-a-million bison dot the nation’s landscape, a far cry from the more than 20 to 30 million that once roamed much of North America. And while they have not been part of the Forest Service’s Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie ecosystem for more than a century, the habitat here will...

When most people think of urban forestry in New York, they usually evoke Central Park, Frederick Olmstead's crown jewel that covers 843 acres in the middle of bustling Manhattan.

An educational program about bats, an effort to increase Dusky Canada goose breeding and an annual bird migration celebration are among the winners of the 2013 Wings Across the Americas Conservation Awards. The U.S. Forest Service awards were presented recently during the North American Wildlife and...

The U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Springs (Colo.) Utilities recently announced a new 5-year partnership to help restore the areas burned by the devastating Waldo Canyon Fire that tore through part of the west side of the city in 2012. Through the partnership, Colorado Springs Utilities will...