A top a volcanic island ridge 3,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, Exequiel Ezcurra and Clark Winchell are hugging trees. Actually, they’re reaching around pines to measure the trunks. Then, they twist a corkscrew-like device through the bark for a core sample. Ezcurra, an Argentine-born botanist and director of research at the San Diego Natural History Museum in California, wants to count the annual rings of one tree, but the core sample is rotten. “This one is dead,” he says. “Just like the storm petrel,” replies Winchell, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Winchell is referring to a seabird that once flourished in this remote island forest about 150 miles west of Baja California. In fact, much of the bird... [Log in to read more]