BIOGRAPHY FOR PEPPER TRAIL
PEPPER TRAIL is an ornithologist, conservationist, photographer, and writer. He began watching birds as a boy in upstate New York, and first fell in love with the tropics as a teenager, during a family trip to Mexico. Since then, he has studied birds around the world, with extensive travels in Central and South America, Africa, and the tropical Pacific.
Trail received his B.A. from Cornell University, and his M.S. from the University of California at Davis. He then returned to Cornell, and received his Ph.D. in ornithology for his field studies of the spectacular Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock in Suriname. This work was featured in a National Geographic article, illustrated with Trail’s photographs. He continued his research with post-doctoral fellowships at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and the California Academy of Sciences, where he studied the ancestry of Darwin’s finches. From 1992-1994, he was the senior wildlife biologist for the government of American Samoa, and traveled widely in Polynesia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Since 1994, Trail has lived in Ashland, Oregon, where he is the ornithologist at the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory. In this position, he is responsible for identification of all feathers, bones, and other bird remains that are submitted in investigations of wildlife crimes. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Biology at Southern Oregon University, and is a sought-after lecturer on cruises and natural history trips to all parts of the world.
Trail is a leader in conservation efforts in the Klamath-Siskiyou region of southern Oregon and northern California. He has been conservation chairman of Rogue Valley Audubon Society for many years, and has worked closely with other area environmental groups, including Headwaters, the Siskiyou Project, the World Wildlife Fund Klamath-Siskiyou office, and the Soda Mountain Wilderness Council. He helped spearhead the effort that led to the establishment of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, and continues to be a watchdog on BLM’s management of the area.
Trail is the author of numerous research papers in scientific journals such as Science, Animal Behavior, Evolution, and Conservation Biology. He has also published natural history articles in National Geographic, Geo, Pacific Discovery, and the Jefferson Monthly, among other magazines. He is a poet and a regular essayist for the Jefferson Monthly, as well as a contributor to the Writers on the Range series distributed by the High Country News.
Trail is married to Debra Koutnik, an Ashland pediatrician, and has two children, 21-year-old Graham and 17-year old Sage.