Ronald A. Joseph

Sep 21, 2024 | maineboats.com | Ronald A. Joseph

Bill Sheehan was 10 when he fell in love with birds. It happened at the end of a long, hot June day in 1973 when his family moved from Long Island, New York, to an abandoned Patten, Maine, farmhouse on 180 acres of played-out potato fields. “Moving to northern Maine was culture shock,” said Sheehan, now 61. “The house was in very bad shape. Chokecherries were growing up through the steps, and overgrown bushes blocked views from first-floor windows.

Dec 6, 2023 | maineboats.com | Ronald A. Joseph

Photographs by Paul CyrHolding what resembles an old-fashioned television antenna high above his head, Randy Cross rotates 360 degrees on his snowshoes. A radio receiver, attached to his waist and connected by a wire to the antenna, emits a steady beep. “We’re near the bear’s den,” he whispers. “We need to spread out and move as quietly as possible.” It’s February 2010 in a spruce-fir forest 20 miles southeast of Greenville.

Sep 1, 2023 | mainepublic.org | Cindy Han |Ronald A. Joseph

This is a rebroadcast of an earlier show (original air date June 8, 2023); no calls will be taken. In his new memoir Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs and Hermit Bill, wildlife biologist Ron Joseph recounts his youth in central Maine, the importance of his family's dairy farm, his adventures in the field, and the characters he met over the course of a career working with wildlife and conservation that spanned more than three decades.

Jul 14, 2023 | maineboats.com | Ronald A. Joseph

On a late September day in 1995, shortly after sunset, my friend Gina and I crawled into our sleeping bags at Umsaskis Lake campground. Utterly exhausted from hours of paddling into the Allagash River’s trademark headwinds, we barely enjoyed a dinner of brook trout, pickled fiddleheads, skillet cornbread, and a glass each of merlot. Around midnight, we were awakened by bellowing sounds. Dazed and confused, I wondered if we’d pitched our tent in a Kansas cattle feedlot.