FIELD NOTES — Iceland Is Whaling Again. It's 2026. Here's What That Means.

A case study in the things we choose not to look at.

In June 2026 Iceland resumed commercial whaling after a two year pause, with a quota of 150 fin whales and 168 minke whales. Hvalur hf., the Icelandic whaling company owned by Kristján Loftsson, confirmed its intention to return to sea this summer to hunt fin whales.

FIELD NOTES — Your Trout Might Not Be a Trout

A case study in paying attention to what you think you already know.

Most people who fish for brook trout think they're fishing for trout. They're not. They're fishing for char.

FIELD NOTES — The Problem With Putting Humans at the Center of Everything

A case study in a very old mistake.

There is a word for the belief that humans are the central or most important entity in the universe. Anthropocentrism. It is so embedded in the way most cultures think about the world that it barely registers as a belief at all, it just feels like the obvious truth.

FIELD NOTES — In Defense of Hunting

A case study in the things we've decided to feel bad about.

Hunting makes a lot of people uncomfortable. That discomfort is worth examining.

We live in a culture that has almost entirely separated the act of eating meat from the act of killing an animal. Meat arrives in plastic wrap, pre-portioned, bloodless, labeled with a brand name and a weight. The animal that became that meat is invisible, its life, its conditions, its death all neatly hidden behind a supply chain we've collectively agreed not to look at too closely. We eat 7,000 animals in a lifetime and most of us couldn't tell you where a single one of them came from.