Chris Maser spent over 25 years as a research scientist in natural history and ecology in forest, shrub steppe, subarctic, desert, coastal, and agricultural settings. Trained primarily as a vertebrate zoologist, he was a research mammalogist in Nubia, Egypt (1963–1964) with the Yale University Peabody Museum Prehistoric Expedition and a research mammalogist in Nepal (1966–1967), where he participated in a study of tick-borne diseases for the US Naval Medical Research Unit 3 based in Cairo, Egypt.
He conducted a 3-year (1970–1973) ecological survey of the Oregon coast for the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. He was a research ecologist with the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, for 13 years, the first 7 (1974–1981) studying the biophysical relationships in rangelands in southeastern Oregon and the last 6 (1982–1987) studying old-growth forests in western Oregon. He also spent a year as a landscape ecologist with the US Environmental Protection Agency (1990–1991). Today, Chris is an independent author as well as an international lecturer and a facilitator in resolving environmental conflicts, vision statements, and sustainable community development. He is also an international consultant in forest ecology and sustainable forestry practices. He has lived, worked, consulted, or lectured in Austria, Canada, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, Slovakia, Switzerland, and various settings in the United States. To his name are over 300 publications, including 46 books that he wrote, coauthored, or edited. His books are in libraries in 78 countries, including the United States and Canada.
Zane Maser currently writes for her SunnyCat Astrology WordPress site. With degrees in Wildlife Biology, Counseling, and Astrology, her writing includes a wide range of topics, such as animals, nature, the garden, psychology, grief, healing, consciousness, the mystics and saints, and the spiritual life. Her favored form of writing is Haiku poetry. Zane worked for the Bureau of Land Management and as a research assistant at Oregon State University—during which time she co-authored 10 scientific papers concerning the mycophagy of small mammals and also co-authored the book, “Synoptic Spore Key to Genera of Hypogeous Fungi in Northern Temperate Forests with Special Reference to Animal Mycophagy.” Beyond that she worked in hospice social services and for several years corresponded with individuals whose animals were on healing lists. Zane and Chris collaborated on an earlier book, “The World is in My Garden: A Journey of Consciousness.”
