Wolves have been restored in the Northern Rockies, but their conflict with civilization now prompts wildlife managers to face some agonizing decisions about the animal’s future.
Raptors won’t fry away
Since the 1970s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has monitored the electrocution of hawks and eagles, whose large wing spans can easily bridge the gap between live wires on power lines (HCN, 12/7/98: Power poles make deadly perches). Though the agency has the authority to prosecute electric companies under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act…
Expatriate fish could return a hero
The cure for the exotic whirling disease, a fatal malady in trout, could – ironically – lie in a foreign fish. Researchers recently found that Hofer rainbow trout, the offspring of Pacific rainbow trout taken to Germany in 1880, are 10 to 100 times less susceptible to whirling disease than native U.S. rainbow trout, thanks…
Fresh alternative to lawsuits
Dear HCN, It was refreshing and encouraging to read “A new world in the woods” (HCN, 4/1/02: A new world in the woods). While environmental groups promote divisiveness and confrontation through the courts at taxpayers’ expenses, people such as Headley and Wilcox make a difference on the ground without sensationalism or posturing. They directly help…
Hansen pops a wheelie
UTAH If Utah Rep. Jim Hansen has his way, northern Utah forests may become a Mecca for ATV riders. In April, the 11-term Republican and chairman of the House Resources Committee introduced a bill that would create the Shoshone National Recreation Trail along hundreds of miles of backcountry roads mostly in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest.…
Feedgrounds are necessary
Dear HCN, The conservation groups of Wyoming would like to phase out the 23 Wyoming elk feedgrounds (HCN, 4/29/02: Are Wyoming’s feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?). Well, I was a member of several of the Wyoming conservation groups as you call them, and I was never asked to support the phaseout of the Wyoming feedgrounds.…
Leave mud slinging to experts
Dear HCN, This letter is to correct misinformation conveyed by Mark Williams in a letter regarding San Miguel County, Colo.’s proposed “high alpine zone” land-use code changes (HCN, 3/4/02: Allen Best flunks the snow test). It is too bad that Mr. Williams, in an otherwise informative letter, succumbed to the ever-popular mud-slinging at high-profile celebrities…
Singing cowboys strike a bad chord
UTAH Cultural tourism may be a hot ticket in some parts of the West, but a troupe of singing cowboys is looking for a new home after their failed theater proposal divided a small northern Utah town. The Bar-K Wranglers, a six-man ensemble that performs a dinner theater show, wanted to build a permanent venue…
Wyoming Game and Fish is a jacklit deer
Dear HCN, Karen Mockler’s recent report, “Are Wyoming’s elk feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?” (HCN, 4/29/02: Are Wyoming’s elk feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?), reminded me again of journalism’s greatest weaknesses: No matter how good the report is, there are never enough column inches to tell the whole story, and sometimes crucial facts fall through…
Why did the salmon cross the road: The real story
Dear HCN, I happen to work in the watershed where the salmon picture was taken for Heard around the West (HCN, 4/29/02: Heard around the West). As a matter of clarification, the “car-dodging salmon” are not a “spring phenomenon” and they were not trying to “get back to the river.” This is a picture of…
The garden of good and evil
Follow the simple steps listed on the back of any of the popular wildflower seed mixes for sale, and voila! A thick carpet of kaleidoscopic blooms will grace your garden. Problem is, you probably just broke the law. At least, that’s what researchers with the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture discovered when they…
New museum takes visitors beyond Yellowstone
Dr. Charles Preston wishes he had better understood the Yellowstone region during his first visit there as a teen-ager. Now, as curator of the new Draper Museum in Cody, Wyo., his job is to bolster the knowledge of a new generation of Yellowstone visitors. The Draper, part of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, links geological,…
Spreading seeds of knowledge
When Greek scholar turned cattle rancher Claude A. Barr died in 1982, he left behind a lifetime of discoveries and observations about South Dakota flora. He was “a self-taught wizard of Great Plains native plants,” says Cindy Reed, a South Dakota native and protege of Barr’s. To preserve Barr’s legacy, Reed founded the Great Plains…
The Latest Bounce
Nineteen populations of steelhead and salmon have had their critical habitat designations formally yanked (HCN, 4/15/02: Habitat protection takes a critical list). On April 30, a federal district judge approved a settlement to a lawsuit by the National Association of Home Builders that requires the National Marine Fisheries Service to conduct new critical habitat analyses…
Writing Naturally
“Words, your words, can make all the difference in the world,” renowned nature writer David Petersen asserts in his highly readable Writing Naturally: A Down to Earth Guide to Nature Writing. He wants to help you make that difference. Over the course of 16 short chapters, covering grammar, research, style, editing, and publishing, Petersen guides…
Woody leviathans
Robert Van Pelt, a forest ecology researcher at the University of Washington and Evergreen State College, has two lifelong obsessions: trees and curious facts. So it seems inevitable that he would hunt out the woody leviathans showcased in his book Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast. Measuring trees is a science, and Van Pelt takes…
We’d like 2,387 salmon and a Pepsi, please
A new federal report enumerates, for the first time, exactly how many wild salmon and steelhead need to survive for them to be removed from the endangered species list. The report, produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), suggests specific annual fish populations in more than 60 tributaries of the Columbia River. The figures…
Congress goes barmy over the Army
WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Let’s all go barmy, live off the Army” sang Mack the Knife and his friends in The Threepenny Opera. They must be in town. Come to think of it, they must have gotten elected to Congress, which has been acting barmier-than-usual, thanks to the armed forces. It started in March, when the…
Indians play power game
One tribe cashes in on the energy boom
Small towns court upscale tourists
Visitors who like art, theater and fine cuisine bring big bucks to the rural West
Heard around the West
Starbucks employees in Monroe, Wash., were greeted just before dawn recently by a man and woman who forced them to open a safe and hand over its contents. But instead of getting some java to go and making their get-away, the couple pitched in at a crowded takeout window. The man donned an apron, reports…
‘I respect wolves. I still don’t like them killing our sheep.’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Margaret Soulen Hinson helps run her family’s ranch near Weiser, Idaho, northwest of Boise. Wolves have killed 105 of the ranch’s sheep since 1995, but Soulen Hinson says: “In comparison to other predator problems, the wolves have been pretty minimal. We lose way more…
‘There isn’t much room for more wolves’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Ralph Maughan is a professor of political science at Idaho State University in Pocatello, Idaho, and president-elect of the Wolf Recovery Foundation. He believes there are still reasons to worry: “There was no need to kill off all of the Whitehawk Pack. That…
Riding the Line
Ruben Rivera leans his elbow on the side of a pickup truck. His wife and brother-in-law stand in the truck bed to get a better view of the race. Rivera’s horse, Misterio – “Mystery” he explains, rather unnecessarily – is running in the third race. “But on the other side.” We are officially in Mexico…
Wolves still struggle in the Southwest
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The effort to restore Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest started later and smaller than the restoration of wolves to the Northern Rockies, and it has run into stiffer local resistance. But “we’re on track,” says Colleen Buchanan, assistant Mexican wolf recovery coordinator for…
Wolf at the door
Now that the West’s top predator has reached civilization’s back porch, managers face some agonizing decisions
Dear Friends
It’s gut check time for a conservative Western Colorado county The county that has been home to High Country News for the last 19 years has reached a decisive moment. For the last few decades, residents of 1,149-square-mile Delta County have chosen a live-and-let-live approach to land use. Outside of the towns, we have no…
Grazing foes float a buyout
But will ranchers and Congress buy in?
Elk conservation group sharpens its ax
New CEO tries corporate-style downsizing
In the West, drought is a native
“You have to get over the color green,” wrote the late historian and novelist Wallace Stegner in Thoughts on a Dry Land, his treatise on living in the West. I’ve remembered Stegner’s words frequently this brown spring, as gusty winds smudge the air over my valley with clouds of dry soil. Green appears only along…
Where there’s smoke wood, there’s less fire
An Arizona entrepreneur makes good on juniper slash
Ranching the changing times
My earliest memories revolve around my dad waking me up with the sun to work cattle. My feet took the shape of the pointed boots and my head grew within my Stetson, leaving an indented white forehead. I never even thought about not ranching. In 1978, I partnered with my dad to buy a ranch…