High Country News February 06, 2006
Feature
The Killing Fields
The first bison hunt in 15 years was supposed to offer hope for a reasonable solution to Yellowstone’s ‘buffalo problem,’ but a lifelong hunter who watched it says the senseless slaughter continues
Editor's Note
Time for a little outrage
It’s time for hunters to rally on behalf of wild lands and wild animals – beginning with the bison in Yellowstone
Dear Friends
Dear friends
Welcome, Janiec Gutierrez; V.B. Price visits; talk back to hcn.org; Dan Egan wins journalism award; HCN friends in Aspen Hall of Fame; notes from readers
Uncommon Westerners
Public-lands freedom fighter
Stephen Maurer came to the West from Hungary, where he was a freedom fighter, and has devoted the past 50 years to fighting on behalf of Western public lands
News
Study questions value of post-fire logging
A group of scientists at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry publish a controversial study saying salvage logging may actually slow forest recovery
The Latest Bounce
Pete McCloskey plans run against Rep. Richard Pombo; 11 alleged eco-terrorists indicted; BLM gives six companies chance to work on oil shale production; Gray Development buys expensive state land in north Phoenix.
Tiny stream invaders may harm Western trout
The tiny New Zealand mud snails that are rapidly invading the West’s waters may pose a threat to the region’s trout
Trouble in the Delta
The San Francisco Bay-Delta Authority votes to disband, even as the Bay-Delta itself -- beset by high water exports, disappearing fish and declining water quality – may be dying
Congressional group plans for oil's decline
Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., have formed the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus to discuss preparing for life after "peak oil" – when worldwide oil supplies can no longer meet demand
First fatal wolf attack recorded in North America?
A 22-year-old Canadian man, whose partially eaten body was found in the woods of northern Saskatchewan, may represent the first documented instance of a human being killed by healthy wolves in North America
Judge orders litigating enviros to pony up
A federal judge orders three environmental groups to post a $100,000 bond while their appeal of a logging project goes forward
Lawmakers chop up renewable-energy fund
Congress slashes the Energy Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program in favor of directing money toward energy projects in lawmakers’ home districts
Book Reviews
Seeking peace in nuclear times
In Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir, former U.S. Marine Leonard Bird offers a heartbreaking and yet hopeful personal account of nuclear war
Urban planning — with a wild touch
Practical Ecology for Planners, Developers and Citizens and Nature-Friendly Communties are two new handbooks on innovative land-use planning and habitat protection
The Colorado Plateau II: Biophysical, Socioeconomic, and Cultural Research
The Colorado Plateau II is a kaleidoscopic anthology of scientists’ thoughts on the history, biology and geology of the vast Colorado Plateau
John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures
John Muir: Family, Friends and Adventures, edited by Sally M. Miller and Daryl Morrison, collects well-illustrated, sometimes scholarly essays on the great naturalist
Slaughter in Serene: The Columbia Coal Strike Reader
The new anthology, Slaughter in Serene, tells the tragic story of striking miners in the late 1920s at the Columbine coal mine in Colorado
Essays
The unbearable triteness of skiing
Being a non-skier in a skiing-obsessed state like Utah is a lot like being a vegetarian in a slaughterhouse
Living with the ghosts of the Indian Wars
Montana’s "Custer Country" is a region haunted by the ghosts of the Indian Wars, where towns are still named for the so-called "heroes’ responsible for massacres such as Wounded Knee
Heard Around the West
Heard around the West
Revenge of the Mouse; The Cow That Wouldn’t Surrender; high-country heifers; Miss Nevada speaks out; womb is not a car seat; miniature cows; 65-year-old marriage in Cedaredge, Colo., started VERY young
High Country News in your inbox!