Feature

Wish You Weren’t Here

Quagga mussels – an extraordinarily prolific and costly invasive species – have appeared in Lake Mead, and no one is sure how to keep these unwanted newcomers from infesting the West.

Editor's Note

Welcome to the Homogocene

The rapid spread of invasive species like quagga and zebra mussels could transform the once-isolated and ecologically unique West into just another McDonaldized patch of the planet.

Dear Friends

We're Honored

HCN’s Ray Ring wins the 2006 George Polk Award for Political Reporting for his story, “Taking Liberties.”

Uncommon Westerners

A wolf’s life

The wolf known as B-7 – the last surviving member of a group of Canadian wolves released in Idaho in 1995 – has died.

Writers on the Range

Don’t send a check, send yourself

In an effort to “think globally and act locally,” the author volunteers his time for environmental causes, rather than just reaching for his checkbook.

News

Getting the lead out

Condor 134’s harrowing experience with lead poisoning exemplifies these endangered birds’ greatest challenge – which some advocates hope to ease by banning lead bullets in California

Stream leases languish

Efforts to privatize instream-flow protection – to keep enough water in rivers and streams to sustain their ecological functions – face tough going in the West.

Book Reviews

A geography of the imagination

In Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney, 45 diverse writers define unusual geographical terms used across the country.

Essays

The knowledge of mules

After more than a decade of a solitary existence packing mules in the Northern Rockies, the writer is seriously injured and must reconsider his way of life.

Heard Around the West

Heard around the West

Gail Kimbell and the vanishing Forest Service budget; not saying the Pledge in Mesa, Ariz.; racing old beaters in California; talkative men’s rooms; saying it (the Miranda warning, that is) with flowers.

Letters

A moment of silence for our meat

The once-over on overgrazing

Let's start with a Kennecott Mine

Labels are for pickle jars

When analogies go bad

Our sincere apologies

'Taking Liberties' on the High Plains

Two Weeks in the West

Two weeks in the West

The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has bad news; Govs. propose global warming legislation; nuclear revival in the wings; Rockies Prosperity Act back in Congress; Arizona may stifle ballot measures; Bush’s budget; the West’s electrical grid.

Sidebar

Battling over ballast

Congress has tried to regulate ballast water in ships in order to stop the spread of zebra mussels, but so far loopholes in the law and tussles over policy have made the effort ineffective.

Don’t move a mussel

Boaters, kayakers, anglers and other recreationists can help stop the spread of quagga mussels and other aquatic invasives by following a few simple rules.