High Country News May 27, 1996
Feature
Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Utah, which once boasted exceptionally rich populations of reptiles and amphibians, now does nothing to stop their rapid disappearance.
Related Stories
Frogs: The ultimate indicator species
Native frog populations throughout the United States - and the world - are declining drastically, and no one is quite sure why.
There's plenty of money to study Utah's game
Environmentalists are furious that the Utah state wildlife agency, at the direction of the Legislature, is funding projects to kill every mammalian predator on study sites in two counties, in an effort to improve pheasant hunting.
News
Runaway runway advances at Jackson Hole airport
Despite overwhelming public opposition, Jackson Hole airport officials want to expand the runway of the only airport inside a national park, in Grand Teton National Park.
Arizona state land opens for conservation
The new Arizona Preserve Initiative allows conservationists to lease state lands, but only those within a three-mile radius of major cities.
Salvage rider will destroy sacred sites
Native Americans and environmentalists protest a salvage rider timber sale on Oregon's Enola Hill, saying the area is full of sites sacred to Northwestern tribes.
River bomber discovered down under
Ken "Taz" Stoner, suspected of bombing Quartzite Falls on Arizona's Salt River, is arrested in Sydney, Australia.
Sierra Club zeroes in on logging
Sierra Club members approve a controversial new policy calling for no logging on public lands.
Open your wallet; visit a national park
The National Park Service considers raising park entrance fees that in many cases have remained almost unchanged since the parks were created.
Colorado Democrats ponder electability vs. purity
Despite his support of the controversial Animas-La Plata water project, Colorado environmentalists seem to prefer Tom Strickland to his arguably greener opponent Gene Nichol for the Democratic candidate for Senate.
Beavers land on the hot seat in Idaho
A new Idaho law allows farmers who suspect beavers are damming water that could be irrigating fields to call on state officials to get rid of the beavers even if the dams are on someone's private property.
Joyriding kills
Recklessness and speed killed nine snowmobilers last winter in Wyoming near Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks.
Wyoming's Red Desert: 15 million acres of contention
A possible oil and gas boom in Wyoming's Red Desert has environmentalists scrambling to mitigate the impacts without totally alienating local oil and gas workers.
A Colorado canyon faces an uncertain future
Western Colorado's Demaree Canyon, a wilderness study area, faces possible natural-gas drilling owing to a grandfathered drilling permit.
Book Reviews
Ten at risk
Five Western rivers are in American Rivers' annual report, "North America's Ten Most Endangered and Threatened Rivers."
Saved by the hair of a bear
Researchers from the Yellowstone Grizzly Foundation hope to learn about the bears' genetic diversity through studying hairs left behind when the animals scratch their backs.
Wildflowers made easy
G.K. Guennel's two-volume "Guide to Colorado Wildflowers" makes plant identification easy.
Rocky Mountain Rendezvous: Renew Yourself in the High Country
The 51st annual conference of the Soil and Water Conservation Society, "Rocky Mountain Rendezvous: Renew Yourself in the High Country," will be held July 7-10, in Keystone, Colo.
Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act
University of Colorado School of Law's 17th Annual Summer Conference, "Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act," to be held June 9-12, in Boulder, Colo.
It's Chase who's lost in the dark wood
A reviewer debunks the claim in Alston Chase's book, "In a Dark Wood," that "ecosystem" and "biocentrism" are only "masquerading as science."
Heard Around the West
Heard Around the West
Sex at the prom, Abstinence Week, Utah's baby boom, complaints in a Silver City, N.M., lumberyard about having to take off your gun at the door, tourists hurry through Utah, linger in Wyoming, and in South Dakota folks are nice to cows.
