Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. June 1906 Congress passes the Antiquities Act. It gives the president power to “declare by public proclamation … objects of historic and scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the government of the United States to be […]
Michelle Nijhuis
Michelle Nijhuis is a contributing editor of HCN and the author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction. Follow @nijhuism.
Posted inOctober 11, 1999: A home-grown Water War
Dudes on the dunes
-We struggled to scramble up near-vertical walls of loose sand,” writes Mark North in the online magazine Explore. “Still, the weight of the tent, beer, snowboard and snowboard boots on my backpack didn’t topple me over … At the summit, we’d swap snowshoes for snowboards … spray on a coat of Pledge to increase glide, […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
The Wayward West
Meridian, Idaho, will host a high-visibility merger Oct. 2, when Rep. Helen Chenoweth, 61, weds Wayne Hage, 62. Chenoweth is famous for fighting federal protection of endangered species and wilderness (HCN, 9/28/98). Her betrothed, a rancher from Tonopah, Nev., has battled the Forest Service in court for almost a decade over grazing (HCN, 10/30/95). Invitations […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 1999: The Millworker and the Forest
Up in the air
Currently offering: rent-free co-op housing in upper and middle canopy condos, 150-230 ft. above reality, with suspended sidewalks winding between 500/600/700-year-old Doug fir and hemlock trees. * from a poster by Red Cloud Thunder, a group protesting the Clark Timber Sale near Eugene, Ore. It’s amazing what gets done in treetops these days. Julia Butterfly, […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Troubled Oasis
Note: two sidebar articles accompany this feature story: “Speaking from experience” and “Agency cheerleader.” HAWTHORNE, Nev. – At sunset, Walker Lake glows from the floor of this desert valley, its silver-smooth surface reflecting the colors of the open Nevada sky. On the lake’s western shore, Mount Grant in the craggy Wassuk Range peaks at more […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Speaking from experience
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Gary Nelson has been the Canoe Tour Director for the Mono Lake Committee for nearly 11 years. “We take people out here on Mono Lake and say, ‘Here are the shrimp, here are the flies, here are the birds who eat the shrimp and […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Agency cheerleader
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. John Singlaub is the manager of the Carson City, Nev., office of the BLM. During his 20 years with the agency, he’s worked in four states at every level of the organization, and he’s known as a man of action. In Colorado, when the […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The secretary speaks
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Since taking office in 1993, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has been an ardent supporter of habitat conservation plans. In a recent telephone interview, he elaborated on his position. Bruce Babbitt: “I got involved (in urban habitat conservation plans) early on in Southern […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Slow and steady
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Desert tortoises don’t have an easy childhood. Since the softer shells of baby tortoises make them easy prey for ravens and coyotes, less than 5 percent survive to adulthood. Tortoises who make it to maturity typically live long lives – they’ve been […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
The city mouse
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Preble’s meadow jumping mice deserve their name: By using their strong hind legs and (relatively) big feet, the three-inch mice can jump more than a foot and a half into the air and can leap three feet horizontally. Their long tails are […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Can the Preble’s mouse trap growth on Colorado’s Front Range?
Note: a sidebar article, “The city mouse,” accompanies this feature story. COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – On the 13th floor of the tallest building in town, Steve Sharkey, vice president of Picolan Inc., pulls out his plans for the Northgate development. It’s a 1,200-acre residential and commercial development at the edge of town, and it’s been […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
Who’s stopping sprawl?
Note: this front-page essay introduces this issue’s feature stories. The northern spotted owl created an enormous controversy in the timber towns of the Pacific Northwest. But at least it never had to tangle with the PTA. Less than 80 cactus ferruginous pygmy-owls are thought to survive in southern Arizona, and many of them live in […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
A tiny owl with a big name
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. The cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl, described as “fist-sized” and “no bigger than a muffin,” measures seven inches from beak to tail, and is the second smallest owl in North America. Only the elf owl, also native to southern Arizona, is smaller. Pygmy-owls spend […]
Posted inAugust 30, 1999: Who's stopping sprawl?
An ESA cheat sheet
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Endangered – Any species in danger of extinction throughout all or most of its range and “listed” as such under the Endangered Species Act. Now, 357 animals and 568 plant species in the U.S. are listed as endangered. Threatened – Any species […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Who loses when a city neighborhood goes upscale?
PORTLAND, Ore. – In Northeast Portland, you can get culture shock just by crossing the street. Near the corner of Alberta Street and 28th Avenue, a no-frills tacqueria called La Sirenita sells fish tacos to a long line of customers for little more than a dollar apiece. On the other side of Alberta, Bernie’s Southern […]
Posted inJune 7, 1999: Mining the past
Tragedy on the border
Charles Bowden’s recent book Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future chronicled, in vivid words and photographs, the violent restlessness of sprawling Ciudad Juarez (HCN, 9/14/98). Among the most horrifying, and unforgettable, images were those of the bodies of several young women, all murdered on their way home from low-paying jobs at the U.S.-owned factories on […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘I’m really embarrassed’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Kathy Goss is a resident of Darwin, California: “I’m a disillusioned environmentalist. I’m disillusioned with the way environmentalists took things into their own hands and pushed something like (the Desert Protection Act) through. Congress signed off on something it had never seen; the boundaries […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘They’re just too rigid’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Reuben Scolnik is a longtime Death Valley National Park volunteer: “In order to accomplish their mission, (the Park Service) is slowly making it less interesting for the average person to visit the park. As I look at it, I don’t think it’s as interesting […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
‘By and large, they’re heroes’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Dick Martin is the superintendent of Death Valley National Park: “In my mind, (rangers) are heroes. Once in a while they have to tell someone to do something they don’t want to hear, but, by and large, they’re heroes. They respond to people in […]
Posted inMay 24, 1999: The last weird place
So much land, so little money
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When the Mojave National Preserve was created by the Desert Protection Act in 1994, its enemies in Congress hit it where it hurts (HCN, 4/14/97). In 1996, California Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis led a successful effort to reduce the preserve’s annual budget to a […]