Last summer's wildfires cleared the ground for a boom in
commercial mushroom-picking on Montana's national
forests.
Items by Mark Matthews
In Wyoming, Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest Supervisor
Mary Peterson bans sport shooting of prairie dogs at Thunder Basin
National Grassland.
In Kalispell, Mont., "shock jock" John Stokes owns radio
station KGEZ and uses it as a platform for his virulent, far-right
attacks on environmentalism and other issues.
A look at the Intermountain West's trees notes how the
different species adapt to and even profit from periodic
fires.
Newly appointed Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth is
generally liked and respected by agency colleagues, timber
advocates and environmentalists, although some greens worry that he
may not stand firm in the face of pressure from the Bush
administration.
In the wake of last summer's devastating Western
wildfires, the Forest Service is trying to figure out how to
restore the unhealthy, doghair, fire-prone forests created by a
century of fire suppression and indiscriminate logging.
Critics say a massive salvage-logging operation in the
wildfire-burned Sula State Forest, Mont., won't leave enough snags
and downed trees for wildlife and forest rejuvenation.
The whitebark pine is in steep decline in the mountains on
the Idaho-Montana border.
Some practical suggestions for making your home more fire
safe.
This summer's wildfires are raising questions about
development in the "wildland-urban interface" - places like
Montana's Bitterroot Valley, where Forest Service firefighters are
using all their resources to protect homes and cabins.
National forests across the country are cash-strapped and
hard-pressed to get everyday work done because a greater percentage
of the agency's budget is staying in Washington, D.C.
Environmentalists in favor of roadless area protection and
loggers and ORVers against it both gather in Missoula, Mont., to
give the Forest Service their opinion.
The Clinton administration designates four new national
monuments: Hanford Reach, Oregon's Soda Mountain area, Arizona's
Ironwood Forest and the Canyons of the Ancients in southwestern
Colorado.
The EPA wants to remove a dam on Montana's Clark Fork
River that had been holding back contaminated mine tailings from
Butte and Anaconda, and have the waste cleaned up.
With the summer shaping up to be a hot one for fires,
especially in the Southwest, the Forest Service is worried about
finding enough money, firefighters and also avoiding the problems
that contributed to the deaths of 14 firefighters in
1994.
In a precedent-setting move, a Montana judge says that the
Golden Sunlight Mine has to reclaim land whether or not it's made a
profit on mining.
Don Judge of the Montana State AFL-CIO says W.R. Grace is
culpable in the tragedy of asbestos poisoning.
Former mine worker Lester Skramstad, who is dying of
asbestos-caused disease, recalls how he and co-workers worked
casually with asbestos, unaware of the danger.
Mine owner W.R. Grace says it's always been frank about
the dangers of asbestos, but former workers and union leaders
disagree, pointing to damning company memos.
Asbestos-laced dust from a vermiculite mine near Libby,
Mont., has caused illness and death among locals for decades, but
it is only recently that the media - and victims - have called W.R.
Grace & Co. to account.
Some social scientists and activists charge that user fees
will have a disproportionate impact on working-class people and
shut many of them out of the public lands.
The Blackfeet Indian Tribe has released 30 captive bred
swift foxes onto the reservation in Montana.
As traditional logging declines on Montana's Flathead
National Forest, the Flathead forestry project experiments with a
new form of logging that rewards the loggers for restoring sick
forests through environmentally conscious work.
Bear specialist Gary Moses says that backcountry users
carrying pepper spray should never let down their guard in bear
country.
Recent studies are casting doubts on whether pepper spray
is as effective as once thought in protecting hikers and hunters
from attacks by bears.
For a century, ranchers have believed that prairie dogs
compete with cattle for grass - a notion contemporary biologists
are debunking.
On Wyoming's Thunder Basin National Grassland, prairie
dogs thrive along with a host of other wildlife.
Prairie dog shooting is a profitable sport that many
conservationists would like to see banned, or at least controlled,
on public lands.
Wildlife biologist Craig Knowles - the point man for
prairie dog conservation in Montana - doesn't think the animal
needs to be listed as threatened.
Connecticut resident Rebecca Fischer organized Prairie Dog
Rescue to deal with the many prairie dogs adopted as pets on the
East Coast and later unwanted by their owners.
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