Items by Todd Wilkinson
A Montanan faces up to the West's own history of racism.
Todd Wilkinson wonders what it would take to get
Westerners to act against the destruction of our
landscape.
Todd Wilkinson wonders what kind of outrage it would take
to stir today’s Westerners to political activism, even civil
disobedience.
Todd Wilkinson celebrates a determined Montana
whistleblower
In her fine new memoir, "Breaking Clean," Judy Blunt
describes how she had to break away from the Western ranching
culture that had defined her whole life in order to find out who
she was.
Canadian activists trying to save Alberta's Castle-Crown
wildlands from rapid oil and gas development are frustrated by
their nation's lack of effective environmental protection
laws.
November's elections may be a political watershed for
Montana, with a possible power shift to moderate yet
progressive-minded Democrats in Congress and the governor's
office.
Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, R, is a popular politician and
a likable man, but environmentalists say his support of shooting
wandering Yellowstone bison shows how weak his environmental record
is.
T.H. Watkins is remembered as "a writer and teacher and
concerned citizen and father and husband and consummate agitator"
whose literature and life revealed a deep love for the
West.
Native Montanan and former dirt-bike lover Shawn Regnerus,
who turned against ORVs when a favorite place was overrun by them,
now is the head of the Roads Scholars Project for the Predator
Conservation Alliance.
The latest struggle over the West's public lands centers
on the Forest Service's huge system of logging roads, which
conservationists want to see closed and obliterated, and
off-road-vehicle users want opened to motorized
recreation.
Wildlife biologists, environmentalists and Western
politicians are engaged in a fierce debate over whether two decades
of protection have so restored Yellowstone's grizzly population
that the animal ought to be removed from the endangered species
list.
Forest Service staffer Joyce Whitney describes the
problems in the agency that have led her to leave for a post with
the BLM.
Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental
Ethics discusses the problems that plague the agency.
Now retired Forest Supervisor Tom Kovalicky, who tried to
restrain the logging on his Nez Perce National Forest, says Mike
Dombeck has to break the logging cycle in the agency.
Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck tries to reform and
revive a troubled agency with a long history of being driven by the
timber industry.
After half of Yellowstone's bison were slaughtered in
Montana last winter over fears of brucellosis disease, the debate
remains unresolved and the killing could easily continue next
year.
While the Yellowstone bison are slaughtered , south of the
park near Grand Teton National Park, cattle have grazed next to
brucellosis-infected bison and elk for 75 years with no
problems.
The federal agency APHIS has broken scientific protocol by
experimenting with a live brucellosis vaccine in bison herds in
national parks and a national wildlife refuge without knowledge and
consent of the Park Service.
The deliberate slaughter of bison straying from
Yellowstone National Park - killed because the brucellosis they may
carry might endanger livestock - provokes a storm of protest, and
calls into question the concept of wildlife management in the
park.
Native frog populations throughout the United States - and
the world - are declining drastically, and no one is quite sure
why.
Utah, which once boasted exceptionally rich populations of
reptiles and amphibians, now does nothing to stop their rapid
disappearance.
Predator Friendly, an unusual alliance of sheep ranchers,
environmentalists and entrepreneurs, markets wool grown by ranchers
who don't kill coyotes.
Controversy erupts over the possible removal of a
subterranean cafeteria in Carlsbad Caverns.
Montana organizes to fight influx of hate
groups.
Montana Human Rights Network and attorney general's office
fight against increasing influence and influx of radical right hate
groups.
The "Gallatin Range Consolidation Act of 1993" land swap
appeases loggers, pleases environmentalists and protects elk,
grizzly and Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
The Montana Legislature weakened environmental controls
with a flurry of bills this year.
Congress will decide whether the protection afforded to Yellowstone National Park's famous geothermal wonders should be extended to features beyond the park boundary.
Montana's largest hunting organization has joined animal-rights activists and conservationists in condemning the state's hunt on bison leaving Yellowstone National Park this winter.
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