Three federal agents involved in a celebrated tangle with an Idaho rancher were packing more than pistols when they investigated the case of a shot wolf on private land. They also had a tape recorder. The tape reveals a dramatically different picture of the agents from the thug-like characters lambasted by Idaho lawmakers in the […]
Feature
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
The West’s fisheries spin out of control
It’s gotten to the point that even car dealers sell trout fishing. Their customers tool around the Rockies in four-wheel-drives named after a famous flyrod – the Jeep Cherokee special Orvis edition. Sticker price $33,000. All the fishing shops, from Bozeman to Taos, offer the latest gear: microporous miracle waders whose fibers somehow breathe underwater, […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
TORREY, Utah – J.W. Powell had returned from an extended summer vacation of camping, backpacking and whitewater boating. He found every outdoor-lover’s dream: beautiful, untouched backcountry and not another tourist on the trail. Best of all, this place was a secret, not even shown on the maps. So Powell did what many avid hikers are […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
HCN’s founder fights his last fight, yet again
“This is my last big fight,” says Tom Bell. The founder of High Country News, spare and energetic at 71, hasn’t lost the fiery voice that boomed out of the little town of Lander, Wyo., in the early 1970s. During four years of running HCN, Bell took on not just ranchers for shooting eagles and […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Fighting fires, and indignities
“Them sons-of-bitches was Mennonites who wouldn’t fight in the last war … Them sons-of-bitches took them shovels and saws and Pulaskis and put a hump in their backs and never straightened up until morning when they had a fire-line around the whole damn fire. Them sons-of-bitches was the world’s champion firefighters.” – Retired smokejumper […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
Making a mountain into a starbase
The long, bitter battle over Mount Graham
Posted inJune 26, 1995: Colorado's prison slayer
Colorado’s prison slayer
One man’s quest to unshackle a rural economy
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
The Southwest’s last real river: Will it flow on?
SAN PEDRO RIVER RIPARIAN NATIONAL CONSERVATION AREA, Ariz. – For 40 miles after flowing across the Mexican border into Arizona, the San Pedro River looks like a strip of rain forest marooned in the desert. Announced by its bright green cottonwood and willow trees, the river winds northward from headwaters in the Sierra Madre through […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Interior wants to kill a success
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. Ask a rancher in the West which he’d rather see traveling down the dusty road to his spread, a rattlesnake or a biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the rancher might just choose the snake. Many Montana […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Five states squirm as bull trout declines
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. What’s spotted, lives in pristine habitat on national forests and could put some loggers out of work if protected under the Endangered Species Act? No, it’s not that feathered denizen of the ancient forests, the northern spotted owl. It’s a […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. VANCOUVER, Wash. – Environmentalists chanted, “Habitat, habitat, have to have the habitat.” Some carried stuffed animals and paper fish. A straggly line of loggers dressed in prison garb marched past them, wearing buttons proclaiming “Property Rights ESA Hostage.” Inside the […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
A tough law meets tough foes
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. In his classic 1940s essay, “Round River,” Aldo Leopold made the case for conserving biological diversity: “saving all the parts’ of the natural world. “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering,” Leopold wrote. That […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
A full-court press to save ecosystems
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. Boulder, Colo. – Jasper Carlton, head of the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, sits at a table in his suburban townhome, intently sketching a map of the Selkirk ecosystem in northern Idaho. “I spent time in those mountains for weeks on end […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Soft-path approach to saving species
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. “Hank Fischer: least popular man in Montana,” shouts a 1978 headline in High Country News. The Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife earned that label by fighting the federal Animal Damage Control and its use of compound 1080 to […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Starting a war at Ohio State
An untenured academic challenged his colleagues, farmers and students to think deeply about the land-grant mission
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
An in-your-face range scientist
Note: this feature article is one of several in this special issue on the West’s land grant universities. LAS CRUCES, N.M. – In the wake of a drought that left the Southwestern range parched and degraded, scientists at New Mexico State University are busy: They’re figuring out which cattle breeds do the best in the […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Land grants under the microscope
Scrutinized from all sides, they defend their turf and look for new ideas
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Trying to save two of the parts
Utah State University’s Lyle McNeal has spent 20 years reviving Churro sheep and Navajo agriculture
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
The gospel according to Wes Jackson
He believes we can grow food without chemicals, plows or erosion