State wildlife agencies struggle to broaden funding as their duties expand.
Departments
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Guns are welcome, Idaho poachers, and a popping eyeball.
IDAHO A secretive predator stalks the elk, moose and deer that roam the forests of north Idaho, reports the Spokesman-Review, and according to George Fischer, a state Fish and Game conservation officer, these two-legged, stealthy animals are “probably killing as many (game animals) or more than wolves … that is the shock-and-awe message.” Poachers have […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Timeline: The BLM vs. Cliven Bundy
A detailed history of the conflict, starting in 1953.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The vital diversity of our parks
It’s appropriate that this issue’s cover story on diversity in the national parks opens in Mesa Verde, Colorado. Mesa Verde represents one of the Park Service’s earliest attempts at increasing racial and ethnic diversity, by showcasing and preserving Native American culture. Yet its history also demonstrates the challenges public lands face, both in hiring minorities […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The Latest: Changes afoot for oil and gas “trade secrets”
BackstoryEnergy companies have long enjoyed secrecy when it comes to the chemical makeup of the fluids they inject underground to release oil and gas. In the late 2000s, Western states like Wyoming and Colorado passed rules requiring some public disclosure, but broad exemptions for “trade secrets” remained common (“Frack forward,” HCN, 10/1/10). As hydraulic fracturing […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
A long-submerged town becomes visible
Water recedes under drought conditions and reveals a lost California community.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
A bear named Irene
Grizzlies make a tenuous comeback in Montana’s Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The revolt that wouldn’t die
The latest Sagebrush Rebellion flare-up in Nevada was unusually fierce.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Two-wheel revolution in Gallup
Can a bunch of trails and bikes transform this down-and-out New Mexico town?
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
How we export our water to Asia
A precious resource leaves the West in the form of alfalfa hay.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Video of epic mule deer migration
Mulies on the move in western Wyoming.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Genetic techniques turn up new species – and help conservation
The discovery of a small fish in Montana and Idaho may have big implications.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Shady dealings in the desert
SunlandDon Waters200 pages, hardcover:$25.95.University of Nevada Press, 2013. Sid Dulaney leaves his cheating girlfriend behind in Massachusetts and returns home to Tucson in Sunland, Oregon writer Don Waters’ hilarious first novel. Sid had worked as an itinerant teacher, but finds himself jobless in Tucson, where he spends his time looking after his beloved grandmother, Nana. […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Inconclusive conclusions
Sierra Crane-Murdoch’s thoughtful article on the legacy of the tragic cancer deaths of young children in Fallon, Nev., brought to mind the cancer clusters amid the pesticide-saturated lands in California’s Central Valley (HCN, 3/3/14). The investigations result in the same inconclusive and deeply unsatisfying official conclusions. Suspicions linger for years that information has been withheld, […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
In like a lion, out like a donut
Spring has hit High Country News headquarters in Paonia, Colo.: The trees are blooming and the temperatures rising, the winds are strafing our winter-complacent mucus membranes with Colorado Plateau dust and juniper pollen, and snowpack is raging down the North Fork in a torrent of red water. HCN is undergoing a sort of season change […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Shilling for Big Oil?
In 1993, the mayor of Cordova, Alaska, committed suicide. In his final note, he mentioned Exxon. This tragedy represents the lasting shocks that continue to ripple through many communities still affected by the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill 25 years later. While Krista Langlois’ story was focused on the ecological aspects of the […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The high price of cheap housing and falt-screen TVs
The sad and infuriating article “Fallon’s Deadly Legacy” (HCN, 3/3/14) is staying with me; I did not simply read it and move on to the next interesting article. Of course, there is no way to fully overcome the pain of the death of a child, no words that can be truly comforting. However, those affected […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Mulies on the move
Scientists discover a surprising migration in western Wyoming.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
The Latest: Two energy giants forced to clean up uranium mess
Kerr-McGee and Anadarko to put billions into detoxing.
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Why we risk life and property
Dangerous places in the West are often the most desirable.