I enjoyed the article “Beetle Warfare” ( HCN, 11/26/07). However, I disagree with Ruth Hufbauer of Colorado State University when she says, “So we have to hope that today, we have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on, and that we’re not making mistakes that 50 years from now, we’ll look back on and […]
Departments
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
Two weeks in the West
When it comes time to court the ladies, male greater sage grouse puff up their chests, displaying bright yellow air sacs, and fan their tail feathers like a peacock. But former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior Julie MacDonald apparently had no taste for crazy mating rituals or, for that matter, wildlife in general. She did […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
Personal freedom, personal responsibility
Our communities have successfully developed smart solutions to avoid foreseeable nightmares from sprawl, traffic and other infrastructure limitations (HCN, 11/26/07). Across the West, new affronts to a legacy of urban planning are now emerging in response to these successes. Arizona’s “wildcat” subdivisions are one remarkable example, and last year’s so-called “takings” initiatives another. Thanks in […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
A river sacrificed
In Washington, helping one fish has meant harming another
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
Last chance for the Lobo
Mexican wolves caught in the crossfire of the battle over public lands.
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
The troubled times of the Mexican wolf
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Last chance for the Lobo.” PRE-1970 Mexican wolves extirpated from the Southwestern U.S. by private, state and government control campaigns. 1970s 1976 Mexican wolf listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. 1977-1980 Five wolves captured in Mexico to establish a captive breeding program. […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
Heard Around the West
NEVADA Five years ago, Douglas Hoffman and his wife, Debbie, bought a house in an upscale retirement community outside of Las Vegas. The spectacular neon lights of the Strip at night were what passed for a view, and the just-planted trees were small. But as Sun City Anthem in Henderson grew to 7,000 homes, the […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2007: Last chance for the Lobo
Dear friends
DECKING OUR HALLS AND TAKING A BREAK Dozens of friends attended our open house on Dec. 12; thanks to all of you who came by. For the last two weeks of December, we won’t be putting out a news magazine; instead, we’ll be catching up around the office and enjoying a bit of holiday cheer. […]
Posted inNovember 12, 2007: L.A. Bets on the Farm
Don’t give up on us
My subscription had run out on HCN and several other magazines and I found myself drowning in periodicals. I have always been a huge supporter of HCN, but for the last year or so, I was less and less impressed with the journalism. There were fewer and fewer articles about environmental issues, and lower-grade reporting […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
The Sagebrush Rebels ride again — and again
A decade ago, I caught a scene in one of the West’s longest-running political melodramas: The Sagebrush Rebels Ride Again. I was in a dingy hotel room in Denver, surfing the television for something worthwhile to watch, when I stumbled upon C-SPAN. There was my congressman, Republican Scott McInnis, standing on the floor of the […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
The hidden history of a sneeze
In 1966, a severely asthmatic child named Gregg Mitman was one of an estimated 12.6 million allergy sufferers in the United States. Today, allergic asthma and hay fever affect more than 50 million Americans – roughly 20 percent of the population. In Breathing Space, Mitman, now a medical historian, traces the causes and effects of […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
A snake in the grass
In Zero at the Bone, Tucson writing instructor Erec Toso describes how his brush with death reveals the poison in our daily lives – complacency. Summer rains wash over the desert; life stirs, and snakes wait for prey. When vacation ends, Toso dreads returning to work at the University of Arizona – the traffic, the […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Burned again
Decades of fire suppression had nothing to do with Southern California’s wildland fires this past October. I am extremely disappointed that you would ignore the past 20 years of scientific research and instead repeat the same old tired assumptions about wildfires “in general” as being driven by “unnatural” fuel loads and apply them to California […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
‘An unwinnable fight to save clueless people’
Christine Hoekenga writes that Neal Hitchcock says that the Forest Service has to “borrow money from other programs to cover emergency costs” (HCN, 11/12/07). That’s not actually true. The 45 percent of budgeted fire suppression and any “budget overruns” are, if you will, stolen from other programs. They do not get repaid, thus starving the […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
A water racket
Missing from Matt Jenkins’ article about Metropolitan Water District’s “kinder, gentler” approach to acquiring agricultural water is the fact that irrigation districts are profiting by reselling water they got for next to nothing from federal taxpayers (HCN, 11/12/07). An Environmental Working Group investigation found that in 2002 – the same year Jenkins reports that the […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Two weeks in the West
A few days before Thanksgiving, about five dozen employees of Vail Resorts were hard at work. The Colorado ski resort had staffed up for a mid-November opening, but these workers weren’t running ski lifts or grooming the slopes. Instead, they were picking up trash; the snow had not arrived, the opening was delayed and they […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Quest for darkness
“Your life can be changed by a firsthand connection with the night sky.”
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Toxic legacy
A Cold War-era landfill may threaten Albuquerque’s aquifer
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Jim Detterline to the rescue
NAME Jim Detterline OCCUPATION Rocky Mountain National Park ranger NUMBER OF TIMES STRUCK BY LIGHTNING Three MOST TURTLES EVER OWNED AT ONE TIME 80 (When Detterline was a kid) DEGREES Master’s in vertebrate zoology, Ph.D. in invertebrate zoology HOBBIES Plays the trumpet Jim Detterline is a man of average size, lean, but not small. Still, […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Rebels with a lost cause
A movement of property-rights lawyers emerged from the sagebrush in the 1970s to fight a wave of environmental regulations. They are still fighting in courtrooms across the West, but their role remains ambiguous.