High Country News May 22, 2000
Feature
Save Our Sagebrush
In the wake of the huge fires that swept across the Great Basin in August 1999, the BLM is seeking ways to restore the sagebrush landscape and to control the fire-prone cheatgrass that now infests it.
The weedy future of the Great Basin
The fire-loving weed cheatgrass is taking over the Great Basin's overgrazed sagebrush steppes, and BLM scientists are struggling to find a way to eradicate the non-native weeds and restore the land before it all goes up in flames.
Dear Friends
Dear Friends
"Errare humanum est"; summer interns Kayley Mendenhall and Katie Oppenheimer; fourth grade visits HCN; Craig Child's reading; William Hornby gets award.
Uncommon Westerners
He's worried about weeds
A profile of Forest Service botanist Steve Monsen describes his battle with squarrose knapweed, which is infesting the western part of Utah, where Monsen has spent his life.
News
Service says dams should stay put
The National Marine Fisheries Service wants to table for five to 10 years any serious debate on breaching four dams in the Snake River to save salmon.
Activist calls for cease-fire on wolves
Some wolf advocates are furious over the recent killing of five livestock-attacking wolves in the White Cloud Mountains of Idaho.
The burbs target cougars
As Seattle's suburbs encroach on wildlife habitat, residents alarmed by increasing mountain lion-human encounters have pressured the Legislature into passing a law allowing the public to hunt cougars with dogs.
The Wayward West
Craters of the Moon expanded in Idaho; Colo. gold-mining company sues Montana over anti-cyanide heap-leaching law; EPA's Bill Yellowtail suspended during investigation; Allan Elias gets 17 years for exposing employee to cyanide; not that many cows in NV.
Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell
As increasing numbers of recreationists discover Utah's San Rafael Swell, the BLM struggles to manage the area and environmentalists, ORVers and politicians wrangle over the best way to preserve - or exploit - the land.
Another compromise plan falls flat
In Utah, a huge swap of state and federal lands in the western part of the state falls through when environmentalists and anti-wilderness locals object.
Lawmaker accepts Babbitt's challenge
In Colorado, Rep. Scott McInnis has proposed a bill to make the 130,000-acre Black Ridge Canyon a national conservation area, with 72,000 acres designated wilderness.
Hikers stumble into an old dispute
A plan to extend the Continental Divide Trail through northern New Mexico's Rio Arriba County meets opposition from Hispanic locals, who claim the land under old Spanish land grants and say that until their land is returned, no trail will go through.
Essays
'Los Alamos is burning'
The prescribed burn in Bandelier National Monument that roared out of control into Los Alamos, N.M., can be blamed on logging restrictions, the writer argues.
Yelling fire in a crowded West
Only consensus between environmentalists and loggers and careful, sustainable forestry can protect the West from the kind of fires that ravaged Los Alamos, N.M., the writer believes.
Heard Around the West
Heard around the West
Steamboat Geyser erupts in Yellowstone; behind scenes at Miss USA pageant; killer bees in AZ; backcountry skier gets to safety with perseverance; subsidized smoking on reservations; geckos released to control roaches in Golden Gate State Park, Calif.
Letters
Dam unites environmental opposition
Some predators have clout
'Militia woman' is fighting for her rights
Dump cows - for what?
Carless in Denali
How we banned Compound 1080
Related Stories
Are cows the ultimate weed seeders?
Ecologist Joy Belski believes that cattle are the prime culprit behind the rapid spread of weeds in the Great Basin.
A few facts about weeds
Some facts and statistics about the spread of weeds in the West.
