Tenacious animals like crows and coyotes have made a home
for themselves in the suburbs – and even downtown areas – of places
like Seattle and Phoenix. Can we make cities friendlier for
less-adaptable species?
Also in this
issue: Hunters turn out in record numbers as Colorado
tries to figure out just how serious the chronic wasting disease
outbreak is.
California isn’t profligate!
Dear HCN, Allow me to correct some statements made by Susan Zakin in her article about the central California river delta (HCN, 9/3/02: Delta Blues). California is said to employ “profligate use of water.” According to the Los Angeles Times, Southern Californians consume considerably less water, per capita, than people in nearby states (and a…
Nuclear dump may be supersized
NEVADA It will be at least 8 years before a nuclear dump opens in Yucca Mountain, but every inch of space in it has already been claimed. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that new estimates released by the Department of Energy show that, once the existing commercial nuclear waste is moved into Yucca Mountain, there…
Judges rule gas leases are illegal
The Bush administration’s rush to develop hundreds of thousands of coalbed methane wells in five Western states hit a roadblock Oct. 15. Two judges on the Department of Interior Board of Land Appeals ruled that the federal Bureau of Land Management has illegally leased methane rights without evaluating impacts. The BLM’s method of granting leases…
Yellowstone goes retro
Yellowstone is not only our first national park; in 1922, it was also the nation’s second-largest bus company (right behind Greyhound), operating a fleet of 400 yellow convertible buses for visitors who traveled to the park by rail. But by the 1960s, as automobiles became the preferred transportation to the park, the yellow buses were…
Revisiting Alcatraz
In November 1969, a small group of Native American students and “urban Indians” landed on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay and occupied the former prison for more than 19 months. The “invasion” was a protest of the U.S. government’s Indian policies and programs, and some say it kicked off the fiery “Red Power” movement…
Does dam breaching make cents?
For years, the Hells Canyon dams in Idaho have been the subject of intense debate: Should we breach them and restore the Snake River, or keep the dams and save the local economy? Now, two reports have come out, representing both sides of the issue. After more than 10 years of research, Idaho Power, which…
A rez-to-rez film debut
Chris Eyre, director of Smoke Signals, just finished a one-of-a-kind movie premier for his new film, Skins: For four weeks, Eyre brought Skins to Native American reservations across the country in a mobile cinema trailer, outfitted with 100 seats, surround sound and a concession stand. Based on a novel by Native American writer and poet…
An activist who never let up
Norma Smith’s biography, Jeannette Rankin: America’s Conscience, records the inspiring courage, integrity and optimism of the first woman elected to Congress, dramatically recounting Rankin’s struggles and successes as an activist. Smith, a personal friend of Rankin, writes that as a congresswoman, Rankin’s interests shifted from suffrage to pacifism. She often said, “The first vote of…
Martin’s Cove essay was distorted
Dear HCN, I am writing this letter to let you know how disappointed I was to read the article, “This land holds a story the church won’t tell” (HCN, 9/30/02: This land holds a story the church won’t tell). I might expect such a poorly written article to be found in a scam paper, such…
Cove should stay with BLM
Dear HCN, I am writing to express the Public Lands Foundation’s (PLF) opposition to the transfer of 1,640 acres of public land to the LDS Church (HCN, 9/30/02). The Public Lands Foundation is a nonprofit national conservation organization whose members are from the general public and retired BLM employees, all who are interested in the…
The Latest Bounce
Taking its duty to expedite energy exploration on public lands very seriously, the Bureau of Land Management has given a hearty thumbs-up to a plan for seismic exploration for natural gas in Uintah County, Utah. In early October, the agency issued a “finding of no significant impact” for the tests, which would spread across more…
Mayor, not minnow, is to blame
Dear HCN, Following the lead of our Illustrious and Infallible Leader, Emperor Bush the Second, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez has declared war on the endangered silvery minnow. Chavez has promised to appeal the decision of Judge James Parker, Chief Justice of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court (HCN, 10/14/02: Albuquerque is dragged into Rio Grande fight).…
More stories to tell at Martin’s Cove
Dear HCN, I think you missed the point when you spoke of only one side of the Martin’s Cove story being told on a Mormon-owned site (HCN, 9/30/02: This land holds a story the church won’t tell). The issue of a “holier-than-thou” attitude that led to movement from New York to Ohio to Missouri to…
Forests could lose environmental review
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Bush undermines bedrock environmental law.” While the Bush administration has focused its efforts to “streamline” environmental reviews on energy and transportation projects, the next big showdown will take place in the national forests. Tweaking the National Environmental…
Jet Ski riders circle the wagons
Starting Nov. 6, watercraft will be banned from Lake Powell
Heard Around the West
Judy Powell says she didn’t think twice about walking onto the plane at Los Angeles International Airport with a doll that she’d bought in Las Vegas for her grandson. Toenail clippers may get taken away and destroyed, she assumed, but never a child’s toy some 12 inches high. Wrong assumption. The doll was GI Joe,…
Bush’s war on terrorism comes West
A small Montana town could become a center for bioterrorism research
Small-town determination at 25 percent off
POWELL, Wyo. – To people just passing through this town of 5,500 people, the department store on the main street, near the post office and True Value Hardware, must seem painfully ordinary. Inside, customers browse displays of clothing, shoes and jewelry, picking out what they want to buy. But there’s a lot more to Powell…
Shadow creatures
SEATTLE, Wash. – It doesn’t seem too difficult to trap a crow. Especially if you’re armed with a remote-controlled, rifle-powered, 25-foot-square net and a heap of stale white bread. Especially if you’ve seen the crow in question almost every day for the past six years. Especially if it lives just a couple of wingflaps from…
Asking hard questions
The cool, crystal-blue autumn days have brought a flurry of visitors to High Country News headquarters. Most recently, a posse from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., stopped by, midway through a new environmental studies field program. The “Whitman College Semester in the West” is the brainchild of professor Phil Brick, who won a Mellon…
Rural residents bring fierce friends
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Even beyond the suburbs, crows dog their human benefactors. In the old-growth forests of the Olympic Peninsula, just across the Puget Sound from Seattle, University of Washington graduate student Erik Neatherlin has found that crows are taking full advantage of the leftovers at crowded…
Farewell, Blazin’ Ben
On July 11, 1932, “Blazin’ Ben” Eastman appeared on the cover of Time. A few weeks later, the holder of eight world track records (a medley of quarter- and half-mile distances) got more publicity when he won a silver Olympic medal in the 400-meter event at Los Angeles. He got a bit more publicity when…
The message of 30,000 dead salmon
Call me a radical, but I think fish need water. I’d hazard a guess that most Americans would agree, since it’s just plain common sense. But when it comes to the over-promised waters of the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon and Northern California, common sense often seems to fly out the window. As a scientist,…
Popular historian passes on
Historian Stephen Ambrose died Oct. 13 at age 66. Although Ambrose was best-known for his popular histories of World War II, he also wrote about the West. Undaunted Courage, the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and Nothing Like it in the World, about the building of the transcontinental railroad, were both national best-sellers.…
Deer, elk disease doesn’t scare hunters
Tests show chronic wasting disease is more widespread than once thought
Bush undermines bedrock environmental law
After 33 years, the National Environmental Policy Act may be ‘streamlined’
Bishop Love: Based on a true story
Greetings, HCN, Readers of Scott Bridges’s letter (HCN, 9/30/02: This land holds a story the church won’t tell) may be interested in knowing that Ed Abbey most likely artistically pilfered and altered Bishop Love’s carnotite-eating from a true red, white and blue American specimen of idiotic boosterism. In 1984, Edgemont, S.D., former Mayor Matt Brown…