Honeybees across the West – and the nation – are dying in huge numbers, and some think a pesticide, methyl parathion, may be the primary killer.
Cowboy Poetry Gathering
The Cowboy Poetry Gathering is back Jan. 25-Feb. 1, to celebrate the ranching traditions of poetry, music, art, dance and “plain old visiting.” The 13th annual shindig in Elko, Nev., pays special tribute to Canadian cowboys, while daytime events range from workshops on ranch-kitchen cooking to multi-day classes on songwriting, saddle-stamping and rawhide-braiding. Evenings feature…
On motorheads and responsible dirt-biking
Dear HCN, I have been riding motorcycles for 27 years, and currently my son and I have six bikes, four of them dirt bikes. Recently, Clark Collins of the Blue Ribbon Coalition was kind enough to send me a sample copy of his group’s magazine. The coalition’s aims, such as promoting responsible use of public…
Rivers Festival
Sometimes all it takes is a fish and you’ve got a festival. California salmon and how to save them is the focus of the 17th annual Rivers Festival Feb. 7 to 9 at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. Keynote speeches by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., writer and environmentalist Tim Palmer, and Cadillac Desert…
Noise always wins
Dear HCN: I read Elizabeth Manning’s “Motorheads’ story (HCN, 12/9/96) with fatalistic mirth: I figure if people won’t let me enjoy the outdoors quietly, I might as well make some noise. It seems we live in a society driven by those who take up the most space and make the biggest mess. All the while…
Volunteer student interns
The Colorado State Senate seeks volunteer student interns for its regular session Jan. 8 through May 7, 1997. Each intern will be assigned to a senator to answer phones and mail, do research and attend some committee meetings. For more information contact Mary Marchun at 303/866-3065. This article appeared in the print edition of the…
Learn a lesson from ORV’ers
Dear HCN, ORV groups (HCN, 12/9/96) succeed mainly because they are funded by an industry that profits from increased ORV use, and because they have a one-issue focus of striving to keep and increase access to public lands. There are no one-issue groups focused on fighting them. Environmental groups all have other battles to fight.…
Santa Fe’s Forest Trust
What makes a forest product from the Southwest socially and ecologically responsible? That’s what directors of Santa Fe’s Forest Trust will try to determine at six public meetings Jan. 18 to Feb. 16 in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The eventual goal is the creation of a voluntary “green label,” to help consumers make…
Wildlife initiative may have hidden wheels
Dear HCN, Jon Margolis’ article on the Teaming with Wildlife initiative (HCN, 12/23/96) was ironic, coming as it did on the heels of the previous issue on the increasing political power that motorized vehicle users have developed in the West. As Margolis points out, this seems to be a benign plan, only opposed by “left-of-center”…
National Mining Conference and Exhibition
The 100th National Mining Conference and Exhibition will be held at Denver’s Hyatt Regency Hotel Feb. 2-5. Call Nina Marrone of the Colorado Mining Association at 303/894-0536. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline National Mining Conference and Exhibition.
Partnerships are already improving public lands
Dear HCN, While we take no exception with the New Mexico State Land Department in awarding the lease for several tracts of state-owned lands to the Forest Guardians and Southwest Environmental Center (in compliance with state law), we are concerned by some of the statements made by John Horning (HCN, 11/25/96). Mr. Horning characterizes the…
Environmental group responds
Dear HCN, Local environmental groups aren’t very well organized and the Idaho Conservation League is an example of this, said Greg Brothers in a letter to you Dec. 23. The same day High Country News arrived in our mailboxes, our office manager called Mr. Brothers to find out what had happened. No one in our…
Bison deaths spur lawsuit
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Mont. – As temperatures dip to 30 below, park rangers are rounding up and shipping to slaughter all bison that approach private land on the park’s northern border. It’s the start of a new management plan that has generated controversy and a lawsuit. “It’s a sad day when it comes to this…
Hunters get standing
Hunters in Colorado recently won a legal victory in a dispute over expanding a state prison. The hunters and their environmental allies challenged Colorado’s use of state park land in Rifle for the prison, charging that money collected from fishermen and hunters through taxes on guns and other equipment had purchased the land. The federal…
Money can’t buy a full season
Even though higher entrance fees in Yellowstone National Park are expected to raise roughly $7 million over the next three years, more money won’t guarantee that the park will stay open for its traditional season. That’s because Park Service officials in Washington determined that maintenance for deteriorating roads and buildings should be top priority for…
They’re still talking about A-LP
With four meetings down and who knows how many more to come, talks on Animas-La Plata, the $714 million dam and irrigation project proposed near Durango, Colo., continued this winter (HCN, 11/11/96). Ten options remain on the table – down from 70 – and some involve downsizing the project. Others propose alternatives to bring water…
Mostly you need faith
Grassroots Grants: An Activist’s Guide to Proposal Writing belies its title by first listing all the reasons why nonprofits should not chase grants. That’s because only 12 percent of nonprofit funding comes from foundation or corporate grants, compared to 88 percent from individuals, writes Andy Robinson, who lives in Tucson, Ariz. To make matters worse,…
Dombeck takes on a new agency
Michael Dombeck spent his first hour as the new chief of the U.S. Forest Service greeting agency employees in Washington, D.C., as they headed to work. For some who had never glimpsed former Chief Jack Ward Thomas, it was a comforting gesture. But it also became clear that old guard members of the agency should…
Andy Robinson’s tips for activists
Pick your fights. It pains me to say this, but you must develop an aversion to lost causes. If you can’t see your way to victory – even if that victory won’t occur for years or decades – pick another fight. To maintain your sanity and stamina, focus your energy where it will do the…
Silence wins in Colorado
Those who felt that the new rules governing flights over the Grand Canyon were too lenient now have something to cheer: On Jan. 3, the Federal Aviation Adminstration issued a separate rule banning all commercial flights over Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. “This is fabulous news to bring in the New Year,” said Colorado Rep.…
El Lobo to return
Once considered as endangered as the species itself, the proposal to restore Mexican gray wolves to the Southwest now appears to be back on track. After the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service released its final environmental analysis on the reintroduction of “el lobo” Dec. 27, biologists moved 10 of 149 captive Mexican wolves to New…
Western raptors on the rise
Some birds of prey in the West are fighting back. The Salt Lake City-based group, HawkWatch International, recently compiled up to 18 years’ of data on the birds collected from sites in Nevada, Utah and New Mexico and found a fast rate of growth among merlins, ospreys and peregrine falcons. The average annual population increase…
Grand Canyon rafting fees inflate
For many rafters, it doesn’t get any better than a float trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Would-be boaters often spend as long as 10 years waiting for one of 200 private launch dates granted each year. A new fee increase at Grand Canyon National Park may give them second thoughts: an…
Bees under siege
The West’s unsung pollen ranchers struggle against mites, economics and an old killer from the sky
It will be noise as usual in Grand Canyon
You would never know it from the glowing news reports, but the Federal Aviation Administration has scuttled most of its plans for restricting aircraft overflights in Grand Canyon National Park. Three of the four new “flight-free zones’ the agency proposed in July (HCN, 9/16/96) have been effectively deleted in new rules released Dec. 31. Marble…
Natives emerge from the shadows
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. TUBAC, Ariz. – Gary Nabhan squats down in the field of crooked-neck squash, reaches inside a large orange blossom and exclaims, “I got one.” “Don’t worry; this guy can’t sting,” Nabhan says, holding a tiny bee between his fingers. That’s because it’s not a…
Leonard Felix
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Leonard Felix has been spraying chemicals on crops for 27 years. When he isn’t spraying Olathe’s famous sweet corn in western Colorado, he may be flying over a national forest dropping native seeds on a recent burn. Leonard Felix: “We work with beekeepers when…
Horses, bikes push into petroglyph park
On a windswept mesa west of Albuquerque, N.M., bicyclists and horses soon may be pounding the turf where Indians say the spirits of the dead like to travel. The National Park Service is about to approve a new management plan that calls for the development of 11 to 16 miles of trails in the 7,000-acre…
Miles County
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Miles County lives near the town of Brush in northeastern Colorado. Last winter, he lost most of his bees and he suspects the cause was the insecticide Penncap-M. Miles County: “I think farmers started getting lazy in the 1950s and 1960s. There were so…
Dear friends
Join us in Socorro Do High Country News readers have as good taste in food as in newspapers? Come join us at the year’s first HCN potluck in Socorro, N.M., on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 6:30 p.m. to find out. Potlucks are held following meetings of the HCN board. This potluck will be at the…
When dead bees don’t make a case
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. If most beekeepers are the proverbial shy and retiring types, Tom Theobald isn’t one of them. From his beeyards in Niwot, just northeast of Boulder, Colo., he has pushed state and federal officials hard to address bee kills he believes have been caused by…
Heard around the West
Does everyone become slightly unhinged when one year lurches into another? We detect a certain recklessness in late 1996-early 1997 news reports. Some stories feature surliness and hostility, while others reveal a plucky determination to survive anything – even a flood in the middle of winter. We begin with the better news, although it features…
This year, Congress slunk into Washington
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Even without the small complication bestriding the opening of the 105th Congress, the difference between it and its predecessor could be discerned by a quick look at the schedules. Two years ago, the ebullient Republican majority of the House of Representatives came to town with revolutionary zeal, determined to remake the government,…
The West awakes to ‘weird’ weather
Christmas brought some of the strangest weather Westerners can remember. First came snow and ice in Idaho so heavy that power poles snapped like twigs and a gymnasium roof collapsed. Then the “pineapple express’ arrived, a blast of warm air from Hawaii that sent temperatures soaring into the 70s. That sent melting snow crashing into…