The Canada lynx has gotten its due. After years of
resisting, on Feb. 12 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed,
under pressure from conservation groups and an order from a federal
judge, to list the lynx as a protected species in the lower 48
states (HCN, 11/24/97). Conser-vationists have long argued that
logging and road building threaten the forest habitat of the lynx,
whose population has almost disappeared south of the Canadian
border.
In Arizona, the Hopi Indian tribe
installed Wayne Taylor Jr. as its new chairman in a day-long
inauguration ceremony Feb. 5. Taylor, who replaced Chairman Ferrell
Sekakuku, praised the 1996 lease settlement of the century-old
Navajo-Hopi land conflict (HCN, 3/31/97), an agreement some Navajos
continue to protest. Taylor called the dispute one of the
“costliest disputes in tribal history.”
John
Mumma will stay as head of the Colorado Division of Wildlife after
all. Mumma, director since 1995, announced in January that he was
“worn out” and would leave at the end of his contract in July. But
he says messages of support from Wildlife Commission members,
agency officials and constituents changed his mind. Says Mumma, “I
feel like a long distance runner who has caught his second wind.”
Yellowstone National Park’s top law enforcement
officer, Dan Sholly, has been demoted and reassigned to the same
job at Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve. The Park Service
cites misconduct allegations filed in September, but won’t give
specifics. Sholly, who has been Yellowstone’s chief ranger since
1985, has appealed the transfer. He also won’t discuss details, but
told the Associated Press, “My name will be cleared.”
More bad news for the proposed landfill near
Southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park (HCN, 9/29/97): On
Feb. 18, San Diego Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell rejected
the Riverside County Board of Supervisors’ environmental impact
report on the project, citing impacts to the park and the
threatened desert tortoise. The county and the Mine Reclamation
Company, which would build the landfill, have not yet decided to
appeal.
It’s final. Cows are banished from five
tributary canyons of Comb Wash in southern Utah. The Interior
Department’s appeals board has upheld a 1993 Interior
administrative judge’s ruling that the Bureau of Land Management
ban cows from the canyons, which are part of a Ute Mountain Ute
Tribe grazing allotment (HCN, 1/24/94). Scott Groene of the
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance called the ruling “a slam dunk.”
* Peter
Chilson
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The Wayward West.
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