When families in Albuquerque want to get away from it all, they need only look east, to the Sandia Mountains, where foothills begin just beyond the city limits. So residents and elected officials were shocked when a federal judge issued a ruling in July that was widely interpreted as handing over much of the western […]
Who controls the Sandias?
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Poacher gets trapped
When the authorities cracked an extensive Utah cougar-poaching ring this fall, they got help from an unlikely source: the poachers themselves. The hunters, unaware that their guide didn’t have the proper permits, documented their illegal hunts in photographs, videotapes and boastful magazine articles. In mid-September, Colorado hunting guide Samuel Sickels pleaded guilty to wanton destruction […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
The Wayward West
Chalk one up for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe in northern Idaho. U.S. District Court Judge Edward Lodge rejected the state’s attempt to stop the tribe from taking control of the southern third of Lake Coeur d’Alene and part of the St. Joe River, reports the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman Review. The decision came on the eve […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A parade becomes a memorial after a murder
Laramie, Wyoming, wrestles with the hate in its midst when a gay student is beaten to death.
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Heard around the West
Western signs continue to puzzle people. Wandering around California’s Death Valley recently, Mark V. Sheehan of Olympia, Wash., came across one for “Death Valley Health Center,” which seemed to cast doubt on their services. And Jeffrey Dickemann, who lives in Richmond, Calif., says he couldn’t figure out what the “it” meant in a huge sign […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Arson isn’t the only crime on Vail Mountain
Fires set atop Colorado’s Vail Mountain have unleashed a storm of condemnation, a media feeding frenzy, and a no-holds-barred federal investigation. But the powerful public outrage provoked by the arson has obscured more important events occurring on the backside of Vail Mountain. To my way of thinking, there was just as much to be outraged […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A Montana writer’s real-life tales of bears and terror
Joe Heimer had the sow grizzly’s upper lip clenched in his fist, shoving and squeezing as hard as he could. The bear had knocked him flat on his back in the deep, sticky snow, and she was standing on his mauled legs, trying to shake his hand loose and sink her jagged teeth into his […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Gutsy scientists stand up to bureaucratic juggernaut
Science Under Siege: The Politicians’ War on Nature and Truth By Todd Wilkinson, Johnson Books, Boulder, Colo., 1998. Paperback, $18. 364 pages. The struggle to protect the American landscape is often portrayed as a boxing match between powerful corporations and gritty environmentalists. That simplistic picture leaves out a less-heralded yet equally critical player: the federal […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Vail fires outrage community
VAIL, Colo. – Vail Resorts has never enjoyed so much support. The early-morning fires that destroyed cafeterias and other ski facilities atop Vail Mountain, causing $12 million in damage, have transformed the nation’s largest ski area into a victim. The Earth Liberation Front – Internet sites identify it as a splinter group of Earth First! […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Even in the remote West, growth happens
STEHEKIN, Wash. – Tucked into a narrow mountain valley on the shore of Lake Chelan is a village so small it barely qualifies for the state map. A single phone serves its 70 residents, no roads lead here and only a ferry links Stehekin with the nearest grocery store in the small city of Chelan, […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Defensive GOP cleans up its budget act
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Look no further, ye seekers of political truth, who wish to know why the Republicans surrendered 30 or so riders to the appropriations bill – riders that authorized their friends to chop down more trees, graze more cattle and build more roads and airports on public land throughout the West. The answer […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
A quiet victory in Quincy
QUINCY, Calif. – The day after President Clinton signed the Quincy Library Group’s forest management plan into law on Oct. 22, members of the grassroots coalition celebrated with a sparkling cider toast. That was it. No Main Street parade. No victory banner across the Plumas County Courthouse. After five years of planning, plotting and politicking […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Deaths drive change at Lake Mead
BOULDER CITY, Nev. – Lake Mead has never pretended to be anything but a watersports playground for the masses. Recreational pursuits that would make visitors outlaws at most areas managed by the National Park Service get a warm reception at Lake Mead. This summer, the lake hosted a hydroplane boat race, a bass-fishing tournament and […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Wise words from a veteran activist
National Audubon Society activist and HCN subscriber Hazel Wolf stole the show at the Great Old Broads for Wilderness conference in Escalante, Utah, last month. Just a few months past her 100th birthday, Wolf traveled from Seattle to give a campfire talk about the great women in her life. “When I was 5, I asked […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Dear Friends
Heading for the highway High Country News has adopted a three-mile stretch of state Highway 133 just outside of Paonia, and on Saturday morning, Nov. 21, volunteers from staff plan to pound the shoulders, picking up debris. A Sept. 23 story in the Salt Lake Tribune gave some of us pause, however. It was headlined: […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Idaho grizzly plan shifts into low gear
Note: this story appeared in the print edition as a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Three years ago, Tom France and Hank Fischer were on a roll. The two veteran conservationists from Missoula, Mont., had successfully completed negotiations with timber and labor leaders to bring back grizzly bears to the Selway-Bitterroot country that straddles […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Bare facts
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. * An adult male grizzly can stand eight feet tall, weigh up to 1,000 pounds and run as fast as a racehorse – 35 miles per hour – uphill or downhill. Females are just as fast as males, but may be half their size. […]
Posted inNovember 9, 1998: Grizzly war
Grizzly war
Scientists, activists and politicians clash over taking away the great bruin’s federal protection
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
No scourge here
Dear HCN, It appears that there is some misunderstanding between Evan Cantor and myself concerning the status of Euphorbia myrsinites (donkeytail spurge). Cantor originally (-It rhymes with scourge’) claimed that the plant was a “fast-moving, aggressive invader” that was taking over “prairie and foothill meadows’ and that the plant will “soon be everywhere” (HCN, 6/22/98). […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Yikes!
Dear HCN, Let me see if I have this right: Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young is concerned that some public employees may be “leaking” information about public lands (HCN, 9/14/98) to members of the public? Yikes! Wally Elton Springfield, Vermont This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Yikes!.