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 […]
Idaho grizzly plan shifts into low gear
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!.
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Livestock industry likes lawsuits, too
Dear HCN, Tom Sheridan says “paralysis’ brought about by lawsuits to enforce the Endangered Species Act will result in the fragmentation and subdivision of every grassland valley in the state of Arizona (HCN, 6/8/98). It seems much more likely to me, but I could be wrong, that if enforcement of the Endangered Species Act results […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Climbing bolts are a symptom
Dear HCN, One climbing bolt the size of my finger, left on a rock face, is not the problem. One load of lead pellets, shot over a marsh, is not the problem. The problem is the cumulative debris of climbing bolts (and lead shot), and of over-use which permanently and cumulatively scars the landscape (HCN, […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Reflections on blaming the environmentalists
Dear HCN, Dressed as Grammaw Maudie Miller in 1843, whose brother Nathan is a mountain man, I do a living history story about trailblazers of the Oregon Trail. I tell about mountain men who opened up their 2,000-mile horse and pack-mule caravan routes to wagons by 1840, making possible the great migrations that opened and […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Shoveler wears different hat in Montana
Dear HCN, In reading your Sept. 14 article, “A county in Nevada assaults a river,” I was struck by the similarities occurring here in Montana. The U.S. Forest Service is removing culverts, obliterating roads and dumping tons of sediment into bull trout streams. But in contrast to the Nevada situation, this seems to be “good […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Hunters: Say goodbye to your “macabre sport’
Dear HCN, Once again I am treated to the inane and meretricious propaganda of an “ethical, wildlife-loving hunter” in Ken Wright’s review of David Petersen’s book Elkheart (HCN, 9/28/98). Mr. Petersen expounds the same logically absurd argument that tries to justify recreational hunting not as the macabre sport it is, but as a need for […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Northwest Mining Association’s 104th Annual Meeting
Alaska Sen. Frank Murkowski, R, will be a speaker at the Northwest Mining Association’s 104th Annual Meeting, Nov. 29-Dec. 4, in Spokane, Wash. The “Exploring New Opportunities’ conference offers educational sessions. Call the Northwest Mining Association at 509/624-1158 or e-mail nwma@nwma.org. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Northwest […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Rock Talk
Rock Talk isn’t about music, it’s the Colorado Geological Survey’s new quarterly newsletter. Geared toward the general reader, each free, 12-page issue covers a facet of the rocky world. October’s issue concentrates on avalanches, with a brief history of Colorado’s Avalanche Information Center, practical advice about avalanche hazards in the backcountry, and county-by-county avalanche death […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Yellowstone’s wandering bison
The interagency team developing a plan for managing Yellowstone’s wandering bison (HCN, 9/28/98) is extending the deadline for public comments on its draft environmental impact statement to Nov. 2. For a copy of the draft EIS, or to comment on the plan, write Bison Management Plan EIS Team, National Park Service, Sarah Bransom, DSC-RP, P.O. […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Mine fires up potters
For thousands of years Picuris Pueblo potters have darkened red pottery with hematite and sparkled it with mica. Now, a mine threatens this tradition. Tenfold expansion of a privately owned mica mine near Peûasco, N.M. – not far from the proposed copper mine recently dropped by Summo (HCN, 6/23/98) – would use up the last […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Trading away the West
Historical photographs of ranch life tend to be so full of men that an observer might think no women ever lived on the range. But in 1898, Mabel Souther did more than just live on the Big Red Ranch in northeastern Wyoming – she took pictures that documented the working life there. Perhaps her cowpoke […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
A new look at old pictures
Historical photographs of ranch life tend to be so full of men that an observer might think no women ever lived on the range. But in 1898, Mabel Souther did more than just live on the Big Red Ranch in northeastern Wyoming – she took pictures that documented the working life there. Perhaps her cowpoke […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Look who’s sprawling now
When Marc Heilson saw the Sierra Club’s rankings of the cities most afflicted by suburban sprawl, the Salt Lake City member called the national office and demanded, “How could you do this to us?” reports the Salt Lake Tribune. He was upset because The Dark Side of the American Dream: The Costs and Consequences of […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Guidebook with attitude
After traipsing around Washington state’s wildlands for the past 50 years, Ira Spring and Harvey Manning have put together an eccentric and entertaining guidebook, 100 Classic Hikes in Washington, covering the North Cascades, Olympics, Mount Rainier and South Cascades, Alpine Lakes and Glacier Peak. Unlike other guidebooks, in which environmentalism goes unmentioned, 100 Classic Hikes […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Varmints
Some think of prairie dogs as oversized, furry rats – agricultural pests that compete with cows for forage. Others see them as essential parts of prairie ecosystems. Varmints, a soon-to-be-released documentary from High Plains Films, explores the heated controversy that has mobilized the Sierra Club in defense of the critters, and has spawned the Varmint […]
Posted inOctober 26, 1998: The Oregon way
Next: Grand Teton International?
Passengers who fly into the tiny Jackson Hole, Wyo., airport may not realize it, but they’re landing inside a national park. Airline representatives have argued for years that the Jackson runway should be lengthened for easier access. But Grand Teton National Park officials and environmentalists have steadfastly opposed the idea, saying an expansion would further […]