Bears are so smart. In Mammoth Lakes, Calif., nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, some 30 black bears have chosen to become New Westerners by denning underneath hotels, restaurants and homes. They’ve become so used to gourmet food, snug basements and the amenity of a no-hunting ordinance that the animals are now familiar figures in […]
Heard around the West
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
The latest 1,000-pound gorilla
WASHINGTON, D.C. – “Good evening, sir and madam, Henri here, your concierge, representing ‘All-Natural, Inc.,’ the contract manager of Frogwart Hollow National Forest. Place Number 23 is reserved for your recreational vehicle, and there you will find posted our fee schedule for walks to the simulated waterfall, per-hour rates for fishing in the beautiful Cootahatchie […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Hollywood tarts up wildlife films
MISSOULA, Mont. – On a cloudy Saturday morning in mid-April, fantastic critters take over the streets of this college and timber town. Ladybugs assume human proportions and you can see a spotted loon as long as a Volkswagen bus float by. Not to worry. It’s only the Wildwalk, a prelude to the 21st International Wildlife […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Montana’s deregulation dilemma
Helena, Mont. – A fly fisherman crouches in the streamside alders, watching intently as large trout rhythmically rise to sip tiny flies from the smooth surface of the river. Just upstream, the concrete hulk of a Montana Power Co. dam dominates the horizon. The vibration of powerful generators courses through the river’s bed. All seems […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Predator control gets out of control
In 1993, without much fanfare, the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management turned their predator problems over to the experts. The agencies signed an agreement allowing the federal Animal Damage Control agency, now known as Wildlife Services, to plan for the extermination of coyotes, mountain lions and other “problem” animals that kill livestock […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Dear Friends
Prairie paper wins a Pulitzer The 37,000-circulation Grand Forks Herald in North Dakota may have lost its building to flooding and fire in 1997, but this month the daily won a Pulitzer Prize for public service. The paper never missed a day of publication and circulated for free when its readers were forced to evacuate […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
GAO knocks Forest Service again
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. The General Accounting Office once again told the U.S. Forest Service what it was doing wrong. It took 12 pages. For more than a decade, the investigative arm of Congress has issued dozens of reports telling the Forest Service how to do […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
The worker ants keep the agency alive
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Joyce Whitney is typical of many young people who enter the Forest Service with a gleam in their eyes, believing they can make a contribution to the stewardship of America’s public lands. She works on the Bozeman Ranger District of the Gallatin […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Breaking an agency of its old ways
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Andy Stahl, the executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE) oversees the largest activist organization in the country devoted exclusively to forest management issues. FSEEE was founded a decade ago by former timber planner Jeff DeBonis, to create a […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Surrounded by dogs, bikers, developers
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. RIFLE, Colo. – Jim Snyder wants to give a piece of his mind to every driver hurtling down Interstate 70 past his ranch seven miles east of this town. He wants to tell them that they are driving over what was some […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
An era ends: old industries face reality
Note: a sidebar article titled “Surrounded by dogs, bikers, developers” accompanies this feature story. RIFLE, Colo. – Logging is a touchy subject with Kent Strong, owner of K & K Lumber near this Colorado River Valley town 70 miles west of the ski resort at Aspen. Ask about business and he says, “There’s no logging […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Will Dombeck sock it to rebellious supervisors?
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. For three decades, Tom Kovalicky worked his way up the ranks of the Forest Service bureaucracy until he became supervisor of the Nez Perce National Forest in Idaho during the 1980s. Once in that position, Kovalicky attempted to restrain the logging on […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Timber town opts for water over logs
The vast old-growth forests of the Cascade Range built the tiny town of Detroit, Ore., and kept three local sawmills bustling. Every year, residents counted on timber from the Willamette National Forest to fuel the economy much as they waited for spring snowmelt to fill the local reservoir. The Forest Service, and the spring snowmelt, […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Forest Service seeks a new (roadless) road to the future
Note: see end of this feature story for a list of four accompanying sidebar articles. In his first major appearance as the 14th chief of the nation’s Forest Service, Mike Dombeck was summoned the winter of 1997 before the House Agriculture Committee to testify about a “forest health” bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Smith, the […]
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
The old West is going under
Note: this front-page editor’s note introduces this issue’s three feature articles. Think of this as a deathwatch issue, in which we hover around the bed of the extractive West, some of us administering CPR, some of us trying to yank the creature off life support so it can die a quicker death, and some of […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Suckling refuses to listen
Dear HCN, Kieran Suckling is afraid to talk to ranchers with environmentally enhancing grazing practices. His belief is that all ranchers are destructive. He states: “Show me a national forest grazing allotment in Arizona or New Mexico that isn’t trashed, and I’ll sit down and talk about sustainable grazing. It doesn’t exist” (HCN, 3/30/98). Mr. […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
The rural West should grow up
Dear HCN, After reading Ed Marston’s column, “Show me the science,” (HCN, 3/16/98), I feel compelled to respond to your criticism of modern Western environmentalists wherein you called them “enemies of rural life and rural economies.” Why do you, and so many others, think that Western rural lifestyles and economies must be based upon traditional […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Guns came first
Dear HCN, This is regarding your “Heard around the West” article about the closure of the Tucson Rod & Gun Club rifle range in Sabino Canyon (HCN, 3/16/98). I am a loyal HCN reader and also an avid hunter and shooter. During the late “70s through the mid-’80s, I spent many hours at the Sabino […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Funds are routinely looted
Dear HCN, Jon Margolis often has interesting insights, but his article titled “The Land and Water Fund waits to be tapped” naively misses the bigger picture (HCN, 2/16/98). It is true that the Land and Water Trust Fund is not managed like a trust fund dedicated to conserving land and water. But the misuse of […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
A postscript from anonymous
Dear HCN, Lynne Bama’s wild horse story is an excellent introduction to many of the philosophical and practical problems attendant to management of a large, sacred, feral domestic ungulate on the public lands (HCN, 3/2/98). Although ecologically responsible management of feral horses and burros under current laws and policies is theoretically possible, censuses and removals […]