Bewildered by declining numbers of boreal toads, the Colorado Division of Wildlife is hoping the “help wanteds’ will yield some clues. The agency is displaying colorful posters at trailheads and outdoor equipment stores, describing the small toads and asking for the public’s help in finding them. Since the boreal toad is uniquely adapted to the […]
Wanted alive
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Severed at the hip
Western lore often portrays rural communities adjacent to public lands as joined at the hip with the federal government. Many people assume that if federal land managers reduce logging or curtail mining on public land, the tax base of the neighboring communities will plummet. Not true, says a new report by the Wilderness Society. After […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Big sky or big sprawl?
Montana, the state that rejected speed limits, is heading toward a lot more traffic. According to a recent report, the number of miles traveled by car in Montana grew twice as fast as population from 1970 to 1990 and is projected to double again by 2015. With 1.7 cars per licensed driver, Montana residents already […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
No more cheap thrills
How much should we pay to play in the great outdoors? More than we do now, say government auditors. A report by the federal General Accounting Office finds that the Forest Service loses millions of dollars each year by not charging enough to private and commercial recreationists. Investigators say the outdated permit fees charged to […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Pictures and politics`
From the stale world of coffee-table books, Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau offers a jolt of caffeine. The quality of the reproductions is top-notch and the text is worth reading, though this is hardly surprising given photographer Jack Dykinga and writer Charles Bowden, both of Tucson. Their subject is the slickrock country of southern […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Is Hanford back in the bomb business?
With the Cold War over and plutonium production halted at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, the federal facility seemed destined only for intensive and expensive cleanup (HCN, 1/22/96). No longer. Outgoing Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary has announced that Hanford’s research nuclear reactor, named the Fast Flux Test Facility, will remain on standby for […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Idaho activists win one
A federal judge in Idaho recently overturned the 1995 convictions of 12 wilderness activists on the charge of violating a road closure in the Cove-Mallard area (HCN, 9/2/96). District Judge Edward Lodge ruled that when the Forest Service closed roads to the Jack Creek sale, it infringed on the First Amendment right to petition the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Tepee blockade spurs talks
In early January, a small group of Navajos blocked Mobil Oil Corp. offices near Aneth, Utah, with a 20-foot tepee, demanding a halt to oil and gas drilling on their desolate corner of the reservation. The tribe’s Aneth Chapter accused Mobil of contaminating local springs, ruining prime grazing lands and not hiring enough Native Americans. […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Green groups stick to their guns
-It’s a tough sell,” admits Randy Payne, a board member of Olympic Park Associates, one of several environmental organizations that support killing non-native mountain goats in Washington’s Olympic National Park. “We’re not excited to go out and shoot the goats, either.” But the high-altitude animals, first introduced to the park in the 1920s, are now […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Who shot the wolf?
A large gray wolf set free into the greater Yellowstone ecosystem was shot in January and dumped in the Madison River, 15 miles south of Three Forks, Mont. Authorities picked at the ice for an hour to free the wolf carcass, says U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent Commodore Mann. An X-ray of the animal indicates […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Is there oil under Utah’s new monument?
Conoco announced recently that it wants to drill one or two exploratory wells in the heart of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the newly established 1.7 million-acre wilderness preserve in southeastern Utah (HCN, 9/30/96). The oil company hopes to begin testing wells on two 10-year leases before they expire in November, but the company is […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Outdoor writer aims to change his culture
The Insightful Sportsman: Thoughts on Fish, Wildlife and What Ails the Earth, by Ted Williams. Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 1996. 299 pages, $14.95 trade paper. “The hard thing about writing real conservation pieces is not finding material, but finding editors who dare to publish it consistently,” says Ted (Edward French) Williams in his preface […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Venison is not an option
Mule deer don’t just wander through the Boulder, Colo., neighborhood where I live. They drop fawns in our backyards. They browse on almost everything. In Table Mesa, surrounded by open space, it’s a love-it-or-leave-it situation. Don’t like Odocoileus hemionus eating your garden? The solution is simple: move. Venison is not an option. When I moved […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Heard around the West
Virtual relationships? They’re all the rage. But over at the San Francisco regional office of the Forest Service, leaders of the forester team fret. In a nutshell, nobody talks shop face to face; the preferred method of communication is computer e-mail. So the team leaders sent a message – by e-mail, of course: On the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
An unabashed green’s snapshot of Northwest forest activism
Tree Huggers: Victory, Defeat, and Renewal in the Northwest Ancient Forest Campaign Kathie Durbin. Seattle, Washington: The Mountaineers Books, 1996. 303 pages, illus.; foreword by Charles Wilkinson. $24.95 hardcover. In 1993, Northwest environmentalists were fractured over President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan. While the plan seemed to save millions of acres of old-growth forests, Clinton wanted […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Oregon’s ranchers vote for survival
From the start, it was easy to see that the meeting on a bleary January 1994 day in Albuquerque, N.M., would go nowhere. The purpose was to look for a compromise, but four New Mexico environmentalists and ranchers spent most of the time hurling barbs at each other. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Gov. Bruce […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
‘Un-logging’ the national forests? It might just happen
Should conservation groups be able to buy federal timber just so they can leave it standing? Three environmental organizations recently posed that question in a formal petition to the Secretary of Agriculture, whose department oversees the Forest Service. Currently, the Forest Service designates only logging outfits as “responsible bidders’ on tree sales. But with their […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Lawns and pools close in on desert lab
Tumamoc Hill, Ariz. – When the Carnegie Institution established its desert laboratory on this stony, black basalt hill 94 years ago, some 12,000 residents lived in the small town of Tucson two miles to the east. Today Tucson has grown to almost half a million people, and Sunbelt sprawl threatens the future of one of […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
‘Good’ rancher goes berserk with an assault rifle
MEETEETSE, Wyo. – A rancher known here as a good steward of his land has been charged with illegally firing on a herd of elk with an assault rifle Jan. 16, leaving at least 10 animals either dead or crippled. Game wardens say they cannot recall another slaying of so many big game animals all […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Nuclear dump could waste the Colorado, foes say
WARD VALLEY, Calif. – Through the chill of winter and 120-degree heat in the summer, activists have camped for the past 16 months among the lizards, cacti and creosote of the Mojave Desert. Their mission: To stop California from building a low-level nuclear dump in this long, desolate valley. At times, this protest on a […]