OWENS VALLEY, Calif. – Between the two small towns of Big Pine and Lone Pine, the Owens River flows through a desert, its banks sprinkled with saltcedar and rabbitbrush, its denizens kangaroo rats and snakes. But it wasn’t always like this. And it will change in the next decade if an appeals court approves an […]
Who wins when a river returns?
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
A tragic blend of wild and domestic
“Rowdy,” born in a cage at a Texas roadside circus and sold as a wolf-hybrid pup to a 10-year-old boy in Colorado, used his mouth the way people use their hands. As he grew larger, Rowdy would drag the boy around his pen by an arm or a leg. It was all in good fun, […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Dear friends
Out for birds We thought we were in for a noisy Saturday night. The motel parking lot was packed. In a small town like Socorro, N.M., that usually means a basketball or wrestling meet, with celebrating or mourning into Sunday morning. But the Holiday Inn Express was like a morgue, until we got to the […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
To the south, bison and cattle coexist
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. JACKSON, Wyo. – South of Yellowstone National Park near the Grand Tetons, cattle have grazed “nose-to-nose” with brucellosis-infected bison and elk for more than 75 years. How is it that this herd of nearly 300 bison that roams from Grand Teton National Park to […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
‘Humane is what’s best for humans’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. This winter has been especially busy for Yellowstone National Park photographer Jim Peaco: Jim Peaco: “I photographed a Park Service roundup where rangers on horseback were trying to move bison back into Yellowstone Park. It can be a little scary to watch. These are […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
Federal agency was careless with a live vaccine
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Conservationists, animal rights groups and Park Service officials have long been wary of the federal agency that has ordered the slaughter of Yellowstone bison. Recently, they have uncovered evidence that gives some credence to their fears. Internal documents obtained by High Country News suggest […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
For bison, it’s deja vu all over again
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – For the bison here in the world’s oldest national park, roundups and slaughterhouses are nothing new. At times, park managers tried to foster the bison herds. At other times, they killed them by the hundreds. Until the early 1950s, […]
Posted inFebruary 17, 1997: No home on the range
No home on the range
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Mont. – Like millions of other Americans tuned to the nightly news, rancher Delas Munns has watched in disgust as the death toll of Yellowstone bison climbs. The images of bloody gut piles and docile behemoths corralled and shipped to slaughterhouses like cattle do not make him happy. Munns and his five […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Ed Marston replies
Ed Marston replies: Dear Professor Power, My review of your book said I absolutely agreed with you about your critique of the extractive economy. Here are some relevant quotes: “Power has done us a great service by describing the economic changes transforming the West … “It is useful and important work, delivered with passion and […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Montana economist attacks review
Dear HCN, I want to thank Ed Marston for confirming the wise-use movement’s characterization of me as an “eco-terrorist” (HCN, 12/23/96). The mining and logging industries will get good mileage out of the idea that I am a “Robespierre” leading a “reign of terror” across the West. My book, Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies, sought […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
We made it flood
Dear HCN, We who live east of the Rockies have looked on with dismay, disbelief and, I hope, with compassion as people of the Pacific Northwest suffered devastating floods, mudslides and resultant power outages. Another billion-dollar disaster and the media blame it all on the weather (HCN, 1/20/97). The real truth must be told: Deforestation […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Stop immigration
Dear HCN, In the seven pages of your special issue “El Nuevo West” devoted to illegal immigration, I wish you’d found space for at least a few lines on the wholesale transformation of the environment and quality of life in “El Futuro West” if present record levels of both legal and illegal immigration are allowed […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
‘Slaughtered hulks’
Dear HCN: A few days ago I witnessed something that challenged my concept of the person I thought surely I was. At 46, I have lived in Montana over half my life, most of that time in the rugged area near Cooke City. I have lived the life of the “manly man.” Hunter, logger, log […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
INS raid leads to lawsuit
Three people who believe they were mistreated in an immigration raid in Jackson, Wyo., last summer have filed paperwork seeking more than $1.8 million in damages from three government agencies. The first is AgustÆn Perez, a legal alien from neighoring Driggs, Idaho, who alleges that two guns were held to his head during an Aug. […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Water deal quenches many thirsts
In a triumph of negotiation over litigation, local, state and federal officials in Utah recently ended a decade-long dispute over water near Zion National Park. By swapping two potential dam sites above the park for a new one below it, negotiators ensured water both for the national park and for local faucets. Most importantly, says […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Injunction lifted in the Southwest
A 16-month logging injunction on national forests in New Mexico and Arizona was lifted by a federal judge Dec. 4. Judge Roger Strand ruled that the Forest Service had completed a biological opinion on how its forest plans would affect the threatened Mexican spotted owl. The decision means the agency can proceed with logging in […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Hunters need young blood
Generation X doesn’t hunt. That’s the conclusion of a National Shooting Sports Foundation’s recent survey, which found that only 8 percent of hunters are between the ages of 18 and 24, down from 17 percent in 1986. The last decade has seen the percentage of hunters in the 25-34 age bracket drop as well, down […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Renegade county gets a makeover
For two years, the county commissioners in Chelan County, Wash., have led the state’s property-rights movement. They thumbed their noses at Washington’s Growth Management Act, challenged its planning requirements in court and even suffered economic sanctions for ignoring them (HCN, 6/10/96). But the county’s outlaw image changed dramatically when voters threw out one of the […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Sting nets bird killers
In today’s booming black market for migratory bird parts, a single bald eagle feather can fetch $100. Given such prices, it’s not surprising that a two-year U.S. Fish and Wildlife sting operation netted 35 individuals and businesses allegedly involved in the killing and selling of protected migratory birds in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. The […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Down with dams?
Dave Wegner, the scientist who studied the Grand Canyon ecosystem for more than a decade, said he thinks Glen Canyon Dam is just one of many that could go. “I’d take out Glen Canyon. I’d take out Flaming Gorge. And I’d look at Navajo Dam on the San Juan River,” he said, while attending the […]