The Rio Grande silvery minnow is not a glamorous fish, but it does have a claim to fame: It’s the last minnow species to survive in New Mexico’s beleaguered stretch of the Rio Grande, where every native fish is extinct or threatened with extinction. But in April, an irrigation district diverted so much water from […]
A small fish takes a big hit
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Planning regulations bite a planning proponent
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article, “Sagebrush rebels in the apple orchards.” Dan Evans has a problem: He wants to build a house on a five-acre, $127,250 parcel of land in western Washington’s Jefferson County, but a county zoning ordinance says a new […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Sagebrush rebels in the apple orchards
In Washington state, one county’s efforts to get state growth-management laws off its back have run aground in court, drawn the wrath of the governor and earned the scorn of environmental groups. But two of three Chelan County commissioners in central Washington like it that way. They’re betting on brinkmanship to draw attention to their […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
GOP moves to rein in its rebels
Two years ago, Barbara Cubin, a first-time candidate for the House of Representatives, stocked sporting goods stores across Wyoming with pamphlets describing her opposition to the “Clinton-Babbitt War on the West.” In Idaho, another first-time candidate, Helen Chenoweth, held a pretend endangered salmon bake to show her scorn for the Endangered Species Act. Now, as […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Silence could be shattered by military jets
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news story, “Military in a dogfight for crowded skies.” Brother Erik’s days at the Spiritual Life Institute in Crestone, Colo., rely on peace and quiet for contemplative meditation. “We base our life on silence and solitude,” he says. He […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Military in a dogfight for crowded skies
After spending three years and $1.5 million on environmental studies, the Colorado Air National Guard is once again promoting its plan to increase fighter-jet training over southeastern Colorado. Because the Guard lost some of its mock combat areas to Denver International Airport, the “weekend warriors’ say they need to make up the difference over southeastern […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Dear Friends
They don’t know it all This issue is an exploration by Elizabeth Manning and other writers of the state of outdoor education in the West. It’s a subject some approach with awe, particularly if we’re the one who admits: “That (course, teacher, backpacking expedition, river trip) changed my life.” Perhaps because so many of us […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Nothing short of extortion
Dear HCN, I must comment on Ron Selden’s article on the Flathead Indian tribes and the Yellowstone Pipe Line Co. (HCN, 3/4/96). Did Selden ask any questions at all, or was the article written by the tribal spokeswoman? First, I won’t defend Conoco’s spill record – it sounds abysmal. They should be made to pay […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Goodloe did it
Dear HCN, The article about Sid Goodloe (HCN, 4/15/96) and his ranch reconstruction is a real winner: The guy has spent 40 years working and seems to be on the right track. He has actually done something to show how it can be done; the reasoning and understanding that he has developed is amazing. It […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
More about saguaros
Dear HCN, Congratulations on the Sid Goodloe story (HCN, 4/15/96), which stuck a cattle prod into conventional narratives. I need to explain my sure-to-be-maligned comments about saguaros. I lump them, properly I think, with “woody” plants. But I do not mean to imply that they, like piûon-juniper, have exploded over the landscape. They have always […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Encouraging, but no panacea
Dear HCN, The story of Sid Goodloe’s success in rehabilitating degraded Western rangelands is encouraging. If there were more land stewards with his kind of passion, land ethic, and patience, there would be less controversy in the West and elsewhere. But this is not, nor will it ever be the case, for as Ed Marston […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
The heart of a ranch was a coyote
Dear HCN: Sid Goodloe’s reliance upon wild turkeys to keep grasshoppers down and to fluff the forest floor (HCN, 4/15/96) to help it burn reminds me of a similar situation involving coyotes on a mountain ranch near Chiloquin, Ore. Through befriending a coyote they later named Don Coyote, the Dayton Hyde family was led to […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Joyriding kills
Joyriding kills Recklessness and speed apparently killed nine snowmobilers last winter in areas surrounding Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. In all of the past four years, only 10 people died. The recent deaths occurred when riders collided with other snowmobiles or with trees. “Anyone who is able to simply sit on a snowmobile and […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Beavers land on the hot seat in Idaho
Idaho farmers who suspect beavers are damming water that could be irrigating their fields can call on state officials to throw the beavers out – even when their dams are on private property. Idaho Gov. Phil Batt signed the bill in mid-March. The legislation grew out of a dispute between two groups of property owners […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Sierra Club zeroes in on logging
By a 2-to-1 margin, Sierra Club members approved a new policy calling for no commercial logging on public lands. The mail-in vote on the so-called “zero cut” policy represents a major victory for about 2,000 loosely affiliated dissidents in the club known as the John Muir Sierrans. In the months before the vote, they waged […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
River bomber discovered down under
When Ken “Taz” Stoner failed to show in court last March, everyone suspected he had skipped town. Stoner was scheduled to be sentenced for his role as the mastermind behind the destruction of Quartzite Falls, a Class VI rapid in Arizona’s Salt River Canyon Wilderness (HCN, 10/31/94). But, as a federal investigation later discovered, the […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Arizona state land opens for conservation
Arizona environmentalists now have a chance to lease state lands for conservation purposes. As signed by Gov. Fife Symington, the Arizona Preserve Initiative allows conservation groups to lease state lands, estimated at 30,000 acres, within a three-mile radius of all major cities. An earlier bill from Symington proposed to open up over 700,000 acres of […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Runaway runway advances at Jackson Hole airport
Despite overwhelming public opposition, Jackson Hole airport officials have decided to push the high-altitude airport’s runway deeper into Grand Teton National park. Airport board members characterized the decision to add 968 feet of pavement to the 6,300-foot-long runway as a compromise. “I’m looking at what is doable,” said airport board member Fred Hibberd. An earlier […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act
Biological diversity and the Endangered Species Act are hot topics and the themes of the University of Colorado School of Law’s 17th Annual Summer Conference, Biodiversity Protection: Implementation and Reform of the Endangered Species Act, June 9-12, in Boulder, Colo. For more information, contact Katherine Taylor, Natural Resources Law Center, Campus Box 401, Boulder, CO […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Rocky Mountain Rendezvous: Renew Yourself in the High Country
Conservationists from around the world will gather in Keystone, Colo., July 7-10, to discuss ecosystem management. The 51st annual conference of the Soil and Water Conservation Society, Rocky Mountain Rendezvous: Renew Yourself in the High Country, features speakers Wainwright Verlarde of the Jicarilla Apache Tribe and Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas. Contact Nancy Herselius […]