Four years after jumping out of the political frying pan, John Mumma has leaped into the fire. The former Northern Region forester for the Forest Service has been hired as the new director of the embattled Colorado Division of Wildlife. Mumma quit the Forest Service after 28 years rather than accept reassignment to Washington, D.C., […]
John Mumma takes another helm
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Thou shalt not build a dam
After a several-week delay, the Roman Catholic bishop of Pueblo, Colo., has spoken, and not to the liking of backers of the Animas-La Plata water project. In early November, a nine-person citizens’ group, the Human Development Commission of the Pueblo Diocese, blasted the project proposed for southern Colorado as wasteful and destructive (HCN, 11/27/95). Outraged […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Logging opponents lose – again
In Moscow, Idaho, you can tell it’s fall when Cove/Mallard timbersale protesters start showing up for trial. In the last four years more than 100 people have argued their cases before a variety of magistrates and federal judges, and nearly all have lost. This year was no exception. The largest trial this year involved 12 […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Thundering against Thunderbolt
When the U.S. Forest Service set aside a steep and damaged portion of the Boise National Forest for a timber sale called Thunderbolt early this fall, environmentalists in Idaho filed one of the first lawsuits against a salvage sale. Now the 13 million board feet has sold for $1 million, and the Sierra Club Legal […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Hunger striker to head East
The so-called “logging without laws’ salvage rider signed by President Clinton last July has catalyzed many people to commit acts of civil disobedience. But one person has mounted an unusual protest in front of the federal courthouse in Eugene, Oregon. Tim Ream, 33, set up a tent on the courthouse steps Oct. 3 and has […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
`Goddamn goshawks’
Last summer, loggers discovered a nest with two rare goshawk fledglings on the Headquarters timber sale, west of Laramie, Wyo. With permission from the Forest Service they cut trees within yards of the nest, causing the adults to abandon the nest and the fledglings to die. Environmentalists blasted the agency and loggers for failing to […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
She knows about jets
Dear HCN, Your Oct. 2 article about the jet noise in a Colorado wilderness made me realize that I might be able to help after fighting the jet noise from San Francisco Airport for 25 years. First, start by learning everything about the way the Federal Aviation Administration handles takeoffs and landings in every type […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Selective quotes altered timber story
Dear HCN, I am quite upset about the selective quotes from me in the article about program cuts at the University of Washington by Kathie Durbin (HCN, 11/13/95). The manner in which my remarks were used makes it appear that the faculty and staff of the Center for Streamside Studies blame Weyerhaeuser Company for the […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Rainfall follows the fence and other lessons from HCN
Dear HCN, It was fortunate that your 10/2/95 issue had in it both the essay by Dave Brown and a letter from William Dickinson. They allowed me to synthesize a new perspective on the effects of cattle grazing on riparian areas. It is now obvious that cattle are the victims of incredible bad luck. They […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
How Newt hit a nerve
Dear HCN, The take of Beltway green Paul Pritchard of the National Parks and Conservation Association on the national environmental movement is: “We feel like General Custer.” (-D.C. Green Power Brokers Look for New Home,” HCN, 11/13/95). An apt analogy, indeed – though hardly a grassroots, cross-cultural organizing sentiment. The genocidal Custer got what he […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Proposed gold mine stirs up a rural Washington county
For 15 years, Roger Jackson has raised hay and grain, sheep and goats on his spread in northeastern Washington’s Okanogan County. Then last June, Jackson learned that Battle Mountain Gold Co. planned to operate an open-pit gold mine six miles from his farm, on Buckhorn Mountain in Okanogan National Forest. Worse, Jackson learned that the […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
1995: Did toxic stew cook the goose?
BUTTE, Mont. – For 342 migrating snow geese, the infamous Berkeley Pit became their final stop. The birds were first discovered Nov. 14, their carcasses floating in the toxic waters of the shut down, open-pit copper mine. The initial body count at this federal Superfund site was 149; the total rose when officials realized the […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Congress’ war against nature creates backlash
When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, everyone expected attacks on environmental laws and programs. And they came. But now, with just days left until the end of the 104th Congress’ first year, the anti-environment flood has been slowed. With the exception of the salvage logging legislation signed by President Clinton this summer, the […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Dear friends
Deep in the banana belt Sunny, still weather has persisted here into December, and at the Diner coffee shop on Grand Avenue, talk turns inevitably toward fear of drought. The West Elk Mountains, our backyard hills, look merely dusted with snow, and old-timers say this is shaping up as an “open winter.” Not to borrow […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
By the grace of old pines
Fish Creek murmurs to itself in a voice like rustling cottonwood leaves as it curves past Montana’s biggest ponderosa pine on its way to the Clark Fork River. Sunlight animates the tree’s trunk and ripples on the underside of its lowest branch, 30 feet overhead. Its bark is a smooth sheath of gold flakes with […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Heard Around the West
America’s national parks – its crown jewels – now include a lot of costume jewelry, says a Nov. 20 Forbes magazine article on the National Park Service. The system is so bloated with second-rate parks here, there and everywhere, there is little money to maintain such real treasures as Yosemite, Glacier or Grand Canyon. Writer […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Why a son won’t hunt with his father
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Unarmed but dangerous critics close in on hunting. “You always kill coyotes,” my father would tell me, with a seriousness that both frightened and fascinated me. “Always. They are bad animals. You shoot them whenever you get the chance.” The words rang through my […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
I like to hunt, but I don’t like to kill
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Unarmed but dangerous critics close in on hunting. I always edge away from the subject of hunting. I’ve hunted and shall hunt, but I don’t talk about it much – those late-night, throaty recitations of travels and kills make me nervous. It’s miserable standing […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
Organizations from ‘Get a gun’ to ‘No way’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Unarmed but dangerous critics close in on hunting. Wildlife Legislative Fund of America: “Our sole purpose in life is to protect the right to hunt, fish and trap,” says staffer Allan Wolter. This umbrella organization for 1.5 million sportsmen was founded in 1978 to […]
Posted inDecember 11, 1995: Hunting: Its place in the West comes under attack
The politics of hunting creates fluidalliances
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, Unarmed but dangerous critics close in on hunting. While nonprofit groups like Ducks Unlimited or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have sharply defined positions on hunting, most environmental groups – composed of both avid hunters and anti-hunters – waffle somewhere in the […]