Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. What’s spotted, lives in pristine habitat on national forests and could put some loggers out of work if protected under the Endangered Species Act? No, it’s not that feathered denizen of the ancient forests, the northern spotted owl. It’s a […]
Five states squirm as bull trout declines
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Interior wants to kill a success
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. Ask a rancher in the West which he’d rather see traveling down the dusty road to his spread, a rattlesnake or a biologist from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the rancher might just choose the snake. Many Montana […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Soft-path approach to saving species
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. “Hank Fischer: least popular man in Montana,” shouts a 1978 headline in High Country News. The Northern Rockies representative for Defenders of Wildlife earned that label by fighting the federal Animal Damage Control and its use of compound 1080 to […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
A full-court press to save ecosystems
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. Boulder, Colo. – Jasper Carlton, head of the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, sits at a table in his suburban townhome, intently sketching a map of the Selkirk ecosystem in northern Idaho. “I spent time in those mountains for weeks on end […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
A tough law meets tough foes
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. In his classic 1940s essay, “Round River,” Aldo Leopold made the case for conserving biological diversity: “saving all the parts’ of the natural world. “To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering,” Leopold wrote. That […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Note: this article is one of several in this issue about the Endangered Species Act. VANCOUVER, Wash. – Environmentalists chanted, “Habitat, habitat, have to have the habitat.” Some carried stuffed animals and paper fish. A straggly line of loggers dressed in prison garb marched past them, wearing buttons proclaiming “Property Rights ESA Hostage.” Inside the […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Idaho injunction lifted
A federal judge recently dissolved an injunction that threatened to halt many activities on six Idaho national forests in order to protect endangered salmon. The injunction had prompted angry protests in the forest-dependent community of Salmon, Idaho, earlier this year (HCN, 2/20/95). But U.S. District Judge David Ezra said a biological opinion released March 1 […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Who killed the cows?
On the night of April 14, rancher Tom Kelly says someone sneaked onto his ranch near Deming, in southern New Mexico, emptied a water storage tank, removed bolts from the legs of a windmill and shot 13 cows and seven calves dead with a high-velocity rifle. Kelly says his opposition to Interior Secretary Babbitt’s rangeland […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
The heat is on
Forest Service officials are under intense political pressure to reverse a decision ordering most of a rancher’s cows from the 227-square-mile Diamond Bar allotment on the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness areas near Silver City, N.M. (HCN, 5/2/94). The agency told ranchers Kit and Sherry Laney to move 90 percent of their 660-cow herd off […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Will the bill’s authors please stand?
A memo to Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., shows lobbyists wrote most of a bill scaling back the Endangered Species Act. The Feb. 28 memo from Gorton aide Julie Kays says in part: “The coalitions delivered your ESA (Endangered Species Act) bill to me on Friday” I know you are anxious to get the bill introduced. […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone
Dear HCN: Regarding “Sinful Las Vegas’ (HCN, 4/3/95), I would like to ask why the predictable, banal cliché that Las Vegas is “sin city” can’t be abandoned. What is here is legal and above board. Are you suggesting other cities where gambling and prostitution are illegal are “sinless’? Come on. Las Vegas has about 1 […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Nevada’s grassroots are healthy
Dear HCN, Congratulations to Jon Christensen for his April 3 comprehensive Great Basin special edition and thank you for devoting the resources and energy to this project. It will surely encourage more thoughtful communication among all parties about the myths and challenges we face here. While I was flattered by Jon’s article on me, the […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
The holistic approach isn’t fanatical
THE HOLISTIC APPROACH ISN’T FANATICAL Dear HCN: We would like to respond to an article in your April 3 special issue on the Great Basin which included comments about Holistic Resource Management made by rancher Tony Tipton. We are concerned that readers may be left with the impression that Holistic Resource Management is some sort […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
HCN ignored the real issues
HCN IGNORED THE REAL ISSUES Dear HCN: Does Jon Christensen work in his off hours for the wise-use movement? He should learn a little more about Nevada before he writes about environmental issues. With several articles about ranching April 3, how come Mr. Christensen fails to give readers a full understanding of how this one […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Some things should stay free
Dear HCN: I’d like to comment on Scott W. Reed’s opinion, March 20, that “there should be no free lunch for recreationists.” Here we are again: a bewildered and beleagured public losing another freedom we take for granted. I’m wondering, what’s a recreationist? It’s no doubt a person, probably a human, out for a stroll […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Recall Ben Campbell
Dear HCN: On March 30, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., offered a substitute amendment that would have improved the “salvage logging” amendment by requiring that federal land management agencies comply with environmental laws. The Murray amendment was defeated by one vote due to the efforts of Colorado’s own Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell – Democrat turned Republican. […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
In Utah, the extremists are against wilderness
Dear HCN, Within hours of the announcement by Utah counties of their 1 million-acre wilderness recommendation (HCN, 4/17/95), I visited a special place touted in rural county tourist brochures as “Utah’s Little Grand Canyon.” As the sun fell upon the western horizon, the Colorado Plateau light played its technicolor magic upon a slickrock face; to […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Grassroots unite
GRASSROOTS UNITE Activists concerned about health, justice, peace and the environment will share organizing tactics May 5-6 in Missoula, Mont. Bryony Schwan, director of the Missoula-based Women’s Voices for the Earth, says the conference aims to diversify the environmental movement and pinpoint common ground among the participants. Speakers include Love Canal activist Lois Gibbs, now […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Conspiracy of optimism
Conspiracy of Optimism Until World War II, private forests provided 95 percent of the nation’s wood products; from 1945 to 1960, the timber industry turned away from its overcut land to publicly owned trees on the national forests. Confident in their talents and technology, Forest Service managers embraced clearcutting over selective harvesting and built 65,000 […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
A place of one’s own
A PLACE OF ONE’S OWN Are you thinking of buying a few acres of land to satisfy that pastoral desire? It may be more complicated than you think and not as much fun. That’s why Montana has published a brief booklet for small-acreage landowners called Tips on Land & Water Management for Small Farms and […]