On the edge of Glacier National Park, the North Fork of the Flathead River flows through the wildest ecosystem in the continental United States. It’s the only place in the continental U.S. where mountain lions, gray wolves and grizzly bears share habitat – along with black bears, coyotes, lynx, wolverines, whitetail and mule deer, elk, […]
Around Glacier Park, it’s every predator for itself
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Lawsuits may prey on wolf plans
Bringing wolves back to the West could hit a snag as both ranchers and environmentalists say they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Wilderness Society, Idaho Conservation League, Sierra Club and four other environmental groups notified Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt Sept. 7 that they will sue the agency within 60 days unless […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Wolf provokes inadvertent howlers
Never before have so many citizens had so much to say about a federal project: bringing wolves back to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho later this fall. By the time comment-taking ended this year on an environmental impact statement about the plan, 160,264 people had put their opinions on paper. Reactions were generally strident, […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Dear friends
‘Assault on the Male’ Paonia residents got a sneak preview in the town hall of “Assault on the Male,” a BBC documentary that showed on the Discovery Channel Sept. 4. The preview and talk were courtesy of Theo Colborn, a Paonia resident and former local pharmacist who spends most of her time in Washington, D.C., […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Shame and threats impel Eastside plan
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Ambitious ecosystem management advances east. A range of pressures – political scientific, and legal – shifted inland, over the crest of the Cascade Mountains, during the past year and a half, bringing leviathan ecosystem management with them. The two regions on opposite sides […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Ambitious ecosystem management advances east
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The ground rules are posted in prominent view of everybody in the room: Be courteous. No verbal or personal attacks. It might sound like seventh grade, but this meeting is for grown-ups. The leaders of the nation’s most ambitious experiment in ecosystem management are taking questions from an audience of timber […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Flame and blame in the Northwest
Loggers urge fire sales
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
The real bind is too many people everywhere
I suggest that one of the dominant environmental issues in the West’s future will be: How many people can live satisfied lives here? Population size is a factor of three variables: birth rates, death rates, and immigration. Birth, death and territory. Can any other issue cover such deep atavistic feelings? The issue will divide friends […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
The real threat in Utah
Dear HCN, When the U.S. Department of the Interior recently released regulations that would establish procedures for state and local governments to claim road rights-of-way under the old RS 2477 law (HCN, 8/22/94), there was an immediate outcry from Utah’s Sen. Bob Bennett, who said the proposed rules constituted “… a threat to the economy […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Get out
Dear HCN, Yellowstone Park managers are still not focusing on the main problem – true for most parks, I would guess – and that is crowds and what park officials feel they must do to accommodate them (HCN, 5/30/94). Crowds destroy the basic mood of the park itself – its differentness. This differentness is a […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Flu-ing with the river
When 88 Colorado River rafters – including 22 experienced river guides – came down with stomach flu-like symptoms this June, they sounded the alarm. “That’s a lot of cases in a relatively short period of time,” says Marlene Gaither, a Coconimo County health specialist. “When it’s 100 degrees on the river and you vomit and […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Let’s make a deal
Hoping to gain support for the Endangered Species Act, the Interior Department offered a deal Aug. 10. Any person or group agreeing to protect endangered species through a Habitat Conservation Plan will not be expected to make further concessions. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt called the new policy flexible and urged its support. More than 130 […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Does Utah need an eco-challenge?
A California promoter of “Eco-Challenge: The Adventure Race” hopes to send up to 50 five-person teams running, biking, rafting, canoeing and riding horses through 300 miles of southeastern Utah’s deserts next spring. MTV cameras and other media would document the 12-day race, which features environmental consciousness as its theme. State economic developers love the idea, […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Not another icon
On the 50th anniversary of the fire-surviving bear that became a symbol for the Forest Service, an 18-month-old bear cub was found digging through embers near the Tahoe City, Calif., fire. Smokey was younger than this cub when found, and spent the rest of his life at the Washington, D.C., National Zoo. But the 1994 […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Undoing a dam is expensive
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and the National Park Service want to tear down two dams on the Elwha River in Washington’s Olympic National Park. But White House budget director Leon Panetta says the federal government can’t afford it. A Park Service study found that removing the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams is the best way […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Danger on the fairway
Working on a golf course can be hazardous to your health. A survey of 618 golf course superintendents who died between 1970 and 1992 revealed that an uncommonly high number perished from cancer of the lung, brain, intestine or prostate. The culprit could be pesticide use, which has caused the demise of thousands of birds. […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Liquid lures mountain goats
For mountain goats in Glacier National Park, Mont., sweet-tasting antifreeze seems to be the drug of choice. Heading toward 6,000-foot Logan Pass, motorists can see up to 20 goats at a time fighting for the coolant that drips from overheated cars. At the summer parking lot many habituated goats gather where the leaking liquid forms […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Park concessions to be corralled
A reform ending windfalls for concessionaires in national parks seems certain this fall. Only minor differences remain between House and Senate bills that passed overwhelmingly. Both bills mandate competition for contracts of more than $500,000, require that concession fees return to parks, and establish a briefer duration on contracts. The current law, passed in 1965, […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
This boom will end like all the others – in a deep, deep bust
In 1982 a plumber named Jeff Everett and I competed to see who was the greater fool. I won. The competition centered on a 1,000-square-foot building we owned at 124 Grand Avenue, on Paonia’s two-block-long main street. It had been home to Betsy’s and my first newspaper – North Fork Times; by 1982 it stood […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 1994: Can planning rein in a stampede?
Towns angling for tourism should beware of the great white shark
MOAB, Utah – The simplest way to describe what happened in Grand County is to say that, in 1986, our resilient community leaders got in their rowboat and went fishing for a little tourism to revive and diversify our economy. They hooked a great white shark. This monster has swamped the boat and eaten the […]