Dear HCN, Fred Wagner’s essay on elk in Yellowstone begs for a response. While I won’t suggest that the Park Service doesn’t occasionally attempt to control what is said or done with regard to park policy, I don’t think they are “destroying” Yellowstone as Wagner or his graduate student, Charles Kay, allege. Wagner’s ideas are […]
Elk and playing god
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Twisted science in Yellowstone
Dear HCN, I would like to applaud High Country News for publishing and Frederic H. Wagner for writing the May 30, 1994, article about “natural regulation” policy in Yellowstone National Park. I have worked in and around the park off and on from 1969 to 1985 and continue to visit it periodically. As a soil […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Scientist’s critique was just plain wrong
Dear HCN, We are pleased that High Country News had the good taste to introduce Fred Wagner’s editorial “Scientist says Yellowstone Park is being destroyed” (HCN, 5/30/94) as “opinion,” because there certainly isn’t a lot besides opinion in it. His comments about the Yellowstone grazing issue are specious, riddled with errors, and overloaded with conspiratorial […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Yes, too many elk
Dear HCN, In reference to what should be done about elk overpopulation in Yellowstone Park (HCN, 5/30/94), a study is the time-honored delaying tactic to postpone a decision that is certain to be politically unpopular. The summer of 1991, I took my grandchildren on a visit to the park. As a retired BLM range con, […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
A white male speaks
Dear HCN, I must respond to the article “Home, home on the range where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam” (HCN, 6/27/94). I am a member of the most discriminated against group in this country – the white male. I am 77 years old and served in combat in Europe during WWII. I did not volunteer to […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Neo-Nazis surfaced in Idaho, too
Dear HCN, Todd Wilkinson’s article on neo-Nazis and skinheads (HCN, 6/27/94) resonates in Idaho. This past April, activists from the White Aryan Resistance (WAR) surfaced in Idaho Falls, twice distributing racist leaflets in residential areas of the city. What is interesting about these events is the response of the city, population 45,000, which has tiny […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Let’s get rational
Dear HCN, The issue of grazing on federal lands apparently is no longer a civil debate but, according to Andy Kerr (HCN, 6/13/94), a call to arms, the newest cause of ideological tribalism. The “greens’ versus the “grazers.” Eco-terrorists engaging in actual battle with People For The West. “Us’ against “them,” whoever they are. Polarizing […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Do we really need environmental fundamentalism?
Dear HCN, One gets the impression that Andy Kerr would like us all to join him in his fundamentalism (HCN, 6/13/94). He tells us the world is divided into discrete units for us to hold in contempt: New Yuppie Scum, Elite Welfare Ranchers, and Old Land Abusers. He tells us they are bad, we are […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Navajo archaeologist honored
After 62 years with the National Park Service, Chancey Naboyia, the first known Navajo archaeologist, has retired. Naboyia, 84, was recently honored by colleagues with a lifetime achievement award, reports the Navajo-Hopi Observer. Naboyia worked as an archaeologist at national monuments such as Canyon de Chelly, Ariz., Mesa Verde, Colo., Aztec, N.M., and Chaco Canyon, […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Fish benefit from trade
An eastern Oregon rancher recently swapped his water rights in a local stream for a year’s worth of hay. Rancher Rocky Webb will receive $6,600 worth of hay from the Oregon Water Trust in exchange for not irrigating 50 acres of pasture. The result: Steelhead trout will swim in more water, reports The Oregonian, and […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Grizzly road delays
Fierce opposition from area residents has delayed a plan to improve grizzly bear habitat in Idaho’s Targhee National Forest. The Forest Service recently agreed to an out-of-court settlement with environmental groups to close hundreds of roads in an area adjacent to Yellowstone National Park (HCN, 4/4/94). But during an environmental assessment of the new plan, […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
No one happy in Hells
The first Forest Service proposal in 12 years to restrict jetboats in Hells Canyon may sink. Both conservationists and jetboat advocates have blasted the preferred alternative, which restricts jetboats three days of the week, from July 4 through Labor Day, on 17 miles of the Snake River, which straddles the Oregon-Idaho border. Ric Bailey, floatboat […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Sewage reservoir dogs
A threatened species of prairie dogs in Utah is on the verge of burrowing through sewage lagoons at Bryce Canyon National Park. Staffer Richard Bryant says in a worst-case scenario the lagoons could collapse, closing bathroom facilities and forcing the park to shut down. An estimated 27 prairie dogs, one-sixth of the estimated Bryce Canyon […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Baca is still fighting
Although he lost his bid for the gubernatorial nomination in New Mexico, Democrat Jim Baca is still fighting for environmental causes. At a meeting of the Nevada Outdoor Recreation Association in Reno, Baca said it is residents of the urban areas who are thinking ahead and bringing a stronger momentum for change. He also said […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Fishing clashes with windsurfing
A basalt outcrop on Washington’s Columbia River has become the focus of an intense land-rights battle between a developer and a group of Native Americans. The outcrop, called Lyle Point, sits at the upper end of the Columbia River Gorge, which has become a magnet for windsurfers. When developer Henry Spencer came to the gorge […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
How I tried to patch together a disintegrating world
Royce Green (not his real name) and his wife were eating dinner by the kitchen window during a storm when the wind blew their new roof into the air, opening the tin trailer like a can opener. Royce’s wife thought the whole place was going to go, just like Dorothy’s house in The Wizard of […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
How love of gold moves mountains
Through the centuries of our mythology, gold has gathered such a mystical sheen that we forget it is just another commodity. This is a critical oversight, especially for those people fighting gold mines in the West. We oppose gold mines and proposals for mines through the usual government channels, meager as these might be with […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Mega coal mine proposed again in Utah
A single dirt road winds through the white sand and expansive piûon-juniper forests of Utah’s Kaiparowits Plateau. Encircled by Bryce Canyon and Zion national parks and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, the desert mesa hides both a seldom-visited wilderness and the state’s last large deposit of high-grade coal. Where dusty adventurers now dodge potholes, in […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Wyoming boom could gas wildlife herds
ROCK SPRINGS , Wyo. – A boom in natural gas drilling in southwestern Wyoming is happening so fast that government scientists don’t have enough time to study, let alone mitigate, impacts to wildlife, say state wildlife officials, sportsmen and environmentalists. More than 3,000 gas wells are currently operating in the five counties of southwestern Wyoming, […]
Posted inJuly 25, 1994: 'Unranchers' reach for West's state lands
Fires illuminate the West’s ‘ecological darkness’
As smoke continues to rise from fires in the West, investigators search the ashes of Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colo., to determine why 14 firefighters died. Like the deadly Mann Gulch Fire of 1949, chronicled in Norman Maclean’s Young Men and Fire, the crew was caught in a “blowup,” a nightmare situation where […]