ROCK SPRINGS, Wyo. – Moving from the Wyoming Stock Growers Association to managing a ranch for The Nature Conservancy is not a major shift, Bob Budd says. Budd, 37, resigned as executive director of the ranching organization in December to manage the 35,000-acre Red Canyon Ranch, which The Nature Conservancy is acquiring (HCN, 11/29/93). The […]
Can this mixed marriage work?
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Wyoming county tries to put itself on the map
By the time you read this, 200 avid sportsmen will have enjoyed a festive three-day “coyote shoot” in which the killers of the most and biggest animals take home $500 prizes. Sponsored by the Campbell County Chamber of Commerce in northeastern Wyoming, the Feb. 3-5 shoot is not unique. Similar events go on throughout the […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Babbitt has a bad day in New Mexico
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – For two hours, Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt preached the joys of consensus to New Mexico ranchers and environmentalists. And for two hours, the ranchers and environmentalists snapped at each other with the same gusto that has marked their exchanges for the past decade. The Jan. 20 meeting at the University of New […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Idaho group takes over some public land
For the first time in Idaho history, an environmental group has wrested control of state-owned rangeland from a rancher. At a Jan. 28 auction in Idaho Falls, the Idaho Watersheds Project outbid Challis rancher Will Ingram for rights to lease a 640-acre tract of state land for the next 10 years. “We’ve experienced great frustration […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Dear friends
Spirited in Boulder Board members of the High Country Foundation from around the West braved clear skies and balmy January weather to gather in Boulder, Colo., for the group’s annual budget meeting. Eleven out of 16 board members made it to Boulder, and 10 made it to the all-day meeting on Jan. 15. (Board president […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Can she save ecosystems?
Mollie Beattie got an uncomfortable preview of the realpolitik that still pervades the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service last summer while she waited for Senate confirmation as the agency’s director. One Republican senator after another anonymously exercised the right to place a “hold” on her confirmation. Some, no doubt, were simply curious about this 46-year-old […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Fearless direction on the educational front
The Meridian, Idaho, school board’s instructions for teaching about the environment specify: “Discussion should not reflect negative attitudes against business or industry who do the best job under present regulations considering economic realities,” reports the Los Angeles Times. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fearless direction on the […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 1994: Can she save ecosystems?
Sore loser in Utah
“Some of those people down there must get up in the morning and flip a coin to see if they’re a girl or a boy that day. Then they ride their bikes off into the tules,” says Uintah County Commissioner Max Adams, still angry that Grand County backed out of a deal to pay for […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Comment on curbing a dam
Comment on curbing a dam The Bureau of Reclamation will host a series of meetings and public hearings on the Glen Canyon Dam draft EIS from Jan. 27 through March 24. The Bureau will accept public comments until April 11. Information Meetings, 5-9 p.m., will be held in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, at the Stouffer […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
The new West is as restless as the old
The new West is as restless as the old Most people move to the rural West in search of community, says sociology professor Pat Jobes, who teaches at Montana State University in Bozeman. What they find rarely measures up to their enthusiasm and optimism. “It’s a predictable, unchanging pattern,” says Jobes, who has studied migration […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Bullet holes in bungalows
Bullet holes in bungalows In Prescott, Ariz., living near a national forest can be dangerous. Stray slugs from target shooters have pockmarked residents’ hot tubs, porches, roofs and patio furniture. “They think they’re out in the middle of nowhere and they can just shoot,” says Carol Brownlow, a Prescott homeowner, in the Arizona Republic. On […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
West’s buttons popping
West’s buttons popping The 10 fastest growing states in the nation are in the West. According to federal Census Bureau figures, Nevada grew fastest in 1992-93, with a 3.9 percent growth rate, followed by Idaho at 3.1 percent and Colorado at 2.9 percent. Reid Reynolds, a Colorado state demographer, attributes the surge to strong economies […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
The third man
The third man The number three man in the Forest Service, Deputy Chief James Overbay, has retired. Overbay, a member of the agency’s old guard, was replaced by Gray Reynolds, regional forester for the Intermountain Region of national forests in southern Idaho, Nevada, Utah and western Wyoming. Environmental activists in the Intermountain Region were not […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Lost and found study
Lost and found study Under former Utah Gov. Norm Bangerter, the bumper sticker “Wilderness: land of no use” became popular. At the same time, managers under Bangerter ignored a 1991 draft state study that said wilderness could actually benefit Utah’s economy. Gov. Mike Leavitt recently unearthed the report after the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance pressed […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Poachers target grizzlies
Poachers target grizzlies Bear researchers say the remote Selkirk Mountains, between Washington, Idaho and British Columbia, could support up to 90 grizzlies. Instead, the current population of about 30 bears has dropped by one. In late November an unknown person shot Sy, a 15-year-old female grizzly, who was the last bear in the Selkirks wearing […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Lift construction suspended
Lift construction suspended Yellowstone National Park has suspended improvements on a small ski area in the park. Last month, workers began installing a used poma lift at Undine Falls ski area, five miles east of Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyo., to replace a rope tow that was considered unsafe. But after receiving phone calls and letters […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
A stark victory in Utah
In May 1989, Gene Nodine, head of the BLM’s Moab, Utah, office, told Arizona law professor Joe Feller: “You don’t know enough about this (public-land grazing) to question what we’re doing.” In retrospect, that was a rash statement. For in December 1993, John Rampton, an administrative law judge for the Department of Interior, ruled that […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
BLM union comes to Moab
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Turmoil on the range. MOAB, Utah – Citing frustration with their agency’s treatment of natural resources and employees, Bureau of Land Management staffers in two agency offices here voted to unionize. In response, Moab District BLM managers filed an objection to the […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Cows are evicted from Utah
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A federal judge has kicked cattle out of the canyons of southeastern Utah’s Comb Wash. Both environmentalists and ranchers say the decision could lead to sweeping changes in grazing on public lands. Department of Interior Administrative Law Judge John Rampton’s Dec. 20 decision in the three-year-long Comb Wash case found […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 1994: Turmoil on the range
Reform was killed by “100 peacocks in heat”
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Turmoil on the range. Brant Calkin, who until a few months ago was head of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, one of the region’s most aggressive environmental groups, thinks he knows why the Rangeland Reform ’94 initiative crashed and burned. He says […]