From alpine headwaters to city water supplies, the West is awash in microscopic pollutants.
Tiny bits of plastic permeate our world
Posted inArticles
‘Organic’ litter is not copacetic
Even orange peels be damned — don’t toss your food on the trail.
Posted inArticles
Indigenous peoples are decolonizing virtual worlds
Video games have a malicious history of inaccurate portrayals of Indigenous characters.
Posted inArticles
Idaho’s economy depends on ‘foreign-born’ workers
Immigration raids threaten the $10 billion dairy industry in the Gem State.
Posted inSeptember 17, 2018: The Pioneer of Ruin
As the West burns, a town fields its own amateur firefighters
The community of Dufur, Oregon, bands together to douse the flames.
Posted inArticles
Factory farms can lead to industrial-sized problems
A ‘livestock-friendly’ industry has massive problems, from groundwater contamination to greenhouse gas emissions.
Posted inArticles
Ed Marston, former publisher of High Country News, dies at 78
West Nile virus claims one of the West’s great visionaries.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
See the influences behind Colorado’s wildlife commission
A powerful governing board gives agricultural interests the loudest voice.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
How beavers make the desert bloom
‘I’m always looking for ways to keep water here, and the beaver do it for free.’
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Agricultural interests steer Colorado’s wildlife management
Sheep grazing in the state’s largest wilderness area could endanger a dwindling bighorn sheep herd.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Photos: The elusive & iconic American mountain goat
A biologist documents the natural history and lives of the North American quadrupeds.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Political theater
I really enjoyed Elliott Woods’ detailed and perceptive account of the July Donald Trump rally in Great Falls, Montana (“Montanans sightsee at a political circus,” HCN, 8/6/18). Great piece of reporting and analysis of the spirit behind these rallies, which are nothing if not repetitive, reductive and as habit-forming to our president as any opioid. […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Playing God
While I understand the frustration that Carianne Campbell of the Sky Island Alliance and Don Falk of the University of Arizona have about climate change, which produces a “moving target” for ecosystem restoration, I believe the use of nonnative plant species, particularly from outside the United States, is not ecosystem restoration (“Restoration’s crisis of confidence,” […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Funds and fortitude
Cally Carswell’s article “What are we doing here?” in the Aug. 6 issue finally prompted me to write and say what I’ve been meaning to for some time. I can’t express how your publication touches and moves me. You are doing great work conveying the issues and your perspective on life in the West and […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Double down on success
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Gloria Dickie’s investigation (“Pay for Prey,” HCN, 7/23/18) into Oregon’s flawed wolf compensation program was welcome sunlight for a state that prides itself on its conservation ethic, but whose leaders have regrettably thrown wolves to the self-serving cattlemen. The […]
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
When a lie is a lie
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is trying to incite fear and hate, rather than solve complex problems.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Latest: Wyoming and Idaho to hold grizzly hunts
Lawsuits loom over the first hunting tags given in 44 years.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
Latest: Tribes gain more leverage over Western water
A recent ruling could settle the unresolved groundwater rights of nearly 240 tribes.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
A thirsty bear; salmon snafu; gastropod wranglers
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inAugust 31, 2018: The Big Threat to Bighorns
A meeting of the minds in Gunnison
The editorial staff of High Country News converges to plot the future of the magazine.