From massive wildfires to melting ice, the calamities that affected the West this year.
2017 in natural disasters
Posted inArticles
The best photos of 2017: wildfire, protests and bears
What caught our eye this year.
Posted inFebruary 5, 2018: Caught Between Crises
How NAFTA built a bustling border city
In southern New Mexico, a dream of a bi-national community, not a concrete wall.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
The insanity of wild horse management
Blaming wild horses alone for overgrazing of public lands fails to comprehend they are victims of “management” as are taxpayers (“The Navajo Nation has a wild horse problem,” HCN, 10/6/17). It is also clear that in the remaining areas on public lands where wild horses and burros are allowed to exist at all, they share […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
The iconic bird of the ‘Sagebrush Sea’
A new book shows the life cycle of sage grouse in their natural habitat.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Speaking for the trees
Cally Carswell has given a voice to rare plants. I thoroughly enjoyed her article “Threatened plants on state lands have few protections” (HCN, 11/27/17). Thank you for dedicating a feature article to the plight of rare plants. “Plant blindness” is a widespread malady that can only be cured by repeated exposure to the sublime world […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Soul and conscience
Reader responses to Linda Hasselstrom’s awfully honest poem about her father’s command to take care of the kittens reveal how little some of those readers understood her words, and how little they know about ranch life (“Heard Around the West,” HCN, 10/30/17). All too often it is urbanites, beleaguered by kittens they are too lazy […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Latest: Final Mexican wolf plan released
Feds intend to fix inbreeding but enviro groups call plan inadequate
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Glacier fires; nonsensical monument boundaries; alpine sublime
HCN.org news in brief.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Fire funding needs long-term solution
The situation with wildfire is more complex than captured in this short story (“Proper fire funding continues to elude Congress,” HCN, 12/6/17). This issue warrants much fuller treatment. Housing and infrastructure are expanding into untenable fire-prone settings in part because more people need housing and too many of them are attracted to or allowed to […]
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Understanding humans’ place in the ecosystem
Where wildness reigns, humans give up their dominant roles.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
On grappling with a past shadowed by violence
Two books examine the relationship people have with painful family histories.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
Celebrating the season and ‘neighboring’ one another
Still no snow, but good times and a bittersweet farewell.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
In the home of the bear
In the McNeil River Sanctuary, bears and humans have learned to share the landscape.
Posted inDecember 25, 2017: Bear Essentials
A visit to Pie Town; Mermaids on maternity leave; Airplane pit-stop
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inArticles
A name is not harmless
Racist mascots matter, and it’s time we made that more clear.
Posted inArticles
Why a team name is more than a (racist) word
If you don’t understand this one, ‘you don’t get any of them.’
Posted inArticles
Why hatchery fish may fail in the wild
New research gives insight into how to better help struggling Northwest salmon populations.
Posted inArticles
Native voices aren’t being heard on Bears Ears
Members of the Navajo Nation are not ‘conquered subjects.’
Posted inArticles
Cliven Bundy case ruled a mistrial
The ruling represents an unprecedented failure for federal prosecutors on Western lands issues.