IDAHO A secretive predator stalks the elk, moose and deer that roam the forests of north Idaho, reports the Spokesman-Review, and according to George Fischer, a state Fish and Game conservation officer, these two-legged, stealthy animals are “probably killing as many (game animals) or more than wolves … that is the shock-and-awe message.” Poachers have […]
Guns are welcome, Idaho poachers, and a popping eyeball.
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Frosty recesses
I must admit that after glancing at “Touring the frosties of the Lost Sierra” (HCN, 4/14/14), I was tempted to pass over it and move on to a weightier issue that would have more resonance with an under-employed conservation biologist. But because it involved the Sierra, not to mention frosties, it latched onto something in […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Carbon Cost Consistency
Thank you for your nuanced reporting in “Ripple Effect” and “Betting on Coal” (HCN, 3/17/14). We particularly enjoyed Emily Guerin’s account of Shonto Energy and the young minds “bucking the brain drain.” The interviews reminded us of efforts in West Virginia to get the competence and confidence of the people out from underneath King Coal. […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
Backcountry memoir
Yellowstone Has TeethMarjane Ambler223 pages, $16.95.Riverbend Publishing, 2013. Cindy Mernin puts it bluntly: “Paradise isn’t for sissies!” she says, recalling the 14 years she spent as a ranger’s wife at Yellowstone National Park. In particular, as she tells author Marjane Ambler, the winters weren’t for sissies. The couple had moved there in the early 1970s, […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The Latest: Changes afoot for oil and gas “trade secrets”
BackstoryEnergy companies have long enjoyed secrecy when it comes to the chemical makeup of the fluids they inject underground to release oil and gas. In the late 2000s, Western states like Wyoming and Colorado passed rules requiring some public disclosure, but broad exemptions for “trade secrets” remained common (“Frack forward,” HCN, 10/1/10). As hydraulic fracturing […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
A long-submerged town becomes visible
Water recedes under drought conditions and reveals a lost California community.
Posted inGoat
Should the humpback whale stay on the endangered species list?
In the early 1960s, the situation seemed dire for humpback whales. A century of industrial hunting had reduced the North Pacific population to around 1,000, a minuscule fraction of historic levels. Extinction, once unthinkable, appeared not only possible, but likely. Five decades after the International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium on hunting in 1966, however, […]
Posted inGoat
Arizonans leverage local resources to prevent wildfire
While last week the federal government predicted a major budget shortfall for fighting wildfire, some groups are looking for innovative ways to fund wildfire prevention at the local level instead of waiting for the feds to pick up the bill. The latest Department of Interior and Forest Service forecasts for wildfire suppression expenditures are higher […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
A bear named Irene
Grizzlies make a tenuous comeback in Montana’s Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem.
Posted inArticles
Will our ‘dam nation’ free its rivers?
A new film explores a growing movement to remove dams that have outlived their usefulness.
Posted inWotr
When a rattler comes to call
I first noticed the Panamint rattlesnake when her head moved just beneath my feet. I hadn’t stood on her, not yet; I stood on the edge of our concrete doorstep with my bare toes drooping west, pointing to the Sierra Nevada mountains, six inches above the glacial alluvium around our home. The snake — whom […]
Posted inWotr
How to cook a rattlesnake – if you have to
A neighbor in New Mexico once told me that it’s bad luck — not to mention bad form — to kill a rattlesnake. Unfortunately, he told me this after I’d already killed one. It was sleeping in the garden, beneath a tomato plant, when my wife noticed it. There’s something about a snake in the […]
Posted inGoat
Huge payout for Wind River Reservation
The sight was so unusual we stopped our meeting to stare: men in helmets and riot gear, carrying semi-automatic weapons, were surrounding a bank in Lander, Wyoming, on a Wednesday in late April. As we sipped our chai lattes from the coffee shop across the street, we watched as the armed men escorted a guy […]
Posted inWotr
One battle for civil rights continues
Sometime next year, a federal judge will decide whether Native Americans are still being shut out of political power in Utah’s San Juan County, where more than 52 percent of the people are members of the Navajo or Ute Mountain Ute tribes. The trial will be presided over by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby, […]
Posted inMay 12, 2014: Parks for All?
The revolt that wouldn’t die
The latest Sagebrush Rebellion flare-up in Nevada was unusually fierce.
Posted inArticles
Public Record: Cliven Bundy
Court and federal documents chronicle a long history of grazing battles.
Posted inGoat
Simon J. Ortiz poetry is a road map to Indian Country
About 20 years ago, my father gave me the book, Woven Stone, by Simon J. Ortiz. I was reading a lot of Native American literature at the time, such as Leslie Marmon Silko, N. Scott Momaday and Sherman Alexie. I was also reading a lot of poetry, from Richard Shelton to Rilke. Ortiz, a poet […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: The Moopets
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of western Nevada’s Great Basin Desert. Although I’ve written 45 of these Rants from the Hill since the essay series launched back in July, 2010, there’s one word I have studiously avoided using. It is a filthy word, one that […]
Posted inApril 28, 2014: Two-Wheel Revolution
Two-wheel revolution in Gallup
Can a bunch of trails and bikes transform this down-and-out New Mexico town?
Posted inGoat
The biggest wildlife crossing you’ve never heard of
Nestled in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington, winding along a 15-mile stretch of interstate is the largest wildlife connectivity project you’ve never heard of. Deer, elk, mountain goats, bobcats, black bears, foxes, mink, otters, cougars and wild turkeys roam the region’s old growth forests, mountain meadows, streams and glacier-covered peaks. But all too often, […]