There’s a hiking and biking trail near Gunnison, Colo. called “Sea of Sage.” The name conjures an accurate picture of how the area’s ecosystem looks to most people. But healthy sagebrush habitat is really more diverse than that – even the Gunnison sage grouse, a rare relative of the greater sage grouse, can’t survive on […]
Colorado agencies move water to help a rare bird adapt to climate change
Posted inGoat
New tech to trace fracking fluid could mean more accountability
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency comes under fire for abandoning studies that linked contaminated water to hydraulic fracturing, and oil and gas companies consider how to fix their public image around the issue, states are trying to figure out how much transparency to demand from the industry. Meanwhile, researchers are racing to find the […]
Posted inWotr
It is not okay for cats to kill all the neighborhood birds.
I’m living next to a killer named Frankie. He’s black-and-white and sweet as cats go; he’s also a menace that nobody talks much about, though feral and free-roaming housecats like Frankie have become a tragic problem all over the world. Every year in America, cats, many of them well-fed pets, kill about 12.3 billion mammals […]
Posted inGoat
Deregulation talk shakes up Arizona energy scene
The Arizona energy fight that everyone’s been yapping about lately is the effort by the state’s largest investor-owned utility, Arizona Public Service, to tweak state regulations regarding how the utility compensates homeowners for energy they produce from rooftop solar panels. That show – over the decidedly un-sexy-sounding issue of net metering – has a wacky […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Severe drought forces a moment of truth for the Klamath
Irrigation shutoffs in the river’s upper basin may finally help move a historic water deal on the Oregon-California border.
Posted inGoat
First settlement reached in Utah’s contentious road claims
If you’ve spent much time wandering around the rural West, especially in southern Utah, you may have come across an extensive network of highways. You might not have recognized them as such, though — these “highways,” in many cases, are nothing more than cow paths, faint two-tracks, and sandy washes. But an antique Western law […]
Posted inGoat
Chilean kayaker kids take notes on Western dams to save their hometown river
Cochrane, Chile, has never been an international hotbed for kayakers. A road first reached the remote Patagonian community 20 years ago, and Internet arrived in the last five. The town, with about 2,000 residents, is surrounded by wide-open ranchland and wilderness, and is a 10-hour, bumpy dirt-road drive from the nearest city. So when local […]
Posted inWotr
National parks see suicide upticks each summer
Many of us are attracted to nature, expansive views and wild settings, so it’s not surprising that this year millions will come West to visit our spectacular national parks. Almost all will go back home to talk of the wonders of the mountains and the brilliant stars at night. But a tragic few will never […]
Posted inGoat
Sexy wildflower photos remind us to take in life’s details
Tim Crawford – an all-around maverick and High Country News subscriber in Bozeman, Mont. – has been doing photography for conservation groups, magazines, books and other purposes for more than 50 years. Now he’s debuting a series of close-ups of “Wild & Feral Flowers,” including this Mexican hat (also called the prairie coneflower) and musk […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Writing down the bones
This issue features a story that was more than two years in the writing — and at least 60 million in the making. In 2011, Montana Hodges was studying fossil management on public lands as part of her master’s thesis in journalism at the University of Montana. “Originally,” she says, “I was going to do […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Tools ‘R’ Us
Dirt Work: An Education in the WoodsChristine Byl256 pages, hardcover: $24.95.Beacon Press, 2013. Tired of school, broke and eager for a change, Christine Byl took to the woods with a National Park Service trail crew. Through 16 summers of manual labor in Alaska and Montana — maintaining, repairing, designing and building bridges, ditches and trails […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
The Latest: Fish & Wildlife to shoot thousands of barred owls
BackstoryAfter the northern spotted owl hit the endangered species list in 1990, recovery plans focused on curtailing logging in its old-growth habitat. But when the population failed to bounce back, biologists began to consider removing barred owls, a similar Eastern species that’s been invading the spotted owl’s Pacific Northwestern territory. A 2008 recovery plan, later […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
The environmental lawsuit sue-and-settle spin cycle
Are settlements between environmentalists and the federal agencies they sue sweetheart deals?
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Seek nature and ye shall find
The northwest branch of the Chicago River was my watercourse as a boy (“Pilgrim at Shit Creek,” HCN, 7/22/13). It was also polluted, but it was all we had. We rafted it, wading mostly. Since then I’ve gone back in a canoe and found all manner of wildlife — from foxes, deer and coyotes to […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
River tubing mishaps and more
MONTANA What could be more delightful than floating down a lazy river on a summer afternoon in an inner tube? Andy Hill and his wife, Amy, were both avid boaters, but had never tried tubing the Clark Fork River until late this July. All was calm and copacetic as they drifted through East Missoula, when […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Remember us (the American people)?
Rep. Rob Bishop’s initiative to discuss the future of American public land in Utah may be a route toward resolution of many contentious issues (“Red Rock Resolution?” HCN, 7/22/13). He has invited many stakeholders to participate. Funny, all of them live in Utah. We thought these lands belonged to all Americans, not just people in […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
New study questions how Greater Yellowstone bears are counted
Uncertainty over the health of grizzly population arises as officials consider removing it from the Endangered Species list.
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Mourning before departure
The Days Are GodsLiz Stephens206 pages, softcover: $18.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2013. A wistful, at times mournful spirit permeates the 41 brief essays that make up Liz Stephens’ first book, The Days Are Gods. The Oklahoma-born Stephens is a “card-carrying Choctaw tribal member” and recently earned a Ph.D. in creative nonfiction. Her multifaceted memoir is […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Let’s not make a deal
Greg Hanscom’s excellent article in the July 22 edition of HCN gave readers an in-depth look into Utah’s public-land politics (“Red Rock Resolution?”). I was particularly impressed by the description of how the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has operated. SUWA has reportedly been willing to compromise in order to achieve wilderness designation. But unlike public-land […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Gnawing away at invasives
Only 3.2 percent of the 50 million federally owned acres overrun with invasive weeds were treated in 2009. That puts infested land on track to double by 2019. Meanwhile, some conservationists suggest a more palatable strategy: Eat the invaders that are devouring our ecosystems. Unfortunately, some of the West’s most insidious aliens, like tamarisk, may […]