Wildlife of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
BLM plans for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska
On a chilly June afternoon several years ago, I sat for hours on a muddy sandbar, entranced as a seemingly endless procession of migrating caribou swam across a northwestern Alaska river. The air was filled with splashing, the grunting of cows, the answering calls of their calves. Perhaps some 2,000 animals passed by. You might […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
At home with the oil rigs
Coming down from Gaviota Pass, it’s the ocean I see first. But I look past the waves and ignore the distant Channel Islands, searching for the landmarks that tell me I’m really home. When I fly, my eyes search for these other islands, too, as we bank and straighten out, bound for the runway. They […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
A review of Last Water on the Devil’s Highway: A cultural and natural history of Tinajas Altas
Last Water on the Devil’s Highway: A cultural and natural history of Tinajas Altas Bill Broyles, Gayle Harrison Hartmann, Thomas E. Sheridan, Gary Paul Nabhan, Mary Charlotte Thurtle 240 pages, hardcover: $49.95. The University of Arizona Press, 2012. Last Water on the Devil’s Highway is the story of a waterhole that, for centuries, has kept […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
Canadian government cuts pollution research that’s crucial in the U.S.
EXPERIMENTAL LAKES AREA, ONTARIO To reach Lake 658, you leave the Trans-Canada Highway in the moose-ridden backwoods of western Ontario, creep down a teeth-jarring gravel road, follow a trail to a different lake, hop onto a motorboat and then take a short hike to 658’s granite shoreline. The water is crystal-clear, and yet a sign […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
A sampler of U.S. environmentalists working in British Columbia
Mitch Friedman, head of Conservation Northwest, a Washington-based group whose advocacy reaches into British Columbia, has an unusual way of estimating the strength of the environmental movement: by the number of “activists per square mile.” In B.C., he says, that number is “very low — there are whole mountain ranges without a single citizen watchdog, […]
Posted inDecember 24, 2012: The new Wild, Wild West
A different borderland blues
(This editor’s note accompanies a story exposing a British Columbia mining rush that threatens salmon rivers flowing through Southeast Alaska.) When I first ventured into environmental journalism in the early 1980s, one of the hottest Western controversies was coming down in the temperate rainforests of the Alaska panhandle, bordering Canada’s westernmost province, British Columbia. Two […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
Date with a climate-change denier
He was tall and cute and the perfect amount of awkward. Our first date was on a balmy Tucson evening in January. I scootched back in my chair and crossed my legs beneath my sundress as he asked, “What do you write about?” “Right now, I’m writing a lot about food.” “Oooh!” he said. “Like […]
Posted inGoat
Boom, bust, yawn
There’s nothing new about a natural resource boom and its ugly twin, the bust. When reporting on how these economic hurricanes blow through communities, writers tend to tell similar narratives. First, there’s the sepia-toned photo of what the place used to look like, maybe a quote or two from some old-timer at the local diner […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Portlandia, Utah?
UTAH Perhaps you saw the Portlandia episode where an animal-loving couple, upset about a dog tied up outside a chi-chi restaurant, searches for its owner, tries to feed it upscale goodies like mussels, then finally releases the dog, much to the owners’ dismay. That’s sort of what happened in Salt Lake City, Utah, not long […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
Turning dead deer into good soil
Viewed from several yards away, the fragments of fur and bone woven through the pile of woodchips gave it an oddly debonair appearance, like some sort of macabre tweed. We didn’t detect a whiff of anything nasty — until we walked downwind of a recently disturbed mound. “That must be the five deer we picked […]
Posted inGoat
What’s the matter with New Mexico
The silence here is as big as the sky. It’s early December, and I’ve pulled to the side of the road, next to the shell of an old service station, its adobe walls well on their way to returning from whence they came. I listen to nothingness, and look around for signs of population in […]
Posted inGoat
‘Twas The Night Before Christmas’ Environmental Impact Statement
Executive Summary: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security proposes to allow an action described in the poem Twas The Night Before Christmas. Excerpting some quotes from the poem, the action would be “a miniature sleigh … full of toys” hooked to “eight tiny reindeer” capable of flight, being driven through the sky over the U.S. […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
As it goes high-tech, wildlife biology loses its soul
In 1978, I was researching one of my first wildlife stories, working along the North Fork of the Flathead River in northwestern Montana, one of the wildest places in the Lower 48. A wolf was believed to be prowling into Montana from British Columbia –– an important discovery if true, because wolves had been absent […]
Posted inRange
Natural resources and the fiscal cliff
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As even people living in a cave know by now, if Congress doesn’t strike a deal soon, some combination of automatic tax hikes and draconian budget cuts will kick in. As early as January 2, the first round of sequestration cuts will be triggered. I’ve heard little discussion […]
Posted inGoat
Predator control ain’t easy
I recently returned from a wolf hunt. The trip was part of my research for an upcoming story on how wolves, once endangered, are now being managed in the Rocky Mountains. Our experience of managing predators in the West goes far beyond wolves, however. There’s plenty circulating in the news on this topic right now; […]
Posted inGoat
The future of our forests
I recently got an email from a reader who was considering moving to Flagstaff. With its excellent bike trails, university, and a populace full of outdoor nuts, it sounded like a pretty nice spot. So he paid a visit, and while there, sought out the answer to a big question: “I needed to know when 100 […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
Can the oyster industry survive ocean acidification?
For four frustrating months in 2007, Mark Wiegardt and his wife, Sue Cudd, witnessed something unsettling at their Oregon oyster hatchery: tank bottoms littered with dead baby oysters. Usually, the larvae are grown until they’re three weeks old and a quarter of a millimeter in size — 10 million bunched together are roughly the size […]
Posted inWotr
A no-nonsense kitchen for Christmas
Based on the variety of ice cream scoops on the market –1,529 available from Amazon alone — you might conclude that the world faces a crisis of improperly excavated ice cream. I think it’s more a symptom of our love affair with cooking gadgetry combined with our ever-larger kitchens. We now easily accommodate toys like […]