Editor’s note: These stories were produced for High Country News by students in the University of Montana’s online news class. They will be running over a period of two weeks in the Range blog. See a list of all the stories here. By Tor Haugan When bestselling alternative-history writer Harry Turtledove published a recent novel, […]
Exploring the myths of the Yellowstone supervolcano
Posted inRange
Boy Scout habitat takes a hit in Idaho
The US Forest Service maintains habitat for endangered owls and salmon — so why is the agency retreating when it comes to habitat for Boy Scouts? Today, the Idaho Panhandle National Forest is reviewing its forest plan, including its plan for one of the most special places it manages — the Mallard-Larkin Area. Mallard-Larkin is […]
Posted inGoat
Green Revolution 2.0? Using molecular markers to speed up Mendel
In agricultural technology circles, when talk turns to plant breeding as a way to boost crop yields, combat plant diseases, and adapt to a hotter, drier world, genetic modification has frequently dominated the conversation. This includes the Roundup-ready suite of crops, resistant to herbicides, or BT corn and soy, which are modified to manufacture their […]
Posted inGoat
Good news for pine, bad news for spruce
For years now, towns in the Mountain West have watched as the green needles of their surrounding lodgepole pine forests turned a burnt orange. That orange signifies the tree’s death from pine bark beetle, a native pest whose populations have been boosted by climate change, resulting in the killing of enormous swaths of trees across […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: reporter spies and Bryce Canyon coal mine
Annals of paranoia Vigilantes in Nevada cracked an alleged Los Angeles Times spy network last weekend, revealing the identity of an undercover ‘reporter,’ Ashley Powers. Disguised beneath her press pass issued by the Clark County GOP and madly scratching words in a suspicious yellow notepad, the proud, alert citizens of Nevada precinct #1721 properly “uncovered” […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
A young wolf wanders the West
As 2011 came to a close, a wolf that biologists call “OR-7” made history by loping across the Oregon border into Northern California. He was the first wild wolf seen in that state since 1924. But that’s only one of OR-7’s milestones. Two months earlier, he became the first wolf in over 50 years to […]
Posted inWotr
When an avalanche comes calling
On Jan. 24, an avalanche raced down the slopes of Mount Taylor, a 10,352-foot peak in Wyoming’s Teton Range. You might think this is hardly worth mentioning, since thousands of avalanches scour mountainsides in the West each winter. The Mount Taylor avalanche, however, has launched a flurry of debate in the world of backcountry skiing […]
Posted inGoat
Seal Stories from the Pribilof, middle of everywhere
Stiff winds blow over the treeless islands of St. Paul and St. George, over 300 miles from mainland Alaska. The Pribilof Islands, breeding grounds to the northern fur seal in the middle of the Bering Sea, seem unlikely actors in world events. “People come and say, ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere,’” says Aquilina Lestenkof, […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Ready-made solar houses
COLORADO AND THE WESTWouldn’t it be grand if you could live in a house that never racked up a single electric bill? Some homeowners have pursued that goal by retrofitting their homes with solar or wind power, though it’s not easy to achieve the wondrous state of “net-zero” — defined as any building that produces […]
Posted inRange
Air quality and energy development
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House It used to be that oil and gas development happened somewhere ‘out there’ in rural areas that most of us living in the highly-populated areas of the Rockies didn’t think much about. But now that tapping domestic fuel sources is being supported on all political levels, that development is encroaching on cities […]
Posted inWotr
Nothing to lose but your leash
On a gorgeous sunny morning at a cross-country ski area on the California-Nevada border, the parking lot was full. So why was I the only one skiing while marveling at the deep blue waters of Lake Tahoe? The hut at the end of the trail sat lonely in the sun, waiting for skiers. Had everyone […]
Posted inWotr
The education of an oyster farmer
My brother, Adam, and I grew up working summers on our family’s oyster farm on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. In between a few epic mud fights, we picked oysters, dug clams and learned a lot about the tides, hard work and the proper use of sunscreen. But when we took over managing the farm five years […]
Posted inGoat
The buzz on bees
Since 2005, the nation’s honeybees have been on a fast track to oblivion. Thousands of once-thriving, humming hives of pollinators have become empty husks, their inhabitants vanished. Scientists have been racing to pin down the culprits behind what’s known as Colony Collapse Disorder. So far, they’ve implicated a parasitic mite, an immune deficiency disorder, and […]
Posted inGoat
Martinez making her mark
updated 2/9/12 “New Mexico Governor Rushes to Undo the Agenda of Her Predecessor“ That headline ran in the New York Times last August, about eight months after Susana Martinez, a republican, took the helm from Bill Richardson, a democrat. Martinez had just sold the gubernatorial jet for a cool $2.5 million, and in one of […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
John Mionczynski: naturalist, accordionist, and Bigfoot expert
ATLANTIC CITY, WYOMINGOn an overcast August afternoon, John Mionczynski is crouched underneath an aspen by the porch of his one-room log cabin, attending to his motorcycle’s broken headlight. Over 30 years ago, he assembled this machine using pieces from four different BMWs — a 1951, ’53, ’63 and ’65. He named it “Serendipity.” “Whenever I […]
Posted inArticles
The postal service is slipping away
On many days, it seems as though the things I like best about our country are all under attack: public lands, the Bill of Rights, passenger trains and the U.S. Postal Service. Especially if you live in the boondocks of the West, the Postal Service means more to you than it does to most urban […]
Posted inRange
Lessons From the Musselshell: The Flood
Editor’s note: This is the third blog in a series by contributor Wendy Beye, chronicling a restoration effort on Montana’s Musselshell River. Montana’s 2010-2011 winter was a skier’s delight. Snow began piling up early, and continued to fall in record amounts through March. In April, when the expectation at this latitude is that snow will […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
Viva la revolución!
I read with interest “Growing a Revolution” in the Nov. 28 issue by Jennifer Langston. While that approach certainly has great merit, there are other approaches to getting local food to local neighborhoods that can be equally successful. I am on the board of trustees of St. Luke’s Health Initiatives in Phoenix, and we have […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
The suburban squeeze
I find the perilous journey across Wyoming’s energy fields to be far less harmful to the well-being of pronghorns than the rampant development along Colorado’s Front Range and elimination of their habitat entirely (HCN, 12/12/11 & 1/9/12, “Perilous Passages”). Try finding a pronghorn anywhere south and west of Greeley, in a huge range that they […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 2012: Can evolution help snowshoe hares adapt to climate change?
Searching for the truth about American Indians: A review of All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos)
All Indians Do Not Live In Teepees (or Casinos)Catherine C. Robbins408 pages, softcover: $26.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2011. “This is a personal book,” Catherine C. Robbins writes in the preface to All Indians Do Not Live In Teepees (or Casinos), a collection of her journalistic essays. Robbins is not Indian, but she is also “not […]