A small mention in a column in my local newspaper last week sent me scurrying to Google and other databases to find out more. The topic? A recent decline in the black-tailed jack rabbit (Lepus californicus) population. Okay, it’s not that I’ve ever been all that interested in jack rabbits, though now I’m kind of ashamed of that. […]
Jack rabbit surprises
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Why do people yearn to possess wolves and other wild animals?
I’m hazy about some of the details, because it happened about 25 years ago, but the essence of what I saw is seared into my mind. As I was driving cross-country on a lonesome two-lane through New Mexico desert, I came upon a forlorn-looking roadside zoo. I saw the sign, felt curious, pulled into the […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Reluctant assassins: A review of The Sisters Brothers
The Sisters BrothersPatrick DeWitt325 pages, hardcover: $24.99.HarperCollins, 2011. Although it’s set during the Gold Rush era, Oregon author Patrick DeWitt’s second novel, The Sisters Brothers, is modern Western noir at its finest. The notorious brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters work as professional hit men. Eli, the narrator, is the good-natured “fat one.” Charlie, a merciless […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Montana’s dirty underbelly
What an outstanding story (HCN, 9/19/11, “Lost Opportunity”). I moved to Montana eight years ago and have seen only snapshots of the full picture. This story is a well-balanced portrayal of a rarely seen, dirty underbelly here in Montana. It avoids the simple sound-bite friendly rhetoric that too often dominates discussion of environmental issues in […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Meditations on craft: A review of What I Learned at Bug Camp
What I Learned at Bug Camp: Essays on Finding a Home in the WorldBy Sarah Juniper Rabkin173 pages, softcover: $15.Juniper Lake Press, 2011. Twenty-some years ago, University of California, Santa Cruz, writing professor Sarah Juniper Rabkin banished us from the classroom and told us to write outside, under a redwood. The assignment left a lasting […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
In the weeds
Amy Whitcomb’s essay really puts the job of eliminating invasive weeds from federal lands into perspective (HCN, 10/17/11, “Among the processes of place”). I have been doing the same for the National Park Service since 2006, traveling all over the Southwest, mostly trying to eliminate tamarisk (saltcedar) and Russian olive. Currently, I am in the […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Forgotten Fossils
On page 3 of the recent issue appear “snapshots” of four national park units’ paleontological resources (HCN, 10/17/11, “A fossil-fueled survey”). Among those highlighted is the 2010 discovery of Barnum Brown’s dinosaur dig sites in Big Bend National Park. After six years as chief ranger of that park (1977-’82), I was assigned to Buffalo National […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Firefighting at fault
In his Oct. 17 editor’s note, Paul Larmer writes: “Meanwhile, gigantic, uncontrolled fires have become more common than ever, largely driven by shifts in climate. Whether caused by lightning, arsonists or negligent campers, these mega-fires are reshaping the West. Smart managers are learning to use them, letting them burn where they can do some ecological […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Energy succeeds where housing developers can’t
If you’re looking for a parable of the post-housing-bust West — where the real estate economy appears to have crumbled while the extraction industry roars back with a vengeance — you might find one in the troubled Banning-Lewis Ranch on Colorado’s sprawling Front Range. The city of Colorado Springs annexed the more than 21,000-acre property, […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
Clean air regulations protect park views by targeting coal plants
An interpretive plaque at the Park Point overlook in southwest Colorado’s Mesa Verde National Park identifies the landscape’s near and distant features. Sleeping Ute Mountain frames Montezuma Valley to the west. Farther east rise the Carrizo Mountains, then the Chuska Range near the Arizona-New Mexico border. In the foreground, a volcanic relic called Shiprock juts […]
Posted inArticles
The times, they are a changin’
Dear Friend: Evolution happens. For the first 25 years of its existence, High Country News delivered its unique blend of in-depth reporting, essays and humor via a black-and-white tabloid printed on newspaper stock. Sometimes the ink got smeared and stained your fingers. In 1995, the “paper” was joined by a website, hcn.org, that served primarily […]
Posted inRange
Where soldiers come from
By Bill Bishop, the Daily Yonder Where Soldiers Come From – New HD Trailer from Heather Courtney on Vimeo. Heather Courtney recalls that she was “frustrated,” troubled by “how small town America was often portrayed in the mainstream media.” She said she wanted to make a movie that would “tell a story about my rural […]
Posted inGoat
Friday news roundup: Sulfide statutes and Jesus statues
EPA reinstates reporting requirements for a poisonous gas To the relief of citizen advocacy groups (and the irritation of industry), the Environmental Protection Agency finalized its decision last week to lift a 17-year-long Administrative Stay on Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) reporting requirements for hydrogen sulfide — a poisonous gas that smells like rotten eggs and […]
Posted inWotr
Wolf on a picnic table
I once saw a wolf, or what I was told was one. It stood on a picnic table in Montana in the late evening sunshine, and 30 or so onlookers gathered around. The wolf was named Kaori. Clipped to a leash attached to her handler’s harness, she was part of an educational program and accustomed […]
Posted inOctober 31, 2011: Omens from a Vanished Sea
Wrestling with a destiny of dryness
When I was a teenager, I asked my father why we wasted our lives irrigating the desert. He wept because his only son didn’t get it. My father inherited his love of the desert from his father, who homesteaded in western Utah and once dug a two-mile ditch from a spring on Indian Mountain to […]
Posted inNovember 14, 2011: Possessing the Wild
A fall crop of visitors
Along with harvesting pears and apples here in HCN‘s hometown of Paonia, Colo., we’ve reaped a bountiful bunch of fall visitors. Subscriber Lynn Lipscomb stopped by our offices to say hello in mid-September. Recently retired, she’s enjoying autumn in the desert at her home in Hurricane, Utah, near Zion National Park. But come winter, she’ll […]
Posted inRange
Dead wolf sprouts wings
Wolves do get around – but none more so than one that was already dead. Wolves are well known in the animal world for roaming long distances. Radio collars equipped with GPS have put new details in this marvel. One Oregon wolf covered nearly 300 miles this fall, simply looking around. Even so, the peregrinations […]