This letter is in response to an online-only piece from our community blog, the Range, entitled: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? In all the years that this hysteria against wolves has gone on and escalated, it’s impossible not to conclude that it comes from some really scary (and scared) pathology, an atavistic enmity […]
Quit yer whinin’
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Gone wolf-crazy
This letter is in response to an online-only piece from our community blog, the Range, entitled: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? As an ecologist, it’s frustrating to see so many folks so wolf-crazy. Don’t get me wrong: I like wolves. I remember all the times I’ve seen wolves fondly. But, as Smith says, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
A textbook recovery
This letter is in response to an online-only piece from our community blog, the Range, entitled: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? You’d be hard-pressed to find a biologist who would characterize the Northern Rockies wolf population as anything other than recovered. This is a textbook case of how recovery is supposed to work. […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Profile: Bethany Cotton, Center for Biological Diversity
A crowd of several dozen lawyers met in a recent D.C. federal court hearing to consider the question: Should the government limit carbon emissions to slow climate change and save sea-ice habitat for polar bears? Some represented the Obama administration, while others were there on behalf of Alaska’s government, the oil industry or environmental groups. […]
Posted inGoat
A new day dawning?
At times, it seemed that peace would never break out in southern Utah. At least not when it came to wilderness. As Jim Stiles, a long-time chronicler of Utah wilderness battles, wrote in an HCN opinion piece last year, “Bullheadedness is what defines both environmentalists and those locals who’d rather see coal mining or oil […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Rare-earth reality check
Not far from Devils Tower in the Black Hills of eastern Wyoming, work crews are preparing to drill dozens of new holes amid ponderosa pines and rolling meadows. But they’re not looking for gold. Instead, they hope to strike neodymium, europium and other exotic-sounding rare earth metals — a group of 15 elements, plus two […]
Posted inRange
It’s Raining Rain Gardens
By Lisa Stiffler, Sightline.org Researchers have pointed the finger at stormwater runoff as the top source of pollution that’s getting into Puget Sound and other Northwest waterways. And because runoff comes from just about everywhere — roofs, roadways, parking lots, farms, and lawns — the solution has to be just as widespread. Enter 12,000 Rain […]
Posted inGoat
Western pine beetles munch eastward
Now that the mountain pine beetle has chewed through some 70,000 square miles of forest in the western States and Canada, it seems the voracious pest is expanding its palate. Beetles in Canada were recently discovered attacking jack pines (Pinus banksiana) for the first time, a break from their usual diet of lodgepole (Pinus contorta), […]
Posted inWotr
This Earth Day, it’s all about the air
As we prepare to mark the 41st annual celebration of Earth Day, we can thank Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and other Democrats for beating back the most recent attacks on the Clean Air Act. Perhaps America’s most successful environmental safeguard, this law has protected human health and the environment for four decades. Today, it’s emerging […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
The sign maker
When you arrive in town, anywhere in Stehekin, his signs are the first thing you see. On slabs of wood chainsaw-ripped and elegantly routed, in rustic block print or flowing cursive, Phil’s signs are never stenciled, never sloppy. They mark the post office, the school, the bakery. They mark trailheads and trail junctions. They are, […]
Posted inGoat
Water Sharing in the Over-shared West
If you were to trace the dips and rises in water sales across the American West onto a graph, the line would fall in synch with basic economics. In a recession, when dollars are scarce, water transactions are few and far between. But when a region booms, freeing up cash for all kinds of development, […]
Posted inRange
Colorado may extend bear season
Colorado’s official state mammal is the bighorn sheep, but if you go by which wild critter gets the most attention from state government lately, it would be the black bear. In 1992, state voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative which eliminated the spring bear-hunting season by outlawing bear hunting between March 1 and Sept. 1. The […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
“Sign up now, get free gun.”
MONTANA What’s next — offering a free derringer with every mammogram or a free Uzi with the purchase of a La-Z-Boy? You just might see it happen, because guns sell. The managers of a Radio Shack in Hamilton, Mont., found that out after they placed a giant sign above their Super Store: “Protect yourself with […]
Posted inWotr
Journeys we take at home
Every day, I hear the same thing from parents whose children have grown up. “Enjoy it while you can,” they tell me. “It goes so fast.” With a 3-year-old boy, Elias, who consistently wakes up in the middle of the night “needing sumfin” and a 6-year-old girl, Willa, who also wakes up frequently, saying “I […]
Posted inGoat
Sustainable ag education loses funding
The U.S. government has long been in the business of supporting education for farmers. In 1914, Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act, which formalized a system of agriculture education that is still ongoing. Known as cooperative extension, it was a partnership between the U.S Department of Agriculture and the land grant colleges. The partnership allowed the […]
Posted inRange
Time is running out for the Grand Canyon
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House On July 21, a moratorium on staking new uranium and other hardrock mining claims on over one million acres of public land near the Grand Canyon National Park, will end. Unless the Department of the Interior makes a decision on the land withdrawal prior to that–which seems unlikely, […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Sedimentation is a building problem in the West’s reservoirs
Gary Esslinger, manager of Elephant Butte Irrigation District in southern New Mexico, spends as much time moving silt as he does water. Elephant Butte Reservoir, built in 1915, is fed by the naturally muddy Rio Grande, which drains 28,000 square miles of easily eroded desert in two states. Sediment has claimed 600,000 acre-feet of its […]
Posted inGoat
Sublime tourist trap or logistical nightmare?
Take a moment to consider the greats: The world’s largest ketchup bottle in Collinsville, Illinois. (Photo courtesy of Max Stahl) Carhenge in Alliance, Nebraska. (Photo courtesy of Ian, a.k.a. Sandstep).
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
The SWOP letter
Signed by 100 people of color, charging racism in the environmental movement
Posted inWotr
The wall along our southern border is a joke
In the minds of many Americans, the U.S. border with Mexico has become the heart of darkness, a place wracked with violence and beyond the reach of the law. Politicians play up these fears with legislation such as the bill introduced last month by California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, which would require hundreds of miles […]