As I pointed out last year, under our federal constitution and various court decisions, American states don’t any power to determine who is or isn’t legally within their borders. That’s a federal responsibility. That doesn’t stop states from trying, though. There’s the well-known Arizona immigration law, which requires local police to ask for the papers […]
Arizona the trendsetter?
Posted inGoat
Mustang management gets an overhaul
Roughly 37,000 wild horses and burros roam the West’s public lands — about 40 percent more than the feds think those lands can sustain. But the Bureau of Land Management’s efforts to round them up and adopt them out have been costly, ineffective and unpopular, with critics charging that horses are unnecessarily harmed and even […]
Posted inWotr
A fish tale in the land of Oz
The most expensive and protracted battle over an endangered species is at last approaching its day of reckoning in Portland, Ore. Sometime this spring, federal District Court Judge James Redden will decide the terms of a recovery plan for some two dozen endangered salmon stocks in the Columbia River Basin. Like the famous Boldt Decision […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Western wildlife commissions on the chopping block
In Washington and New Mexico, state wildlife commissions could become a thing of the past. As part of their budget-trimming measures, both states’ legislatures are considering bills that would do away with the commissions’ power to set regulations and policy for managing fish and wildlife. In theory, wildlife commissions, found in every Western state, allow […]
Posted inBlog
Rising gas prices hurt poor most of all
Of course this issue isn’t that simple. Here in the interior West, especially in suburban and rural areas, we couldn’t ease up very much on our dependence on gasoline powered vehicles, no matter how much we wanted to.
Posted inRange
How green is your wind farm?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House Somewhere in the California desert, the Mohave ground squirrel is safe from solar panels, for now. After being sued over concerns for the critter, the developer Solar Millennium withdrew plans for its 250-megawatt solar station. It’s just one of a flurry of legal protests to several large-scale solar […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Wild lives and wildlife
IDAHO Some poachers don’t understand the meaning of the word, or maybe they just can’t accept that they can be caught in the act. Rex Rammell, a Republican who recently ran for governor of Idaho, was stopped by a state Fish and Game agent last November just as he was hauling out an elk he’d […]
Posted inWotr
A uranium mill makes no sense in western Colorado
I drink water straight from the tap. Generally, if someone tells me something is safe, I accept that it probably is. So I’d love to be relaxed about the proposed Piñon Ridge uranium mill just outside of Naturita, Colo., but I can’t. The mill, whose permit was recently approved by the state’s health department, is […]
Posted inGoat
Top-Down Land Management
Those who saw the March 1 hearing on Interior Secretary Salazar’s “Wild Lands” order may not have learned much about wilderness preservation’s impact on Western jobs — as the hearing’s title suggested — but they did, at least, witness a brilliant display of congressional snark. “The reality is,” said Congressman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) addressing his state’s […]
Posted inBlog
An atlas of equity
Portland, OR often receives credit for green leadership, but that doesn’t mean that the city is free from environmental risks. Like anywhere else, the commerce, industry and daily activities of millions of people in Portland’s metropolitan area combine to strain the environment; and, like in any city, Portland’s disparate neighborhoods don’t feel these strains evenly. […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
In Navajoland, a contentious water deal divides the tribe
The Navajo Nation sprawls across about one-tenth of the nearly quarter-million-square-mile Colorado River drainage. But ever since the seven states that depend on the river met to divide its water 88 years ago, the tribe has been pushed into the shadows of river politics. About 40 percent of the reservation’s roughly 170,000 residents still don’t […]
Posted inGoat
Ozone in the air
Ah, fresh desert air, scented with sage, heady with …. ozone?? This winter, rural parts of Utah and Wyoming with lots of energy development have sometimes had higher levels of unhealthy ozone than big metropolitan areas like L.A.and Salt Lake City. Back in 2008, the Bureau of Land Management released a plan to manage 1.8 […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Jeff Rice on documenting the West in sound
Hear the sounds Jeff Rice collects around the West and learn about why he does it. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. Available via our RSS feed, and for download now through iTunes.
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Educate on!
I graduated from Greenville High School in 1997, and I wish the natural resources program had been offered back then (HCN, 2/7/11). We need more of this type of education in our schools — and we need it soon. The more we get kids involved in caring for and studying natural resources, the brighter the […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
A rose by any other name …
I’m curious as to why HCN‘s editors printed Craig Childs’ ghostwalking essay (HCN, 2/21/2011). By his own admission, Mr. Childs’ escapade took place in an “off-limits” area, where access was permitted “as long as nobody sees you.” Deliberately entering it was trespassing, pure and simple. Romanticizing Mr. Childs’ blatant disregard for the rights of others […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
Predator control’s unsustainable roots
Tracy Ross’ story was a good first look at the politics of predator control (HCN, 2/21/2011). One thing this article missed, however, is the fact that politics also drives the overexploitation of moose and caribou by the hunting industry. Game managers are under intense pressure to allow unsustainable harvests. Add to the mix a for-profit […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2011: High Tension
More hunters, more dollars
As an avid hunter and wildlife enthusiast, I read your recent feature on Alaska’s predator control program with keen interest (HCN, 2/21/2011). Surprisingly, neither writer seems to have grasped the dirty little secret that underlies modern day wildlife management: It’s not about wildlife, it’s about hunter opportunity. Put simply, anything that negatively impacts huntable populations […]
Posted inBlog
U.N. human rights expert visits California tribe
Arron Sisk took the smoldering sunflower root and undulated it from Catarina de Albuquerque’s feet to the top of her head, its pungent smoke curling above her like a spectral crown. He then held it beneath her nose, and told her the root would clear her mind from bad thoughts, allow her to see and […]
Posted inArticles
Defriending Joe Hill: Stegner’s lesson for the Oscars
Like most people who write about the West, I think about Wallace Stegner a lot. He’s like a brilliant, beloved, occasionally exasperating uncle. He said many things first and best, and, though he could get a bit stuffy at times, we youngsters have to admit that — even now, almost two decades after his death […]
Posted inGoat
First Signs of Spring
We asked our HCN Facebook community what signs of spring they were seeing (or looking for) in their corner of the West. Several of you mentioned birds, including western meadowlarks — which have already started singing in earnest here in Western Colorado — sandhill cranes and and mountain bluebirds. Beth Pratt, who took the photo […]