Both proponents and opponents of predator control claim to have science on their side. But as Alaskan journalist Craig Medred tells us in this episode of High Country Views, the actual science — and all of its complexities — is often lost in the debate. You can catch High Country Views approximately every other week. […]
Craig Medred on predator-prey science
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Cy-board meeting
In late January, the High Country News board of directors met via Web and phone. With a headset and a smile, Board President Florence Williams marched more than a dozen board and staff members through an agenda that included finances, editorial direction, marketing capacity and what skills the board would like to add to its […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Craig Childs walks with desert ghosts on the Navajo Nation
The dogs are getting closer, barking through junipers about a half-mile away. We douse our small can stove, scoop the rest of breakfast into our mouths, and within two minutes are gone. The day before, we were dropped off on a dirt two-track where we hopped a gate and smuggled ourselves into the wilderness atop […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Collateral damage
When the Killing’s DoneT.C. Boyle384 pages, hardcover: $ 26.95.Viking, 2011. One of the West’s most prolific and trenchant novelists returns to a theme he previously explored in Tooth and Claw and A Friend of the Earth: our interactions with nature and their repercussions. T.C. Boyle’s characters often root for the environment. The tension and narrative […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Alaska ho!
Here at High Country News, we’re even more charged up than usual: This issue has our first cover story exploring the rough terrain of Alaska’s environmental politics. The only other cover story we’ve devoted to Alaska analyzed Bering Sea crab fishing, in July 2009. You might wonder why a 41-year-old news operation focused on the […]
Posted inGoat
Yet another tar-sands hazard
Ever hear of “DilBit”? It sounds like a new kind of snack pickle, or maybe a little cat owned by Dilbert, the geeky cartoon character. Actually, it’s something far less benign – the raw oil extracted from tar sands development in Canada. Diluted bitumen (also known as “DilBit”) … is significantly more acidic and corrosive […]
Posted inRange
More of the same for the great outdoors
by Laura E. Huggins Earlier this week, the Obama administration released its much-anticipated report on the America’s Great Outdoors initiative. The report is the culmination of 51 listening sessions held over the past year by administration officials to gather ideas on land management and outdoor recreation from across the country. The result, however, is just […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West – Image 7
The west side of the Colorado Rockies has its own unique weather patterns. Winter storms that smother the mountains to the east in dense, gray clouds, often break up over the valleys, leaving seams of clear sky that, at sundown, produce spectacular light shows. This shot includes a lower flank of Grand Mesa above Hotchkiss, […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Plenty of wood in the pile
Recently, as I was starting home on foot, a neighbor who lives up the road from me stopped at the row of mailboxes along the highway. He knows that if I want a ride, I’ll ask. So instead, he says, “How’s your wood pile?” “Getting low. Yours?” He has a big truck, a big chainsaw, […]
Posted inRange
Climate Models Suggest Tough Future for Wolverines
By Kylee Perez, 2-17-11 Wolverines are notoriously difficult to find in the wild. As climate change begins to threaten their dens in the United States, researchers say the animals could become even more rare. New studies from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the U.S. Forest service suggest that climate change will begin to […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
“Hey, that’s my hay”
NEVADA “Forget the needle; it’s the haystack that Nevada sheriff’s deputies are looking for,” reports The Associated Press. Thieves driving a long-bed pickup have been swiping hay at night, targeting a ranch about 15 miles southeast of Elko, Nev. In the third and latest incident, some 2,000 pounds of hay disappeared from the ranch where […]
Posted inGoat
Fish (farm) on
If you dine on salmon in the Rockies, you’re used to having fish travel by interstate to your dinner plate. But even if you live on the coast, don’t be surprised if your next succulent fillet actually comes from the other side of the planet. Unless a menu says “wild,” the seafood special probably grew […]
Posted inWotr
Monsanto wins, for now
The Obama administration struck a blow against freedom for food and agriculture in late January, when the U.S. Agriculture Department deregulated genetically modified alfalfa seed. The agency’s decision threatens to deprive farmers of the right to produce milk and meat free of genetic tampering, and it also threatens the right of consumers to purchase unadulterated […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2011: Obama and the West
Rural California schoolkids learn from fire-damaged forest
Sidney Deschenes is still haunted by the Moonlight Fire of 2007: The clouds of choking smoke that blew down from flaming mountains onto the valley that’s been her home since kindergarten. The rain of embers that ignited spot fires near homes at the edge of the forest and forced her family to evacuate three times. […]
Posted inRange
Will new brucellosis rules let the bison roam?
by Holly Fretwell As hundreds of bison make their annual winter migration out of Yellowstone National Park, most are hazed back into the park. Others are captured, quarantined, and occasionally slaughtered. This year, more than 500 bison are being held by state and federal officials. If the bison test positive for brucellosis, a disease that […]
Posted inRange
Western brain drain
Western states are among the leaders in a category that isn’t a good one to be a leader in — a “brain drain.” That’s the word from 24/7 Wall Street, which bills itself as providing “Insightful Analysis and Commentary for U.S. & Global Equity Investors.” The firm’s study looked at factors like standardized math and […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Evolution not revolution
I appreciate your highlighting the Bureau of Land Management’s efforts to invigorate its National Landscape Conservation System (HCN, 12/20/10). After 10 years, there have certainly been mixed results, as you pointed out in your reference to the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument and its fluid mineral leasing program. But I think it’s important to […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Putting the ‘cow’ back in ‘cow-town’
Thank you so much for the excellent article on poultry slaughterhouses and the local food movement (HCN, 1/24/11). In Denver, Colo., we are trying to remove the disincentives to backyard agriculture that the city and county adopted several decades ago when they successfully transformed Denver from a cow town into a culture-rich city. Now that […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Salmon got your tongue?
Judith Lewis Mernit’s “Obama and the West” was strangely silent on the administration’s track record on Northwest salmon (HCN, 2/7/11). Maybe that’s because it doesn’t fit neatly into the theme of “slow but steady progress.” Columbia Basin salmon — and the communities that rely on them — have suffered mightily since the nation’s first salmon […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2011: Palin, politics, and predator control
Political animals
In a recent op-ed, Denver Bryan, a self-described “hunter, conservationist, and also a supporter of wolves taking their rightful place in the West,” fell in step with the backlash politics of Western wildlife policy. (See Denver Bryan’s Writers on the Range opinion piece in fullhttp://www.hcn.org/wotr/yes-to-wolves-but-not-so-many.) He began by declaring that legitimate conservation groups are trying […]