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 […]
More of the same for the great outdoors
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 […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: The Ghost of Silver Hills
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. A decade ago, when we first scouted the rural high country where we ultimately bought land and built our home, there weren’t many folks out here from whom to get stories of whatever might […]
Posted inBlog
Will the EJ legacy of Southwest coal be addressed?
I have been busy this year chasing my two young ones around the house trying to get giddy little happy people to take a few moments from their daily joy to drink some water, gulp vitamins and brush their teeth before bed so they can stay healthy. The need to play is often prioritized over […]
Posted inGoat
Coal in the courts
When environmentalists began taking the climate change fight to the courts, their focus was strategically narrow. In the early part of this decade, most climate-related lawsuits focused on taking out the most immediate threat: new coal-fired power plants. It was a logical approach; had a slew of new plants come online, “they would’ve overwhelmed any […]
Posted inGoat
The birds and the blades
Driving through rolling hills into California’s Bay Area on Interstate 580, it’s impossible to miss the thousands of windmills spinning in the incessant breeze off the Pacific. The Altamont wind farm, built during the 1970s oil crisis, was an early example of the West’s clean energy potential. But there’s a startling unintended consequence of all […]