The Northwest’s Columbia River Basin stocks of iconic salmon have been the subject of a heated and expensive court battle for the past decade. Thirteen out of 16 stocks are listed as threatened or endangered thanks to a combination of factors including mining, farming, urban development and most significantly, lots of hydropower dams along the […]
Can salmon save themselves?
Posted inGoat
Tepid statistics as the planet burns
Mired firmly in denial, we seem to be stuck in the first step of Elizabeth Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief about the death of life as we know it on Planet Earth. Adam D. Sacks has an excellent piece on Grist about our lack of urgency about global climate change — and from the […]
Posted inRange
Native voting rights and the West
Of the many findings presented in a recent American Civil Liberties Union report, which concludes that many Indians face discriminatory policies and actions that deny them their constitutional right to vote, poor circumstances facing western tribal citizens tend to stand out. One of the most shocking cases of disenfranchisement highlighted in the report, titled “Voting Rights […]
Posted inWotr
Aldo Leopold might call it the new agrarianism
One hundred years ago, a great American conservationist began a job in the Southwest as a ranger with the U.S. Forest Service. Over the course of an influential career, Aldo Leopold advocated a variety of conservation methods, including wilderness protection, sustainable agriculture, wildlife research, ecological restoration, environmental education, land health, erosion control and watershed management. […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
World’s largest sand trap
Where is a golf-ball-collecting fox when you need one? Although it might take more than one to round up the 3,000 or so golf balls that a 57-year-old man has scattered around Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. Since 2007, Douglas Jones has been “just tossing them out of his vehicle,” a park spokesman […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Water across the Divide
How the failure of an aged ditch got in the way of Wilderness
Posted inRange
Reader Photo: Angel Peak
We’re loving the variety and beauty of the many photos HCN readers are posting up on our Flickr group. This week’s selection was tough, since there are so many amazing images. But the old-timey feel of this image makes it an instant classic – it seems like a snapshot you’d find in an old shoebox […]
Posted inArticles
Slideshow: The tiny creatures of the Great Basin
Springsnails, up close and personal
Posted inRange
New Pew database tracks government subsidies
The Pew Charitable Trust has launched a new effort and website which “aims to raise public awareness about the role of federal subsidies in the economy. Subsidyscope should be useful to Westerners who want to know the details of where federal subsidies are distributed around our region. it has long been observed that – while […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Foxy golfer
Why would a red fox collect golf balls? Nobody knows, but then again, nobody really knows why grown men walk around with sticks trying to wallop them. The fox in question lives in Steamboat Springs where it has become obsessed by Tom Houk’s backyard putting green. Houk, who likes to practice a few putts every […]
Posted inRange
Time for the cows to come home
On October 1st, we trailed 136 cow/calf pairs down Dry Cottonwood Creek and settled them in a stubble field near the Clark Fork River. This cattle drive marked the end of the 2009 grazing season and the beginning of our shift toward winter management of the ranch and herd. Now, with the days getting […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Parties ‘R’ Some Of Us
Even as many Westerners struggle with layoffs, pay cuts, medical bills and other economic troubles, wealthy people in resort towns are whooping it up. That’s the report from the companies that supply banquet tables and chairs, enormous tents, portable dance floors, sound and lighting systems, antler chandeliers, artificial trees, eruptions of flowers and other party-throwing […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Audubon feathers fly in Arizona
Huge mine proposal deepens schism between state’s green groups
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Welcome, new HCN employees
In August, Mike Maxwell became our new Web and IT manager. Mike maintains the HCN Web site, analyzes web traffic data, and advises the managers on online marketing strategy. Mike, who has a B.A. in political science from the University of Colorado at Denver, has been in Paonia for three years now with his partner, […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
That shrinking feeling
As a mountaineering instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), I have spent a significant amount of time living and traveling on North Cascades glaciers over the past five years. I just returned from a 10-day mountaineering course on Mount Baker to see Ana Maria Spagna’s essay, “Living on Glacial Time,” and the article […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Merit, more broadly defined
Ray Ring’s article “Is Obama’s goal of diversity trumping other goals?” suggests that the administration’s decision to hire minorities for key governmental positions compromises environmental goals in favor of ethnic diversity (HCN, 8/17/09). While there are undoubtedly some traditional “heavy hitter” white men who would merit these positions, merit in this context should be understood […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
“A blip on the radar screen”
I find the Uncommon Westerners column frustrating at times because it seems like filler with no real rhyme or reason. For instance, the latest personality, Guiseppena Bellandi, certainly had a story as to how she came west, but her life seems like a blip on the radar screen, with no real impact on how she […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
‘Leave no trace’ art
AGE 21 HOMETOWN Whittier, Calif. VOCATION Junior; majoring in sculpture at Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City HCN SUBSCRIBER SINCE 2004 Installation artist Levi Jackson prefers to work early in the morning to catch the best light for photographing his ephemeral, site-specific works. On a May morning, Levi drove to a desert plateau outside Caineville, […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Finding the middle ground
Comment on Writers on the Range column at hcn.org, “Conservationists wrong to oppose wolf hunt” by Mike Medberry Mike Medberry’s column on reasonable wolf management is a breath of fresh air. I too think there is a lot of middle ground for responsible management. But the states sure haven’t shown that intention, and I suppose […]