The day before the first-ever official wolf hunt started in Idaho on Sept. 1, I stood on the sidewalk outside the county courthouse in Sandpoint, watching cars stream into town. As demonstrators on the sidewalk waved placards protesting the hunt, people in those vehicles reacted, and I focused on their hands, counting waves and thumbs-up […]
Wolves don’t belong on the firing line
Posted inArticles
Water and the National Parks
What you probably won’t learn about America’s best idea
Posted inWotr
An ecological dilemma
It took the power of two flashlights to discover the source of the metallic screech that had been keeping us up nights. There, on the top of a telephone pole, sat a chunky juvenile great horned owl, plaintively calling for its parents to come feed it. But then my attention turned to the ground below […]
Posted inGoat
Light bulbs and big government
The precise number of people who recently rallied in Washington, D.C., for a national “tea party” is hard to come by. Left-wing reports have it at less than a hundred thousand participants, while some right-wingers put it over a million. Whatever the count, it was refreshing that so many people were concerned about […]
Posted inRange
Taxing the logic of tribal health benefits
WASHINGTON – There is near universal agreement: the Indian Health Service needs more money. At the National Indian Health Board Consumer Conference last week several members of the U.S. Senate and House were critical of the historic under-funding of IHS. These were Democrats, Republicans, some representing Indian country constituents, others from districts with no reservations […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Serpentine Siamese Split
The cow that belonged to the aforementioned tongue didn’t fare very well except, perhaps, as carne asada. But a rather unusual pair of rattlesnakes is doing just fine after a 45-minute surgery at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum outside of Tucson. The two snakes were found as one – conjoined just below the head – […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
Bicycles, books and beer
How a man with no plan built a community around literature and social activism
Posted inGoat
Relocation is a loaded term
There has been little noise made about the EPA’s relocation of seven Navajo families living near the former Church Rock uranium mine in northwestern New Mexico. Scouring the Internet, I could only find one brief article in the Gallup Independent. The news was brought to my attention last week, when Cally Carswell and I met […]
Posted inWotr
Trapping is one tradition that ought to go
Every 20 years in Montana, more than a million bobcats, otters, wolverines, fishers, pine martens, otters, fox and other furry critters are exterminated from Montana’s forests and streams. Collateral damage includes the endangered Canada lynx, eagles and bears — not to mention all the dogs and cats unwittingly snared in traps. But a ballot initiative […]
Posted inWotr
Conservationists wrong to oppose wolf hunt
Wolves have recovered, and it’s time for more rational management
Posted inHeard Around the West
Animal Farm Gone Crazy
At first glance, it seemed like just another mundane story about horse massacres and the role they will play in starting the next American Revolution. Then we dug deeper and learned the details about the ex-CIA agent and his hog-tied co-worker, not to mention the duck-killing dog. Ultimately, we confronted the dark truth of the […]
Posted inRange
Exempting Native Americans from the mandate
There is growing consensus about a key element of health care reform: a requirement that you must buy health insurance. The idea is that the insurance pools would be less expensive if every American were included – especially younger, healthier workers who for a variety of reasons decide not to buy insurance. The reform proposals […]
Posted inWotr
If you want to support wildlife, support ranching
An old friend of mine once said, “Sometimes Wyoming people would rather fight than win.” He’s right, of course. Even though there are only about 500,000 of us and our state does feel more like a small town with long streets, and even if I don’t know you — though there’s a good chance that […]
Posted inGoat
Sen. Baucus’ healthcare plan
The political comedian Bill Maher this week told President Obama to act on behalf of the “70 percent of Americans who are not crazy” and go ahead with his agenda, instead of trying to please enough Republicans to make a bill bipartisan. The Democratic senator from Montana, Max Baucus, might heed this advice as well. […]
Posted inSeptember 14, 2009: Home
The sky is a crowded attic
An interview with novelist Andrew Sean Greer
Posted inWotr
Building brainpower on the cheap
It is not a nice day. The temperature is in the 50s and it is overcast and sprinkling. Through the ponderosa pines I can see that the mountains to the west are sprinkled with white. It will not be long before the rain turns into snow. If I pass the field exams, it will lead […]
Posted inGoat
Bright sunshiny day
Arizona has more clear, sunny days than any other state in the West. In the summer months, sheets of mirage-casting heat waves pour down across expansive miles of desert. Yet for years this sunny state has lagged in developing its solar industry, relying instead on coal and nuclear power. Recently, though, that’s started to change. […]
Posted inGoat
Lawless future indeed
Our recent story “Lawless future” described the Road Warrior-esque state of some of California’s state parks. The state’s budget problems meant that parks lost nearly $40 million this year. Short on staffing and law enforcement, many parks saw a surge in vandalism and illegal activity; nonetheless, the state is planning to shut down several parks […]
Posted inGoat
“We all blew it”
“I think Van Jones is a big part of the future of environmentalism,” Gus Speth, dean of Yale’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, told New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert earlier this year. “He, more than anyone else, is bringing together a concern about the environment and […]
Posted inGoat
The long dark tea time of the split estate
An older couple — freshly retired from jobs on Colorado’s Californicized Front Range — decides it’s time to build a dream home somewhere on the state’s less populous Western Slope. They pick a dry mesa, scrubby with sage and rabbit brush, where the views go on for miles. The neighbors graze cows. The meadowlarks sing. […]