Bad news for grizzly bears, in Montana and Yellowstone. During the past decade, wildlife managers killed 58 of the federally-protected bruins in northwestern Montana. That makes biologists the biggest source of human-caused grizzly deaths in the region, ahead of train or car strikes (46), illegal shooting (34), and self-defense (20). The “management removals” happen when […]
A grizzly situation
Posted inWotr
Democrats rise again in the Rockies
Election night was a smashing success for Democrats in the Mountain West. But there’s a big difference between the national results and those that came out of the Rockies: Up until now, the Intermountain West was considered home turf for the Republican party. This election, of course, wasn’t the first time Democrats have had success […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Who’ll clean up when the party’s over?
Land managers and industry are stepping up efforts to reclaim public lands scraped and drilled for oil and gas. Is it too little, too late?
Posted inGoat
Big money used to bring Musgrave down
Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave was the Richard Pombo of the 2008 election, targeted by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and others for her anti-environmental votes (the League of Conservation Voters gave her a 15 percent rating this year, in 2006 she had an 8 and in 2005, a zero). The Defenders spent a total of […]
Posted inGoat
Water Banks, the ESA and the Public Trust Doctrine
Matt Jenkin’s article “Liquid assets” in the October 27th edition is a good introduction to Water Banking – a concept which westerners are likely to hear used increasingly if predictions of diminished water supplies resulting from climate change are accurate. But the article only scratches the surface of a subject which West-watchers will want to […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Let it mellow
One does not expect to learn about conservation via the sight of one’s 85-year- old great-grandmother hunkered down bare-bottomed under the rosebushes, but there it is. In my formative years, “Grandmary” taught me to reduce, reuse and recycle everything from bacon grease to urine. “Pee makes the roses bloom bigger,” she told me when I […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Heeding history’s lessons
The rollercoaster plight of the northern gray wolf — the subject of this issue’s cover story — is a good metaphor for American ambivalence toward the natural world. For more than a century, wolves were simply enemies that threatened cows, sheep, dogs and children. Determined government agencies channeled this fear into a campaign of poisoning, […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Still Howling Wolf
Will Westerners finally learn how to live with Canis lupus?
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Burning issues
Name Tom BonnicksenAge 67Occupation Retired forestry scientistSpent childhood Outdoors sliding down the Indiana Dunes, canoeing the upper Wisconsin River, living at 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains.On how he gathers data “I walk through the woods. I know every inch of these places I study. I’m on the ground all the time. And if I’m […]
Posted inGoat
The pundits are wrong
The news chatters with suggestions that some Western Democratic governors will take jobs in the new cabinet being formed by President-elect Barack Obama. Montana’s Gov. Brian Schweitzer … ! Arizona’s Gov. Janet Napolitano … ! Wyoming’s Gov. Dave Freudenthal … ! New Mexico’s Bill Richardson … ! Any of them would be good as the […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
No greater love
As the Bible says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” A football player in his senior year at Mesa State College in western Colorado didn’t die for his teammates, but he willingly sacrificed his right pinky finger. After offensive lineman Trevor Wikre broke the […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
From the Beltway to the mountains
His close-cropped hair, aviator shades and straight-backed bearing hint at his Navy past, but the silver hoop in his left ear and baggy bike shorts give Keith Baker a twist of hip outdoorsy-ness. He stands in the HCN office with his wife, Evelyn, also in bike garb, and their dog, a sleek weimaraner named Prana. […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
A battle for the land – and soul – of the West
Denver native Stephen Trimble fell in love with the West from the back seat of the family car. On summer field trips with his mother and geologist father, Trimble developed a fine eye for red-rock country and the light that filled unspoiled valleys and vistas. He’s since produced gorgeous photography books and insightful natural and […]
Posted inNovember 10, 2008: Still Howling Wolf
Throwing off the yoke
Where the Ox Does Not Plow: A Mexican American BalladManuel Peña235 pages, hardcover: $24.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2008. An alcoholic father, a patient, long-suffering mother, a history of anxiety and depression, and a blinding desire to escape a troubled childhood. If that sounds like every other memoir you’ve read in the past decade, you’d […]
Posted inArticles
Mayberry and Peyton Place
Given that the vast majority of Americans (almost four out of five) live in urban areas, we small town residents might well feel flattered by the attention we received during this presidential campaign. Not all the attention was complimentary, though. Democratic nominee Barack Obama observed that “You go into some of these small towns in […]
Posted inGoat
Ed Marston loses commissioner bid
Yes, Colorado turned blue. But in western Colorado’s Delta County, the GOP prevailed, giving the nod to the McCain-Palin ticket. Democratic congressman John Salazar fared best, getting about 45 percent of the vote. Not one Democratic candidate won here, from the top to the bottom of the ticket. I know something about being a Democrat […]
Posted inWotr
Can the Forest Service get back on track?
It’s been a dismal eight years for the U.S. Forest Service. When the Bush administration took office, it immediately suspended a popular measure to protect 58 million acres of backcountry public forests from new roads. Instead, the agency became consumed by firefighting. Since 2001, stopping fire has grown from about 15 percent of the agency’s […]
Posted inGoat
Mormon Church wins on gay marriage
Swayed by an alliance of the Mormon Church, evangelicals and Catholic bishops, voters decided yesterday to use two states’ constitutions to ban marriage for gays and lesbians … … even though, I’ll interject, constitutions are normally intended to ensure the civil rights of minority groups. California’s Proposition 8 was the most intense gay-marriage battle ever […]