Name Brian Petersen Age 40 Vocation Entrepreneur: Runs a local car wash, fabricates signs, grinds stumps, manufactures plastic trays for bed-bound laptop users, and silk-screens T-shirts for local soccer teams. He recently bought a $30,000 laser-engraver whose commercial potential, he says, is untapped; he’s still dreaming up ways to use it. Known for Promoting the […]
State of Jefferson: A place apart
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Spinning coal into gasoline
Questions hang over promise of clean diesel and energy independence
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Trees — A different shade of green
Cities look to urban forests as a natural utility
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Tribal religion trumps eagle protection
Judge’s ruling regarding ceremonial eagle killing could send case to Supreme Court
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Two weeks in the West
“With no disrespect to the eagle, I’ve always thought that the horse should be our national emblem.” —Singer Willie Nelson, arguing against the slaughter of horses for human consumption Interior’s fuzzy science. If it were up to many U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, the Endangered Species Act would now protect the Gunnison’s prairie dog, […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
The West is not a zoo
Out here in the wide-open West, it seems like there ought to be plenty of room for everyone, including all the wild creatures that were here first. But we know better: The conversion of wild lands into human habitat — not to mention space for our domesticated plants and animals — has pushed dozens of […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
A Proud Member of PAOBHA
My house is a previous-owner-built oddity with small, random additions, situated on a rural county road along with a line of other houses, most of which are nicely bewildering in their construction and habitation. There are goats in backyards, a donkey that escapes fairly regularly, a mishmash of people who want to live outside of […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
A decade of difficult questions
Reflections on a cantankerous, contrarian Western newsmagazine
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Terms of endangerment
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Bred for success.” Species in the Wild Endangered — An animal or plant species in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. Endangered species such as the Mexican long-nosed bat and the masked bobwhite receive strict protection from harassment, […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Dear friends
CHANGING OF THE GUARD High Country News is bidding goodbye to editor Greg Hanscom and welcoming new editor John Mecklin. Mecklin got his start in journalism in 1978 as a reporter for the twice-a-week Williamson County Sun in rural Texas. Later, as a reporter for the Houston Post, he traveled to Saudi Arabia and Iraq […]
Posted inNovember 13, 2006: Bred for success
Bred for success
The nonprofit Peregrine Fund has mastered the captive breeding of birds of prey. But has its single-minded focus blinded it to the importance of habitat?
Posted inWotr
A harvest cornucopia hangs on in New Mexico
I hate leaving this party. I go from person to person, a hug here, a kiss on the cheek there. I wave goodbye to Farmer Monte and thank him for all the harvests he has shared this year. October has always been my favorite time of year in New Mexico. Part of it is the […]
Posted inWotr
Preserving the past at the Bellvue Grange
A couple of years ago, I returned with my family to live in Fort Collins, Colo., a college town I knew well as an undergraduate 21 years ago. In the heyday of my college years, the Grange in the nearby tiny town of Bellvue was the place to dance, and I remembered renting the place […]
Posted inWotr
We bought an SUV, and we’re proud of it
To the horror of our environmentally conscious friends, my husband and I just bought a big honkin’ SUV. After spending 20 years with our pickup truck, which was working on 250,000 miles and its third rear-end gear, we decided it was time. Our in-town car is 10 years old, with great ground clearance and room […]
Posted inWotr
A Utah resort town welcomes 300,000 foreigners
In Moab, Utah, a town constantly visited by jeepers and hikers from all over the world, the arrival of 300,000 beings from Kazakhstan hasn’t received much press. But as the newcomers flutter in and make themselves more at home, people are starting to take notice. Diorhabda elongata is their sexy name, and most of us, […]
Posted inWotr
A little flash flooding can be a wonderful thing
I took a sentimental trip to Arches National Park a few weeks ago. I haven’t worked as a ranger at Arches outside Moab, Utah, for 20 years, but I still remember it fondly and sometimes visit my favorite places. Perhaps the most dramatic change is the Delicate Arch road. It was always something of a […]
Posted inWotr
Big stakes surround South Dakota’s abortion ban
On the outskirts of rural Menno, S.D., past acres of sunflowers, there’s a wooden sign nailed to a post. It reads: “Abortion, America’s #1 Killer.” Similar signs dot roads throughout this conservative state, which is populated by 775,000 people and where just one clinic, based in Sioux Falls, performs about 800 abortions a year. Depending […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Heard around the West
UTAH AND IDAHO Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Forest Service employees from Utah, that’s who. Two staffers from the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Ogden were working in Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness Sept. 23, when they spotted wolves chasing a bull elk across a meadow. They weren’t frightened by the sight of the running […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Just another giddyup
It’s a lot like any other rodeo, on an August weekend in a fairground arena as folks hide out from the monsoon rains. Friday-night cowboys with mustaches stroll past women wearing baggy-in-the-seat jeans and plaid flannel shirts. Tall men with big hats hug one another, catch up on circuit gossip, and check out newcomers. Pungent […]
Posted inOctober 30, 2006: Peace Breaks Out In New Mexico's Forests
Idaho’s permissiveness leads to elk on the lam
Sometime in August, 100 or more domestic elk escaped from a game farm near Rexburg, Idaho, through a hole in the fence. The elk were bred for their huge antlers, and are known as “shooter bulls,” meaning they’re destined to be shot with bow and arrow or rifle, by clients engaged in an elaborate fantasy […]