I killed my first deer on an October morning, two days after my 14th birthday. I was hunting on my grandmother’s ranch in south-central Colorado, and I can still see that deer, ghost-gray in the dawn, its form more like smoke than animal. I remember how my chest was tight and my arms and legs […]
Hunting: It’s not about the gun
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
So much for sticking to the center
Return with us now to those thrilling days of not quite four years ago, when George W. Bush was taking office and almost every mainstream, establishment, veteran political observer — yea, even including your humble agent here — predicted that his presidency would not stray too far from the ideological center. So much for the […]
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
State judges get political
Special-interest money pours into hotly contested judge campaigns
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Biotech companies engineer a ‘superweed’
Genetically engineered golf course turf could creep to public lands
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Dams will stand, salmon be damned
The Bush administration’s new salmon plan offers a whole new spin on the Endangered Species Act
Posted inOctober 11, 2004: The First Family of Western Conservation
Dear Friends
CONGRATULATIONS Betsy and Ed Marston, HCN’s longtime editor-publisher team, are grandparents. On Sept. 18, in New York City, the Marston’s daughter, Wendy, gave birth to a 7-pound, 9-ounce baby girl, Maude Rose Marston Lehmann. Maude is bound to be one above-average kid; Wendy is a freelance writer and editor, and her husband, Ben Lehmann, works […]
Posted inWotr
Bring on that old lanky dog (and be sure to eat the elk)
For my son’s last day of summer vacation, I took off from my veterinarian practice, and off we went to northern Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. We climbed around on some boulders, got rained on and we saw elk, lots of elk. I have seen my share of elk throughout the West, but this particular […]
Posted inWotr
The Hoopa’s fight for a river is a lesson for us all
The Hoopa Indians of Northern California are a tenacious people. In the mid-19th century, when the U.S. Army tried to drive them out of their villages along the Trinity River, the Hoopas waited them out, camping in the nearby hills until the soldiers gave up and left. One hundred years later the government started draining […]
Posted inWotr
Presidential candidates try to look svelte in blaze orange
Ernest Hemingway said every writer needs a “shockproof B.S.-detector.” My B.S.-detector has been getting a workout, as the presidential candidates have been hunting for votes this autumn. In particular, they are seeking the votes of the 47 million Americans who hunt and fish. In a race this tight, politicians see this as a bloc as […]
Posted inWotr
Automate this: personal interaction in a small town
The big news in my small town has been the new automated checkout line at the grocery store. You scan the purchases yourself, and then give the machine your credit card, with no need for any human interaction. At least that’s how I’m told it works — I haven’t used the thing myself. It’s a […]
Posted inWotr
What I Hate Most About You
Editor’s note: The author is said to live “on a 100-year-old ranch that once was miles from the nearest neighbor but now may be right next door to your new subdivision.” Dear new neighbors, I’ve never met any of you. If I did, I would be perfectly polite. Probably I’d even think you’re nice folks. […]
Posted inWotr
Red-baiters target greens in Oregon
A group in White City, Ore., has opened a broad attack on teaching environmental sustainability in our public schools and universities, calling it the kind of brainwashing Lenin and Hitler would do. The group, Operation Green Out, ran two full-page ads in The Oregonian, Oregon’s largest daily newspaper, earlier this year. They warned of a […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Dang crazy women
Like the two previous anthologies created by editors Linda Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier and Nancy Curtis, Leaning into the Wind and Woven on the Wind, Crazy Woman Creek gathers hundreds of poems, stories and memories from women all across the West. This latest anthology’s theme is how Western women create and sustain the connections that define […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Calendar
The Montana Consensus Council is sponsoring a class called “Discover Conflict Partnership: The Guide to Enduring Resolutions” in Helena on Oct. 19 and 20. 406-444-9838 juedwards@state.mt.us Bird lovers are upset with President Bush — and they’re letting him know. Check out www.BirdersUnitedtoDefeatBush.com to learn more about how birdwatchers can protect bird populations, wetlands and clean […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Forgotten borderland
From space, the Black Hills of South Dakota take the unmistakable shape of a heart, marking a region that some consider the spiritual center of the world. But driving into Bennett County, S.D., is more like entering a legal Twilight Zone. This checkerboard of private, tribal and federal land seems to belong to everyone — […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
City Slickers, go home
Your story, “Buying ecological leverage” is almost funny. I can just see that group of city slickers trying to run a working ranch, especially where they are going to introduce “Mexican wolves.” Seriously speaking, there is nothing wrong with governments fencing in unique natural features such as these “rock fins” on public grazing lands. There […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Subsidies Strike Again
The feature article, “Prairie Conundrum” points out that the federal government’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is providing incentives for farmers to convert native prairie into crop monocultures. But the article praises another USDA/Farm Bill program — the Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP). According to the article, EQIP claims to “pay farmers to adopt conservation practices […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best solutions
Congress has heard, loud and clear, that the Recreational Fee Demonstration Program hasn’t worked. But it still can’t quite bring itself to call an end to it. Sen. Larry Craig supports fees only for developed campgrounds and boat ramps. Those fees have never been controversial. What he fails to address is the extra wrinkle that […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
What’s wrong with user fees?
Sen. Larry Craig’s article about “Fees and our forests don’t always fit” makes a few good points, although I think that it misses some others. What I do not understand is the reluctance of Sen. Craig to support these user fees, since according to him, activities like hunting, fishing and hiking are done on “unimproved […]
Posted inSeptember 27, 2004: Life After Old Growth
Racetrack
Since the 1970s, Oregon has pioneered land-use laws to preserve rural landscapes, prevent irresponsible suburban development, and support local businesses over big-box stores (HCN, 11/25/02: Planning’s poster child grows up). Now, Oregonians in Action, a private-property rights group, is supporting an initiative that would force the state to compensate private-land owners who are restricted from […]