A 100-pound mountain lion can kill an 800-pound elk. Keep that in mind the next time you go hiking in cougar territory. If you are alone and unarmed, and one of these powerful predators attacks you — intent on killing and eating you, rather than merely trying to drive you away from its offspring or […]
To lions, we may be just a link in the food chain
Posted inWotr
Why a would-be jock plays mainly with his brain
It is a standard classroom, except for two things. First, it’s Saturday, and second, teenagers in the room don’t look bored or blank: they look elated or dismayed. They’re clustered in groups of four, each holding contraptions that look like bomb detonators. An adult at the front reads from a sheet of paper: “The category […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Warm-water native fish are left out in the cold
Little is being done to pull the Southwest’s native fish back from the brink of extinction, according to an independent team of biologists. The study of a dozen warm-water fish in Arizona’s Gila River Basin found that half the species no longer exist in wild populations, while five species occupy less than one-fifth of their […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Calendar
Colorado Preservation, Inc., is holding its annual conference, Saving Places 2004: The Business of Preservation, Feb. 5-7 in Denver. The event will include workshops, educational sessions and a trade show. www.coloradopreservation.org/SP04program.pdf 303-893-4260 The annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be in Seattle, Feb. 12-16. Seminars include those sponsored by […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Voices rising from the desert
I say the writers of the Southwest, we are like horses that have gone out on the llano and eaten locoweed, and madness is what is unique to us. –Rudolfo Anaya It’s one thing to read the printed words of your favorite author; it’s quite another to actually hear his or her voice. Almost 10 […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
HCN is a sop to the cowboys
I just read “Riding the middle path” (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path). As a writer and photographer, I am acutely aware of how word and photo choice influences perception. And once again HCN proves that it is incapable of writing about the livestock industry without being a sop to the industry. When I read […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
HCN still mired in cowboy myth
High Country News has done a disservice to the West by publishing the article, “Riding the middle path” (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path). The article and its fawning photographs fail to fully describe the condition of the Owyhee landscape or the costs to the public of maintaining ranching there. It sadly reinforces HCN’s reputation […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Owyhee Initiative brings hope
As a graduate of the College of Idaho (Albertson College) I was excited and encouraged to read your recent article on the Owyhee Initiative (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path). The College of Idaho is only an hour from the wild landscape of the Owyhee Canyonlands. I spent many a weekend escaping into the rugged […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Owyhee initiative ignores majority interest
The HCN article on the Owyhee Initiative was superficial, misleading and omitted several key points (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path). None of the ostensibly green groups at the table is fighting for what is best for this ecosystem: real wilderness on a big enough scale for native wildlife to flourish. The Idaho Conservation League, […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Interior supports collaboration
In “Riding the middle path,” (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path) High Country News explores the efforts of Owyhee County citizens to achieve consensus on how to manage thousands of acres of public lands. The article rightly points out that this effort is an arduous one, as folks with widely varying interests, dreams, and backgrounds […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Ranchers hijacking public lands
HCN’s Owyhee Initiative coverage (HCN, 12/8/03: Riding the middle path) shows that this paper is firmly mired in the livestock-industry myths of the Old West, and is unwilling to see beyond the boots, buckles and he-men, to understand that we must change how we treat our public wild lands and waters, if native ecosystems are […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Follow-up
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is not all wet, after all: After outraged public comment from environmentalists and sportsmen alike, the Bush administration has backed off plans to remove “isolated” wetlands — those that are dry for more than six months out of the year — from protection under the Clean Water Act. Proposed changes […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Heard Around the West
TEXAS In the Dubious Achievement category, let’s send the 2003 Biology Award to Texas A&M’s vet school, which just cloned a white-tailed deer with a rack measuring 230 points on the Boone and Crockett scale. The lead researcher told the Houston Chronicle that the trophy buck is a “conservation tool.” The bottle-fed deer, dubbed Dewey, […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Have another pig-brain/beef-blood/chicken-spine hamburger
I ate my final diner burger the other day. It’s not that I don’t like burgers (my last one was juicy pure delight) or that I want to become a vegetarian (the tofu diet isn’t for me), but thanks to some recent discoveries, I no longer believe that my last burger, was, in fact, a […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Proposed wilderness on the auction block
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Two decades of hard work, plowed under.” The following areas, which are proposed by citizens for wilderness protection, will be up for grabs during the BLM’s January/February 2004 lease sale. WIA = wilderness inventory area CWP = citizens’ wilderness proposal New Mexico (Jan. 21) […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
In New Mexico, a homegrown wilderness bill makes headway
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Two decades of hard work, plowed under.” In the face of the Interior Department’s top-down decision to stop looking for new wilderness areas on federal land, some communities are working to protect wilderness from the bottom up. Sidestepping White House-appointed bureaucrats, wilderness advocates are […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Energy bill would pry open public lands
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Two decades of hard work, plowed under.” The energy bill, which is currently stalled in Congress but likely to be resurrected early this year, would put major emphasis on public-lands energy development: It creates the Office of Federal Energy Project Coordination within the White […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Getting under the desert’s skin: Biologist Jayne Belnap
The scenery of southeastern Utah is hard to miss. Steep redrock canyons plunge into long and lazy riverbends; wind-sculpted stone arches glow pinkly at sunset. But when biologist Jayne Belnap hikes through this famous landscape, it’s not the show-stopping rocks that draw her attention. It’s the algae. “This is not a rocky landscape, this is […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Can skiers and snowmobilers coexist?
With conflict on the rise, “quiet” recreationists want segregation in the backcountry
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
A moment of truth for user fees
Critics say fees take the ‘public’ out of the public lands