Score one point for endangered steelhead and the threatened California red-legged frog: The 82,000-acre Hearst Ranch, on the Pacific Coast just south of Big Sur, may be forever protected from development. Famous for Hearst Castle, the elaborate mansion built for media tycoon William Randolph Hearst early in the 20th century, the sprawling, hilly ranch includes […]
Coastal open space gets a boost
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Looters sneak into monument
President Clinton established the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwestern Colorado to protect an estimated 20,000 archaeological sites, ranging from scattered potsherds to intact cliff dwellings (HCN, 4/23/01: Monuments caught in the crosshairs). Monument officials, however, are having a hard time fending off looters and vandals. Since the monument was created in June […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Dredging plans stall on the Snake River
By now, the dredging machinery would have been sucking 319,000 cubic yards of sand and silt from the bottom of the Snake River west of Lewiston, Idaho. Barges would be hauling the muck downriver and dumping it out of the way. Then tugboats would have dragged giant rakes across the spoils, trying to recreate habitat […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Parasite could help save salmon
Endangered salmon may get help from a strange source: Blood-sucking, eel-like fish called lampreys. On Jan. 28 a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect four species of lamprey under the Endangered Species Act. Two of the species are parasitic, latching onto salmon and other ocean-going fish to feed […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Water face-off in Fresno
The federal government has given the city of Fresno an ultimatum: Either change the way you write your water bills, or risk losing a third of your water supply. A 1992 law forbids the federal government from renewing water contracts with central California cities, unless the cities bill residents based on how much water they […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
The Latest Bounce
The money’s still rolling in to protect 97,000 acres of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. After The Nature Conservancy negotiated a $31.28 million price tag for the Baca Ranch last year, the federal government kicked in $10.5 million (HCN, 2/18/02: Dunes shifts toward park status). Now, Congress has pledged $12 million from the Land and Water […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Engagement in a time of terror
Who do we believe? How do we behave? These are questions I hold as we watch President Bush make his case for war. Our Department of Homeland Security recently placed us on “high alert/code orange,” advised us to buy duct tape and cover our windows with plastic, then in the same breath told us not […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Heard Around the West
Vive la France! There, we’ve said it, knowing full well those are fighting words — especially in Nevada. The owners of a restaurant in Reno were so angry at France for thwarting our Iraqi war plans at the United Nations, they poured expensive French champagne into a bucket on the sidewalk. And if they’d had […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Are you gonna eat that?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Bracing against the tide.” PORTLAND, Ore. — When Dan Wasil plucks a white Styrofoam package of “Fresh Atlantic Salmon” from the grocery store cooler, he gives the label no more than a second thought. “I assume that it comes from the Atlantic,” says Wasil, […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Of Western myth and jackalopes
“Are there jackalope around here?” the dude from Chicago asked. “Well, up here there’s too much elevation. They’re down on the sagebrush flats.” from Jackalope by Hilda Volk On Jan. 6, 2003, the West lost one of its great mythmakers, 82-year-old Douglas Herrick, of Casper, Wyo. No, Herrick wasn’t a writer, an artist, or a […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
‘Horse Whisperer’ wins a round in natural gas fight
A recent ruling in a Wyoming district court signals a win for ranchers who say energy companies are running roughshod over their land. The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit from Mary Brannaman and her husband, Buck, the horse trainer who inspired the novel and film The Horse Whisperer (HCN, 11/5/01: Wyoming’s Powder Keg). […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Taosenos take on Wal-Mart
Backers use populist rhetoric to promote a corporate giant
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
States crack down on wildlife cruelty
Recent attacks shine a spotlight on animal mutilation and killing
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Fish farms challenge our commitment to the wild
If you’ve ever been to the Pike Street Market in Seattle, you’ve undoubtedly witnessed one of the pinnacles of fishmonger bravado. Order up a whole salmon at Pike Place Fish and employees snap into action, shouting like a platoon of marines. One hoists the fish you’ve chosen from an ice-heaped display table. Another dashes to […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Dear Friends
Fear and loathing in HCNland Change is always a little scary, and changing times at High Country News are no different, we’ve discovered. We mentioned in Dear Friends last month that we’re planning to give the newspaper its first major face-lift in probably two decades. The goal is to make the paper look more smart […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Bracing against the tide
On the rugged coastline of British Columbia, tribes, fishermen and environmentalists fight a ‘salmon apocalypse’
Posted inWotr
Everybody’s a greenie now
Suddenly, everybody’s green: developers, who believe a golf course pond is good for wildlife, ski resort managers, who want to use recycled water to make artificial snow, absentee owners, who want to cut everything in sight in the name of fire prevention, though they spend a weekend a year in their Southwest trophy homes. Or […]
Posted inWotr
We need a shoe to drop on climate change
In 1999, Hurricane Mitch, which had lost most of its kick by the time it reached Honduras, still killed more than 10,000 people as a result of intense flooding, making it the biggest storm-related disaster in Central American history. A year later, 25,000 people died in Venezuelan rainstorms, the greatest such disaster in South America, […]
Posted inWotr
The Bush administration is doing something right on fire policy
There isn’t much I can praise about the Bush administration’s approach to Western resource issues. But its instincts on firefighting policy are just about right. If it can fill in its knee-jerk act of cutting the budget with a sound, long-term policy, it could lead the West out of a quagmire that has been deepening […]
Posted inWotr
Snowmobilers need to police their bad apples
A recent story in my local newspaper, headlined “Snowmobiler says riders endure hate” made me sit up straight. The article quoted Clark Collins of the Idaho-based BlueRibbon Coalition, who said that snowmobilers have become victims of a campaign “akin to any other hate campaign against ethnic or religious groups.” Mr. Collins’ comments interest me because […]