Killer bee corrections Dear HCN, As a commercial, sideline and hobbyist beekeeper (at different times in my life) for 30 years, it was interesting to see HCN cover the Africanized bee story (HCN, 6/24/02). Unfortunately, you did not cover it well. Let me try to indicate why I say this with quotes from your story […]
Killer bee corrections
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Bikers waffle on wilderness
CALIFORNIA A new proposal to add two and half million acres to California’s 14 million acres of wilderness is gaining support, but not from the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA). Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., says her California Wild Heritage Act will protect the land from logging, oil drilling and road building. IMBA, however, is leery […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
A fish is a fish is a fish – or is it?
Are some fish created more equal than others? This conundrum is the subject of a draft policy released in late July by the National Marine Fisheries Service, regarding which salmon and steelhead deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act (HCN, 10/8/01). On one side of the debate are some Northwest farmers and landowners who bear […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Chinook tribe loses recognition
WASHINGTON In July, when members of the Chinook Tribe were invited to the White House for a kick-off to the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, they came bearing gifts – a hand-carved dugout canoe and beads – for the Bush family. Two days later, the descendents of those who saved Lewis and Clark from starvation in […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Suit may hamstring wildland firefighters
MONTANA A $54 million lawsuit filed against the U.S. Forest Service in July may remove a valuable tactic from firefighters’ toolboxes. On Aug. 6, 2000, in an attempt to stop the Spade Fire as it burned toward houses near Connor, Mont., federal firefighters lit backfires to deprive the fire of fuel in its path. But […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Mi rio, mi agua
TEXAS Tension over Rio Grande water – or the lack of it – is rising to an all-time high. Under the terms of a 1944 treaty, Mexico owes the U.S. almost 1.5 million acre-feet (456 billion gallons) of water – a debt the country amassed over the last decade of drought. The shortage is leaving […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
The Latest Bounce
An emergency spending bill to fund the war on terrorism may bring some relief for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow (HCN, 7/8/02). The $28.9 billion bill, signed Aug. 2 by President Bush, includes $4 million for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to lease water from Albuquerque to maintain river flows in a crucial stretch […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Chasing hope amid the hedonists
Odonata was her name, the first woman I met at Burning Man. “Odonata …” I fumbled aloud. “Is that Norwegian?’” NO-wegian, brother. It was her playa name. Odonata, the Latin word that orders insects such as dragonflies. The woman Odonata was deep in discussion about totemic traits as I walked up. The dragonfly totem, she […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Heard around the West
Rancher Rod Hall was checking cattle when he stumbled onto a wild pool party in his stock pond in the foothills above Hotchkiss, Colo. It wasn’t people cavorting but 30 cow elk, beating the heat and having a blast. “One cow started charging around the pond and others followed in great bounding leaps with water […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Presidential hopeful plays with fire
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Could Tip O’Neill have been wrong? Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle may be about to find out, perhaps to his regret. With one artful insertion of law, the South Dakota Democrat demonstrated that even if “all politics is local,” as O’Neill famously said, the local and the national become easily enmeshed, with […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Hot town, summer in the city
Flash! “Did you see that?” She didn’t. Instead, my wife rolled over atop the sheets, too deep in half-sleep to witness the lightning ripping through the blinds. Lightning. Seems like years since we’ve seen any over downtown Denver. But sure enough, a third of the way into Colorado’s Summer of Fire, it might be working […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
The sod squad wants to soak you
Look out, you water scofflaws – it’s “water-efficiency month,” and enforcement agencies across the West will not look lightly upon water-wasting infractions. Water cops are tossing out tickets that range from a slap on the wrist (and a free how-to-conserve-water brochure) for leaky faucets, to a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Shrinking water supply makes room for birds
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Attack of the bark beetles.” This year’s drought is bad news for most wildlife, but not for the endangered southwestern willow flycatchers at Roosevelt Lake in Arizona. During the six years of drought since […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Attack of the bark beetles
ISLAND PARK, Idaho – Oblivious to the dry summer heat, Forest Service silviculturist John Councilman hikes through a stand of trees looking for signs of violent struggle. It doesn’t take long. “There’s a beetle hit,” he says, pointing out a Douglas fir drizzled with thick threads of dull yellow pitch. “That tree is already dead. […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
New Mexico ranchers push to graze preserve
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Corruption and tragic history paralyze range reform on the Navajo reservation.” Northern New Mexico is known for more than fiery red chilis and smoldering mountain sunsets; it’s also notorious for skirmishes between its mostly […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Corruption and tragic history paralyze range reform on the Navajo reservation
This year, conditions on the 17 million-acre Navajo reservation in the Four Corners have followed a bleak timeline. A winter with lower than average snowfall was trailed by a dry, windy spring. In March, Navajo Nation President Kelsey Begaye declared a “drought emergency” and cattle owners – most of whom run 20 head, each of […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
New desert town no home to the fringe-toed lizard
Massive development could doom the dunes
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Blame game sheds little light on fires
It was boring, made-for-C-SPAN stuff, a round of congressional testimony on June 12 by Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth on what his agency has named “The Process Predicament.” The Forest Service has been hobbled, he said, by excessive environmental analysis requirements, management inefficiencies and a breakdown in “collaborative” public involvement. That, said Bosworth, had put […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Happy 100, Mardy Murie
Happy 100, Mardy Murie On August 18, conservation legend Mardy Murie will turn 100 years old. Mardy was the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska in 1924. She would later write Two in the Far North, chronicling her romance with renowned biologist Olaus Murie, and in 1998 win a Presidential Medal of […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Dear Friends
A high country jinx We probably should have seen it coming. After a positively wilting June and July and reports from around the West of drought, heat and wildfire, we decided to run a special issue about the Great Drought of 2002. The moment we started work on the stories in this paper, however, we […]