COLORADO In the early 1990s, the U.S. Forest Service released approximately 500 flower-head weevils on the edge of Gunnison National Forest, near Almont, Colo., to control the invasive Canada thistle. Apparently, tastes change. In the 12 years since a 1990 study suggested that the weevil preferred Canada thistle to native species, the insect has been […]
Scientists uncover a weevil gourmand
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
The Latest Bounce
The National Park Service has abandoned its quest to kick snowmobiles out of Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks (HCN, 4/1/02: Move over!). Now, the agency is developing a plan that will reduce the number of snowmobiles in the parks, require four-stroke engines to minimize noise and air pollution, and require the use of licensed […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Big stink over factory farms
UTAH As more large-scale confined animal feeding operations move into the rural West, state and local governments are slowly moving to regulate the industry (HCN, 4/15/02: Raising a stink). But in Utah, a new state law has aborted one county’s attempts to make such operations criminally liable for their impacts on local communities. A bill […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Salty solution for Bay wildlife
CALIFORNIA If all goes according to plan, the San Francisco Bay will be home to the nation’s second-largest coastal wetland restoration project – good news in a state that has lost 90 percent of its coastal wetlands to development. Agricultural giant Cargill Corporation announced that it will sell almost 12,300 acres of salt ponds to […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
A landslide suit for salmon
OREGON Six years ago, a landslide that began in a clear-cut slammed into a house in western Oregon, killing four people (HCN, 12/23/96: Rain and clearcuts make fatal brew). That tragedy prompted state officials to limit logging on steep slopes near homes and busy roads. Now, a coalition of Oregon environmental groups says salmon should […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
White River Forest plan friend to all – and to none
COLORADO When a draft plan for how to manage Colorado’s White River National Forest was released in 1999, it was hailed as a precedent that would steer the agency toward emphasizing endangered species habitat and conservation over resource extraction and recreation (HCN, 1/17/00: STOP – A national forest tries to rein in recreation). Now, five […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Human wildness on the range
Frank Clifford has no trouble holding two clashing ideas in mind. The first is his love of wild country, the second is his love of the wild people most of us see as the enemy of wild country. A gold miner’s son who is now an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Clifford comes […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
A sonnet to a problem river
The Pecos River begins its 900-mile run high in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Colorado and Northern New Mexico Rocky Mountains, and descends through New Mexico’s lowlands “of Western myth and solid American values,” as Emlen Hall writes in High and Dry: The Texas-New Mexico Struggle for the Pecos River. Finally, the author […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Heard around the West
Aren’t bees busy enough without being harnessed by the military? Apparently not. The Pentagon is training honeybees to ignore flowers and zero in on the faint molecular trails left by explosives. A downside is the high probability that bomb-sniffing bees would not go over well in crowded airports. Bees also don’t care to buzz about […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Life amid fire – the mundane and the macabre
Life in Durango, Colo., has taken on a surreal quality. Even for those of us not directly affected by it, the fire dominates our days. Handling mundane problems, pursuing our normal jobs and hobbies, grocery shopping and gassing up the car – everything takes place against a backdrop of disaster. It’s a crisis situation, but […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Prescribed burns tame the beast
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Ten days after the Hayman fire erupted southwest of Denver, Colo., and began spreading to the north and east, firefighters finally found a place where they could stand their ground: Polhemus Gulch. Weeks earlier, firefighters there gained the upper hand against the Schoonover Fire; […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Re-opening Glen Canyon’s floodgates
Six years after an experimental flood, enviros want more
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Southwest drought desiccates fish before farmers
Agencies let Rio Grande and Pecos rivers dry up despite minimum-flow agreements
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
No ranchettes for the rest of us in Jackson
Citizens of ritzy Wyoming town reject government-backed development
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Dear Friends
“Momentous” is often used inappropriately, but when Maggie Coon used it at a meeting in Park City, Utah, on Saturday morning, June 15, it seemed perfectly scaled. The High Country Foundation board president was describing the task her fellow board members faced in choosing a new leader for the organization that publishes this newspaper; publishes […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
The anatomy of fire
I came like an investigator to a crime scene, notebook open, walking slowly, alert to changes in the perpetrator’s footprints, to oddities in the smoke-smell air. Anything could be evidence revealing the mind of fire: a blade of grass still alive in a forest of black skeletons; an unburned swing set that had parted an […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Review gives only one view
Dear HCN, While I thought Dan Flores’ thoughts in the lead article “Beyond Ecology: Restoring a Cultural Landscape” (HCN, 5/13/02: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape) were right on, I found it bothersome in Ed Marston’s review of Flores’ book, The Natural West, to see the wiping out of the large mammals from North America’s […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Cross lawsuit divisive, petty
Dear HCN, “Does desert cross cross the line?” (HCN, 5/13/02: Does desert cross cross the line?). Well, maybe, but Frank Buono and the American Civil Liberties Union should apply their energies to lawsuits of a more important nature. In an age where our public lands are being assaulted by forces much more menacing than a […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
To say nothing of cruelty
Dear HCN, I’m sorry it took me so long to write you about “Raising a Stink: Factory dairies catch Idaho’s Magic Valley by surprise” (HCN, 4/15/02: Raising a stink). One important aspect of factory farming not addressed in your story is the inhumane and cruel treatment of dairy cows, who aren’t allowed any kind of […]