It’s a typical, sunny Western day, and you’re outside gardening when you notice a big cat eyeing you intently and slinking slowly towards you. What should you do? Don’t act defenseless, says Jon Rachael, regional wildlife manager in Idaho. “Almost invariably, mountain lions attack for food, so if you play dead, that only makes the […]
How to handle the big cats
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
A blueprint for better communities
Westerners who are fed up with polluted water and air, strip malls that eat up open space, and automobile-dependent lifestyles can look to a new book by the Natural Resources Defense Council for guidance on how to counter the poorly planned patterns of growth we now know as urban sprawl. In a series of 35 […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Letting their lights shine
They have stayed quietly in the background for decades, watching as their men vainly tried to pound the round peg of European governmental tradition into the square hole of tribal culture. But no longer: The women of Indian Country are speaking up, taking charge, and making things happen, according to a recent series by Montana’s […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Protests from the (tree)top down
During the late ’90s, dozens of activists camped out in the treetops of Northern California’s Headwaters Forest, protesting clear-cutting by Pacific Lumber. Their months – and even years – above the ground didn’t save the entire forest, but they managed to protect a few of the oldest groves. The tree-sits also drew intense media attention […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Snowy plover predators become prey
OREGON Many creatures that forage along the sand dunes of the Oregon Coast consider the snowy plover’s cream-colored eggs a savory delicacy, and all those stolen eggs add up. Since 1993, the shy shorebird has been listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Despite federal and state wildlife agencies’ recovery efforts, such as fencing […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
A road through a national monument?
NEW MEXICO Albuquerque, N.M., is growing so quickly that Petroglyph National Monument, currently on the outskirts of town, is likely to be enveloped by the city in the next 20 years. Some planners want to build a road through the monument, which now divides the west side of Albuquerque from the rest of the city […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Forest Service gives climbers the slip
OREGON Rock climbers are clinging a bit more tenaciously to crags on federal lands now that the U.S. Forest Service has all but outlawed climbing at a network of caves outside of Bend, Ore. To protect dwindling populations of bats and to preserve the caves, which are sacred to the Confederated Tribes of the Warm […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Wheels still spin after desert lockdown
ARIZONA An unforgiving expanse of Arizona desert that’s almost as big as Rhode Island is now off limits to nearly everyone except drug smugglers, illegal immigrants and the Border Patrol agents who chase them. From March 15 to July 15, dirt-road closures meant to protect the endangered Sonoran pronghorn will prevent public access to three-quarters […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Braking development in the Breaks
MONTANA When then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt visited Montana’s Missouri Breaks on a rafting trip down the Missouri River in 1999, he roused fears among some that if the area were declared a monument, it would be put off-limits to oil and gas leasing. Shortly thereafter, the Bureau of Land Management awarded a series of leases […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The Latest Bounce
The country’s next nuclear power plant may be built in Idaho. The Department of Energy’s “Nuclear Power 2010” initiative aims to get a new plant built somewhere in the U.S. by the end of the decade. One of three DOE sites under consideration is the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), which a year […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The ‘Niche West’ reconnects us to the land
Arguing is one of my favorite sports. I always like to participate, and often I enjoy watching, as with the latest bout between Thomas Michael Power, an economics professor at the University of Montana, and Ed Marston, publisher of High Country News (HCN, 12/17/01: Economics with a heart but no soul) and (HCN, 2/4/02: Post-cowboy […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Heard around the West
Forget gambling casinos and the songs of Wayne Newton; these days the state of Nevada is selling stupid tricks on public lands. Print ads in Outside, National Geographic Adventure and other publications describe Nevada “as a primal playground with more … tear-yourself-to-shreds terrain than any other place in this great nation.” The ads go on […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Campaign finance reform may boost grass roots
WASHINGTON, D.C. – We all know that whoever looks too closely at the trees can lose sight of the forest. Something along this line has happened to those around here who make their living watching trees and forests, fields and streams, or mountains and deserts, either to extract resources from them or to guard them […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
The Postal Service stamps the mythic West
Wyoming has declared war on Montana. Why? Wyoming officials say their northern neighbor has co-opted an icon behind which the state tries to perpetuate long-gone traditions. The stimulus for the feud was the U.S. Postal Service and its 50-state commemorative stamp series. The Montana stamp features a cowboy atop a bucking horse. Wyoming says it […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Notes from a corporate insider: It’s not easy turning green
Don Popish’s Carhartt overalls are so infused with dirt and grease that they crackle when he walks. He’s got rings under his eyes from fixing balky Snowcats at night in Aspen Skiing Co.’s vehicle shop. Me, I’m an environmentalist in a starched shirt. But like Don, I’ve got a job to do for the company. […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Winter-use plan lurches toward the finish line
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about how snowmobilers dominate the small town that’s the main gateway to Yellowstone National Park (West Yellowstone, Mont.). — The simplest way to evaluate snowmobile traffic in Yellowstone National Park is to flip-flop the season to summer: Imagine if most of the people touring the park […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Cleaner machines drive (slowly) toward Yellowstone
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about how snowmobilers dominate the small town of West Yellowstone. — WEST YELLOWSTONE, Montana — Soon this town, as well as Yellowstone National Park and the national forest trails, will begin to get some relief from one chronic problem – the smoke and associated air pollution […]
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
A new world in the woods
With some help from Congress, forest restoration may be gathering steam
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
Drought pinches Colorado River reservoirs
California’s ‘surplus’ water not in jeopardy, yet
Posted inApril 1, 2002: Move over! Will snowmobile tourism relax its grip on a gateway town?
April Fools
Shrub takes on pesky species By Helen Wheels Wasps, head lice and roaches to be annihilated President Gorge W. Shrub, determined to show that “we take nature as seriously as nurture,” said yesterday that his administration will exterminate all species that might possibly, some day, qualify for listing under the Endangered Species Act. “As long […]