COLORADO The Boy Scouts, with their image as resourceful, courteous, “leave no trace” outdoorsmen, seem an unlikely focal point for an environmental controversy over public land use. But that is where the Western Colorado Council of the Boy Scouts of America has found itself since proposing a new Boy Scout camp in the White River […]
Boy Scouts want new digs
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Greens bail on ‘bilers
WYOMING Last summer, a group of snowmobilers, wildlife advocates, cross-country skiers and business owners embarked on an ambitious adventure: to work out a collaborative plan for managing winter use in the Medicine Bow National Forest’s Snowy Range. By early September, two environmentalists had defected. Eric Bonds of Biodiversity Associates and the other green, University of […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Cat trouble dogs Flagstaff
ARIZONA Ever since the Arizona Game and Fish Department killed two mountain lions on the edge of Flagstaff last fall, residents have been grappling with the hard facts of life on the edge of the forest. Game and Fish contracted with the federal Wildlife Services agency to kill the two lions, one Sept. 16 and […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
The Steens Riviera?
OREGON One year after Congress approved groundbreaking legislation to protect Steens Mountain in eastern Oregon, environmentalists worry that the essential parts of the plan are going nowhere (HCN, 11/6/00: Congress moves on local proposals). Although the Cooperative Management Act authorizes federal legislators to appropriate as much as $25 million from the Land and Water Conservation […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Recreation-fee foes catch an agency fumble
Does the U.S. Forest Service need to relearn basic math? In 1996, Congress allowed the agency to charge recreation fees at no more than 100 sites nationally (HCN, 2/14/00: Land of the fee). Now, it turns out the agency forced visitors to pay at 1,349 trailheads, picnic areas and other sites in the Northwest region […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Biologists caught in the crosshairs
WASHINGTON In December, headline writers were delighted by the metastasizing controversy over samples of lynx fur, purportedly collected from two national forests in Washington state. “Fur furor,” one paper called it. “Fur flies,” wrote another. Government agencies, though, found the fracas far from funny. Seven wildlife biologists, both federal and state, submitted hair samples to […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
The Latest Bounce
Two influential Utahns are on the move. On Jan. 8, Rep. Jim Hansen, R, announced that he will retire at the end of this year, closing out 22 years in the House (HCN, 6/4/01: Will the Grand Staircase suffer shrinkage?). The chairman of the House Resources Committee and much-reviled opponent of environmentalists cited family and […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Unranchers gain ground
ARIZONA The Arizona Supreme Court has cleared another hurdle from the path of conservation groups that want to lease state grazing land and return it to pre-grazing conditions. On Nov. 21, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled 4-1 that the state land department can’t deny conservation groups the right to bid on state grazing leases. The […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
A sense of wonder needs no name
Once, I canoed around an Idaho river bend and surprised two enormous, white birds in the shallows. As they lifted off, showing black-tipped wings, I shaped my mouth around the unfamiliar words, “whooping cranes.” Another long-legged bird, farther downstream, joined the whoopers in flight. Yet when I told a knowledgeable birder that I’d seen three […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
The American West is an island besieged
I saw the future of the American West. It stared at me with an unblinking black eye through a narrow metal window in the wall of an aviary on the island of Maui. “That’s the female,” said our guide, Mary Schwartz. “She’s the social one.” The facility manager for the Maui Bird Conservation Center opened […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Will listing hurt the Colorado lynx?
Broad federal plan may leave Southern Rockies population out in the cold
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
A neighborhood for Aspen’s ‘middle’ class
Developer tries to revive his community
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Judge puts kibosh on logging plan
The Forest Service’s rush to cut Montana’s burned Bitterroot forest
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Joy Belsky: ‘She made us better’
Joy Belsky, a Portland, Ore., range ecologist who rose to national prominence while crusading to boot cattle off public lands in the West, died Dec. 15 of breast cancer. She was 56. Belsky took on ranchers who, she argued, were letting their cattle trample native plants and wildlife, public agencies that she believed discriminated against […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Dear Friends
End of an era This issue’s cover story will be the last for a while from senior editor Michelle Nijhuis. Michelle left HCN at the end of the year to travel and pursue a freelance writing career. Her departure is a great loss for the paper. From the day Michelle arrived as an intern in […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Finding the words
Can tribes rescue the West’s vanishing languages?
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Sharing credit for restoration
Dear HCN, The Pueblo of Santa Ana sincerely appreciates the extensive coverage in the Nov. 19 issue to highlight our efforts to restore the Rio Grande bosque and river channel within our reservation lands. While we understand that the purpose of the article was to highlight Pueblo efforts, we feel it is important to acknowledge […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Rodeo’s virtues
Ardeth Baxter’s letter commenting on the review of the book Riders of the West requires my response (HCN, 11/19/01: Romanticizing rodeo abuse). Animal-human relationships are the core ingredients in the settlement of the West. That relationship continues in the form of arena events – rodeo, team penning, cutting dressage, etc., and ranch work – gathering, […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Time to embrace drip irrigation
Dear HCN, In the West, water is a pervasive issue, and it is a common theme among HCN articles. “Bringing back the bosque,” and “Will Salt Sink an Agricultural Empire?” (HCN, 11/19/01: Bringing back the bosque) touch this subject. These articles leave one believing that the battle between agriculture and ecological water could never be […]
Posted inDecember 17, 2001: Bad moon rising
Sheep ranch sympathy misplaced
Dear HCN, Steven Stuebner’s recent article “Global market squeezes sheep ranchers” (HCN, 11/19/01: Global market squeezes sheep ranchers) has to rank as one of HCN‘s worst articles of the year, or silliest. What might have been an informative report on the situation of the sheep industry, if only Stuebner would do a little research, turns […]