Hikers, bikers and river rafters should be ready to capture – with cameras, that is – any scaly-skinned critters sunning themselves on Grand Canyon rocks. Nikolle Brown, also known as “the Snake Lady,” needs help documenting reptile sightings for her Snakes of the Grand Canyon Identification and Distribution project. Brown, a seasoned wildlife biologist for […]
Help search for snakes
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Barberry bush beats bacteria
A compound from a barberry bush found on Colorado’s Western Slope is helping researchers fight antibiotic resistance. Some bacteria, particularly those that cause staph infections, can become resistant to antibiotics by pumping the drug out of cells before it begins to work. Colorado State University professor Frank Stermitz and Tufts University professor Kim Lewis discovered […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
One big bighorn
The biggest bighorn sheep skull you’ve ever seen is on display this summer at the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretive Center in Dubois, Wyo. It was found in the 1970s, among the remains of camels, cheetahs, musk ox, short-faced bears and bison that fell thousands of years ago into an 80-foot-deep limestone cave in Wyoming’s Bighorn […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
In New Mexico, a surprising proposal rises from the flames
For 11 years, Santa Fe’s Forest Guardians have been unflinching in their opposition to logging on the Southwest’s national forests. But this June, they blinked. Following the Cerro Grande fire that swept through Los Alamos, Forest Guardians released its first-ever proposal for cutting trees. The proposal calls for thinning and prescribed burning in Santa Fe’s […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Loggers win one
WASHINGTON A county jury says the state of Washington must pay a logging company almost $10,000 an acre if it wants to protect spotted owls on private land. SDS Co. was forced to halt logging on 232 acres of its land in 1992 after state biologists found evidence of an owl nest in the area. […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Neighbors oppose land trade
COLORADO A 640-acre piece of high-elevation forest and meadowland is the topic of a heated debate in central Colorado. The future of the Little Cochetopa Creek School Section near Salida is now in the hands of the State Land Board, and Chaffee County residents worry the board will choose private development over public domain. A […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Water district has identity crisis
NEW MEXICO The largest irrigation district on the Rio Grande has received some bone-shaking news: The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, formerly thought to be an arm of the state, is a federal agency. In 1951, the Bureau of Reclamation bailed out the nearly bankrupt district, spending millions to renovate dams and irrigation ditches. At […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Buddhist temple hits a snag
CALIFORNIA While a Buddhist temple may be a place of tranquility, plans for a new retreat center in a canyon have environmentalists fuming and suing. The controversy began after San Bernardino County unanimously approved a 1998 proposal by Ling Yen Temple Inc. to build a 10-building retreat and a 600-car parking lot. Now, a Pasadena-based […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Government writes wolf success story
NATION The federal government has declared its wolf recovery program a success. With wolf numbers at nearly 3,500 today – up from practically zero in the 1950s – the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed on July 11 to downlist the gray wolf from “endangered” to “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act in most of […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
The Wayward West
The Clinton administration has weighed in on the politically charged dam-breaching debate in the Northwest – and some say it’s bad news for endangered salmon (HCN, 12/20/99: Unleashing the Snake). On July 19, George Frampton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, announced Clinton will delay demolishing the four Snake River dams for five to […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Colorado blazes fuel forest restoration efforts
Front Range communities work to protect their water supply from post-fire soil erosion
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Up in smoke: Hanford fire releases plutonium
Activists worried about airborne ash
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
The snail that stands like a dam
Grand Canyon restoration hinges on the recovery of a tiny, talented mollusk
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Kicking and screaming in Nevada
The July 4 Shovel Brigade rally was a yawner, but protesters may still get what they want
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
A party for the people
Late on the afternoon of July 14, about three dozen people gathered at a Salt Lake City park to celebrate the 30th anniversary of an unusual family reunion. Dubbed the Bastille Family Reunion, this party got its start after the People’s Park incident in Berkeley, Calif., in 1969, when cities around the country banned large […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Dear Friends
Life in a petri dish July in Paonia is time for cherries, apricots and early morning irrigation. It’s time to crank up the swamp coolers and charge down Grand Avenue to jump into what’s left of the North Fork of the Gunnison River. But most of all, it’s the season for visiting far-flung friends and […]
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Rural Green: A new shade of activism
Ed Marston interviews Steve Hinchman, former HCN staffer and director of the Western Slope Environmental Resource Council, about the different kind of environmental activism and consensus-building needed in rural Western communities.
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Mining out the middleman
In Montana, locals and industry bypass agencies and forge a new road
Posted inJuly 31, 2000: Out of the darkness
Out of the darkness
A Western Colorado community meets a coal boom halfway
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Optimism for Nevada’s weedy wasteland
Dear HCN, I’ve been working with reclamation in the Great Basin for 17 years and personally know the learned gentlemen interviewed by Jon Christensen. Your article left me feeling like all our efforts over the years (HCN, 5/22/00: Save Our Sagebrush) have little show. I agree that the crested wheat plantations are more like museums […]