Dear HCN, Apropos the item “Guides may get guidelines” (HCN, 3/27/00: Guides may get guidelines), Idaho, after long and mighty labors, has produced a draft “Wolf Management Plan.” Among other bemusing provisions in the plan is one which would provide monetary compensation to guides and outfitters for “economic harm caused individual outfitting businesses by decreasing […]
Some predators have clout
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Dam unites environmental opposition
Dear HCN, I’m disgusted with the tone and inaccuracies of Adam Burke’s article, “One dam, two rallies” (HCN, 4/24/00: One dam, two rallies). “What’s the best way to build support for tearing down a dam?” he wrongly asks. None of the organizations at the rally ever supported “tearing down a dam’; they were advocating the […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Heard around the West
Fast asleep at 5 a.m., while illegally camped in a parking lot in Yellowstone< National Park, two tourists from Oregon were rudely awakened " -- not by park rangers tapping on their window, but by a boom so loud they thought it was an earthquake. In a matter of minutes the couple was racing off, […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Lawmaker accepts Babbitt’s challenge
COLORADO Western Colorado’s Black Ridge Canyon has the largest array of sandstone arches outside of Utah, second only to Arches National Park. What it lacks is over-arching protection. That may soon change. Republican Rep. Scott McInnis, from nearby Grand Junction, is proposing to make the 130,000-acre Black Ridge Canyon a national conservation area, with 72,000 […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
The Wayward West
It’s Idaho’s turn for a new national monument (HCN, 5/8/00: The Wayward West). Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt wants to create a national monument in the Great Rift and lava flow areas, west and south of Arco. The proposed monument would expand Craters of the Moon National Monument by 618 square miles and also protect the […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
The burbs target cougars
WASHINGTON The suburbs of Seattle have historically been home to voters who support wild animals, but as development encroaches on what once was wilderness, new homeowners, such as Tami Cron, feel torn. Last summer Cron opened her front door and came face-to-face with an adult female lion. “It is pretty nerve-racking to think cougars were […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Service says dams should stay put
NORTHWEST The federal agency charged with recovering endangered salmon won’t recommend dismantling dams – at least for now (HCN, 12/20/99: Unleashing the Snake). Will Stelle, regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said recently that his agency wants to table the breaching debate for five to 10 years while it tries to boost salmon […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
He’s worried about weeds
UNCOMMON WESTERNERS Steve Monsen is a stocky, modest, self-contained man. Sixty-three years old, the son and grandson of Utah sheep ranchers, he works as a botanist for an organization that could not sound more unassuming if it tried – the USDA Shrub Lab in Provo, Utah. There, he wears short-sleeved shirts and jeans and cuts […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Yelling fire in a crowded West
I was in Jackson, Wyo., in fall 1988, right after Yellowstone National Park burned to the ground. School children were contributing nickels and dimes to build it back up, and there was a lynch-mob attitude in the town toward the National Park Service and other federal agencies (HCN, 9/26/88). Today, the Yellowstone fires are celebrated […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
‘Los Alamos is burning’
Los Alamos is burning. My wife stands in front of the TV in our home in Lewiston, Idaho, watching CNN with her hands to her face, tears in her eyes. She is whispering softly, a litany of actions from deep in her memory. “They have to pack their things. They have to take the family […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Hikers stumble into an old dispute
Land-grant heirs say until their land is returned, the Continental Divide Trail won’t go through
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Another compromise plan falls flat
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell.” In Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt’s State of the State address in January, the two-term Republican announced what he called an “unprecedented opportunity.” The opportunity was a huge land swap of state and […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell
A recreation explosion forces some action in Utah’s deadlocked wilderness debate
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Activist calls for cease-fire on wolves
Others say killing problem wolves was part of the deal
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Dear Friends
Errare humanum est … Reader Robert Stuart asks: “I wonder if columnist Jon Margolis misquoted the statement ‘oderint, dum metuant’ – ‘let them hate, provided that they fear.’ I thought this statement was made by Caligula, not Cicero …” In a story Feb. 14 we referred to a “Sandia National Forest.” Gary Schiffmiller tells us […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
A few facts about weeds
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Between 1985 and 1995, the spread of weeds – exotic plant species – increased on public rangelands in the West from 4 million acres to 17 million acres. Unlike native species, exotic weeds have no native insects, fungi or diseases to control their growth […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Are cows the ultimate weed seeders?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Joy Belski thumbs through the dozens of federal weed-management plans now circulating throughout the West, she almost always finds one thing missing. “The agencies will mention that trucks, hikers, ORVs and roads contribute to the spread of exotic weeds,” she says, “but they […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
The weedy future of the Great Basin
Fire and cheatgrass conspire to create a weedy wasteland
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Save Our Sagebrush
In the Great Basin, fires create a chance for redemption
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Heard around the West
A knitting society in Sequim, Wash., is making little wool sweaters to outfit little penguins who were drenched by a tanker’s oil spill in Australia. The one-foot-tall fairy penguins need the sweaters both for warmth and for protection. When the penguins preen their bodies the oil poisons them. “They look so cute,” said a member […]