Heard Around the West

THE NATION Forget denouncing wind turbines as bird Cuisinarts; lovable pussycats rank as the true killing machines. Housecats wipe out some 4 billion animals every year, including at least 500 million birds, reports Wyoming Wildlife. The magazine cites a novel new study by two groups, the National Geographic Society and the University of Georgia, that […]

THE WEST Now that China’s decided to build one coal-fired power plant every week, corporations like Goldman Sachs have become highly interested in helping the country find black rocks to burn. The Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana produces what seems an inexhaustible amount, but there’s a hitch (isn’t there always?): The coal would have […]

COLORADO AND WASHINGTON Zombies must be a little too much in movie news these days. Maureen Briggs of Montrose, Colo., was fishing at Lost Lake on the Gunnison National Forest when a man and his two sons hiked by, with the younger boy asking: “Have you seen any zombies here?” Her reply, “Not yet.” But in […]

CALIFORNIA Not far from stands of huge redwood trees and often doused by rain, fans of Humboldt State’s Division II football team cheer on their team with an unusual array of helpers. An ax-wielding drum major cavorts in front of the crowd while some members of the Marching Lumberjack Band make music by banging on […]

WYOMING AND UTAH Gun advocates keep turning up pesky impediments to their right to use guns any way they want, and when they do, they usually contact their state legislators and demand action. So recently, a Wyoming legislative panel endorsed a proposed bill that would permit silencers to be used while hunting any wildlife in […]

OREGON Every town needs something to be proud of. Portland not only has its own television show, Portlandia, but also a toilet. A very special toilet: Portland, if the L.A. Times is to be believed, has revolutionized the public loo, creating a minimalist, solar-powered bathroom that boasts its own Facebook page. It supposedly solves the age-old […]

THE SOUTHWEST & CALIFORNIA It’s been hot lately. Damned hot. Phoenix, Ariz., Palm Springs, Calif., and other Western torrid zones posted temperatures of more than 100 degrees every day during the first two weeks of August. Death Valley’s high exceeded 115 degrees on 14 out of those 14 days, and on one occasion reached 126 […]

THE WEST Ah, technology, isn’t it wonderful? Drones aren’t just useful for targeting suspected terrorists in far-off countries; unmanned aircraft can also be used to photograph birds roosting on cliffs high above the Pacific Ocean. Or so thinks the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, which plans to send a 6-pound drone with a 54-inch […]

COLORADO As if the recent local wildfires weren’t trouble enough, now Woodland Park, Colo, has to worry about a “strong, aggressive” 6-foot monitor lizard that might find itself tempted to dine on cats and dogs. The “pet,” known as Dino, snapped its mesh leash and wandered off in the tourist town northwest of Colorado Springs, […]

SOUTH DAKOTA The Custer County Chronicle, established in 1880 in the Black Hills of western South Dakota, is one of those weekly papers that asks the sheriff’s department to pitch in and publish its daily log of complaints, most of which seem relatively trivial, including concerns about “a big black cow” wandering the highway, a […]

THE WEST Don’t you just love those helpful hints about what to do when you’re caught in a jam while out hiking miles from the nearest rural road? Your first response is probably hopeless despair — the outback is, by definition, a long way from a hospital. Fortunately, a recent issue of Backpacker magazine offers […]

THE WEST Back in the late 1970s, Doug Weinant, a just-retired range boss in the Crawford country of western Colorado, had the reputation of being a genius with hummingbirds. He and his wife, Alma, who lived in a remote mountain cabin, would put out a bunch of sugar-water feeders in the spring, and dozens of […]

CALIFORNIA “A large gang of sea lions” is occupying three docks at Ventura in Southern California, the first time the 800-pound animals have squatted within the harbor itself. Until recently, the sociable sea lions congregated on large buoys that lead out of the harbor, but now, thanks to what rawstory.com describes as the animals’ “hostile […]