Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, Your last issues are so readable and well-written, I can’t believe it’s the same paper I struggled to understand five years ago in order to better politically advocate for the environment. The way it’s being written now, I have found that high school and even junior high students can educate themselves from it. […]

Dear HCN, It was refreshing and encouraging to read “A new world in the woods” (HCN, 4/1/02: A new world in the woods). While environmental groups promote divisiveness and confrontation through the courts at taxpayers’ expenses, people such as Headley and Wilcox make a difference on the ground without sensationalism or posturing. They directly help […]

Dear HCN, The conservation groups of Wyoming would like to phase out the 23 Wyoming elk feedgrounds (HCN, 4/29/02: Are Wyoming’s feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?). Well, I was a member of several of the Wyoming conservation groups as you call them, and I was never asked to support the phaseout of the Wyoming feedgrounds. […]

Dear HCN, This letter is to correct misinformation conveyed by Mark Williams in a letter regarding San Miguel County, Colo.’s proposed “high alpine zone” land-use code changes (HCN, 3/4/02: Allen Best flunks the snow test). It is too bad that Mr. Williams, in an otherwise informative letter, succumbed to the ever-popular mud-slinging at high-profile celebrities […]

Dear HCN, Karen Mockler’s recent report, “Are Wyoming’s elk feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?” (HCN, 4/29/02: Are Wyoming’s elk feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?), reminded me again of journalism’s greatest weaknesses: No matter how good the report is, there are never enough column inches to tell the whole story, and sometimes crucial facts fall through […]

Dear HCN, I happen to work in the watershed where the salmon picture was taken for Heard around the West (HCN, 4/29/02: Heard around the West). As a matter of clarification, the “car-dodging salmon” are not a “spring phenomenon” and they were not trying to “get back to the river.” This is a picture of […]

Dear HCN, Your excellent story on snowmobiles and West Yellowstone (HCN, 4/1/02: Move over!) demonstrates one among several points: After a new, destructive practice has gained a foothold in the local economy, it can be virtually impossible to control, much less dislodge. People who valued tranquility, clean water, kayaking, wildlife and traditional island values decided […]

Dear HCN, You can imagine how “silly” I felt when I read Glen Loomis’ comments about the snowmobile curfew (“it would be one more of the freedoms in our country whittled away”) (HCN, 4/1/02: Move over!). I felt “silly” as I realized that I must have been too preoccupied with my head being up my […]

Dear HCN, In your last two issues you featured articles on the snowmobiles in West Yellowstone (HCN, 4/1/02: Move over!) and the dairy farms in Idaho’s Magic Valley (HCN, 4/15/02: Raising a stink). There is a common and infuriating thread: The producers of pollution, be it noise or bad odors, noxious fumes or foul wastes, […]

Dear HCN, I do not want to tell you that Ed Quillen’s article about Mel Coleman (HCN, 4/1/02: The ‘Niche West’ reconnects us to the land) was worth the price of this year’s subscription, but it’s some of the best work he or you has done. You can remind me of that next time I […]

Dear HCN, As any HCN reader knows, there’s a whole lot to environmentally responsible red-meat ranching: including, but not limited to, conscientious stocking and grazing rotation, scrupulous protection of riparian areas, big-hearted attitudes about the presence of large canid predators as vital, rightful, native members of the ecosystems into which exotic, domestic, grazing animals are […]

Dear HCN, Re: your recent article, “Habitat protection takes a critical hit” (HCN, 4/15/02: Habitat protection takes a critical hit). What has happened here is that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service performed a very poor and cursory economic analysis in establishing critical habitat for the southern willow flycatcher in New Mexico, and they got […]

Dear HCN, Regarding the article about habitat protection taking a hit under the Bush administration (HCN, 4/15/02: Habitat protection takes a critical hit), may I say about the Sierra Club’s Bill Arthur quote: It takes one to know one. It was the Clinton administration that waited for environmentalists to file lawsuits and then settled the […]

Dear HCN, Finding ways to make the Forest Service more accountable is an admirable task. Excluding the public from Forest Service decisions will make things worse. The Charter Forest idea will exclude the public from decision-making processes. Charter forest projects will likely cost the taxpayers more and provide environmentally harmful results. The vast majority of […]

Dear HCN, Four things that I wish you had covered in your story on lead in condors (HCN, 2/18/02: Condor program laden with lead): 1) The problem is with deer gut piles left by legal hunting, probably not with wounded and lost game. Gut piles from legally taken game number in the hundreds during the […]

Dear HCN, In Ed Marston’s review of Char Miller’s book, Gifford Pinchot and the Foundation of Modern Environmentalism (HCN, 3/18/02: Will the real Gifford Pinchot please stand up), he states that “the Forest Service, safe within the Department of Agriculture, went on to slaughter the national forests after World War II.” How outlandish! If so, […]

Dear HCN, Ed Quillen’s essay rings a bell here in our Carson Valley (HCN, 4/1/02: The ‘Niche West’ reconnects us to the land). We have a thriving native seed company, and during the last two years we have discovered native crops on several of the valley ranches. The development pressure has been enticing local ranchers […]

Dear HCN, The George Sibley article is one of the best I have ever read (HCN, 3/18/02: How I lost my town). He has summed up how we have given away the mountain towns we came to Colorado to enjoy. Most of us are just mad and can’t express our frustrations. George has expressed our […]

Dear HCN, I am skeptical of the concept of “Charter Forests” (HCN, 3/18/02: Can ‘charter forests’ remake an agency?), especially when I observe who is backing it – the timber industry and its supporters in Congress and the Bush administration. Under the guise of streamlining decision making within the Forest Service, the real intent appears […]

Dear HCN, After reading Erika Trautman’s article, “Will listing hurt the Colorado lynx?” (HCN, 1/21/02: Will listing hurt the Colorado lynx?), I decided to do more research about the reintroduction program in Colorado. One of the more crucial points of the article seemed to be buried at the end of the article. Tonya Shenk, head […]