Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, Ed Marston’s essay, “Show me the science,” leaves me perplexed (HCN, 3/16/98). On the one hand, Ed admits that the typical rural lifestyle near and using public lands has led to environmental degradation. On the other hand, he claims environmentalists are enemies of the rural economies and life. He cannot have it both […]

Dear HCN, Tom Reed’s article about how life is tough in Wyoming (HCN, 4/13/98) spoke in perfect cadence with my own heartbeat. There are not many of us left; the “Westerners,” like the bighorn sheep and the mule man, are singing that sad and forlorn refrain of a vanishing time. Up until a few years […]

Dear HCN, Buried within the text of Peter Aleshire’s informative story on the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity is a quote from Kieran Suckling which describes the country where the Malpai Group works as “not a national forest allotment” and “mostly private land with low-elevation grassland” (HCN, 3/30/98). On his one and (as far as […]

Dear HCN, Thanks for an informative piece on the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, but to the reader looking for a “real” story (HCN, 4/13/98) here’s one: To focus on Western public lands and not pay attention to the Southwest Center is like studying pop culture in America and ignoring Disney. It is so relevant […]

Dear HCN, Stephen Lyons’ finely crafted bull’s-eye prose on Idaho will no doubt draw the ire of people who love the state (HCN, 3/16/98). His frank assessment of the neighborhood is as welcome as an empty larder to starving children. Keep in mind that all of Mr. Lyons’ examples are quite current. Keep in mind […]

Dear HCN, Stephen Lyons told us in the last issue that he left hate-filled Idaho for the more progressive state of Washington (HCN, 3/16/98). Since I made that same move last autumn, here’s my response to his essay: Dear Stephen, Welcome to Washington! You’ll find excellent coffee, happy diversity and easy access to recycling. Enjoy […]

Dear HCN, Lynne Bama’s wild horse story is an excellent introduction to many of the philosophical and practical problems attendant to management of a large, sacred, feral domestic ungulate on the public lands (HCN, 3/2/98). Although ecologically responsible management of feral horses and burros under current laws and policies is theoretically possible, censuses and removals […]

Dear HCN, Jon Margolis often has interesting insights, but his article titled “The Land and Water Fund waits to be tapped” naively misses the bigger picture (HCN, 2/16/98). It is true that the Land and Water Trust Fund is not managed like a trust fund dedicated to conserving land and water. But the misuse of […]

Dear HCN, This is regarding your “Heard around the West” article about the closure of the Tucson Rod & Gun Club rifle range in Sabino Canyon (HCN, 3/16/98). I am a loyal HCN reader and also an avid hunter and shooter. During the late “70s through the mid-’80s, I spent many hours at the Sabino […]

Dear HCN, After reading Ed Marston’s column, “Show me the science,” (HCN, 3/16/98), I feel compelled to respond to your criticism of modern Western environmentalists wherein you called them “enemies of rural life and rural economies.” Why do you, and so many others, think that Western rural lifestyles and economies must be based upon traditional […]

Dear HCN, Kieran Suckling is afraid to talk to ranchers with environmentally enhancing grazing practices. His belief is that all ranchers are destructive. He states: “Show me a national forest grazing allotment in Arizona or New Mexico that isn’t trashed, and I’ll sit down and talk about sustainable grazing. It doesn’t exist” (HCN, 3/30/98). Mr. […]

Dear HCN, While the Poppers’ update on the Buffalo Commons was interesting, it failed to disclose a disturbing trend in private bison herd management (HCN, 2/2/98). That trend is the domestication of bison. The bison slaughterhouse in North Dakota mentioned in the Poppers’ article requires that bison be grain-fed 120 days prior to slaughter, and […]

Dear HCN, In the opinion of Frank and Deborah Popper, their Buffalo Commons idea is accurate, but your headline tells the real story: “The bison are coming’ – not the “Commons’ (HCN, 2/2/98). If the Poppers had said 10 years ago that bison (note they still get the animals’ name wrong) should become more numerous […]

Dear HCN, My pet peeve is the anti-ranchette bias I see in almost every issue of High Country News. Granted, some ranchettes, just as some ranches, are environmental destabilizers, but most probably serve to increase environmental awareness, just as most ranchers who work with the land amid weather and wildlife have far more respect for […]

Dear HCN, Hugh B. McKeen cried wolf in the article “Wolves go wild in the Southwest” (HCN, 2/16/98). McKeen, who is convinced that people have been killed by wolves, predicts a child will be killed by Mexican wolves within a few years. That dog don’t hunt. Compared to Fido, the family pet, wolves are saints. […]

Dear HCN, Lynne Bama’s story does a good job of explaining some of the controversy surrounding management of feral horses (HCN, 3/2/98). In regard to the Pryor Mountains, however, she did not capture the most important issue: how the horses and their management might impact wilderness designation for the range. The Pryors are a fabulous […]

Dear HCN, David Rockland invokes a rather confusing logic in his essay “Is our love of the West destroying Chile?” (HCN, 1/19/98). Just because Americans wish to protect their local communities from the environmental impacts of bad mining does not imply, as Rockland asserts, they wish to “export environmental problems’ to other countries. Nor are […]

Dear HCN, As an activist and a writer, I am dismayed by the acrimony being flung by enviros toward enviros around the West regarding the recent decision by Judge Downes in the wolf reintroduction case. The editorial in The New York Times by Thomas McNamee, as well as pieces appearing in High County News, raise […]

Dear HCN, Maxine Keesling lamented land-use restrictions in King County, Wash., in a letter (HCN, 1/19/98), but on a recent trip to the area I was hard pressed to see any lack of construction or land development. In fact, sprawl and congestion in the Seattle area strongly resemble that of Southern California. If we are […]

Dear HCN, Letter writer Laurence Jewett of Massachusetts generally took National Audubon Society to the woodshed as the cause of the recent court ruling mandating wolf removal from Yellowstone and central Idaho (HCN, 1/19/98). Only one problem: Audubon didn’t cause the order, the Farm Bureau Federation did. It appears that Mr. Jewett, and a number […]