Letter to the editor

Dear HCN, I appreciated the debate offered on both sides of the mountain bike issue (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card). I have owned or managed outdoor-related retail businesses most of my life in all the beautiful parts of the country. One of my sons still makes his living running a bike shop. Since our livelihood […]

Dear HCN, While I applaud High Country News for sharing the recent success of Nevada wilderness advocates, and for reminding its readers of the approaching 40th anniversary of the landmark Wilderness Act, (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card), I was very disappointed by your characterization of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, and its executive director, Mike […]

Dear HCN, In response to your cover story, “Tinkering with nature,” (HCN, 3/31/03: Tinkering with nature), one must remember that Animal Damage Control, now masquerading as Wildlife Services, was set up in the 1930s at the instigation of livestock operators for the sole purpose of killing coyotes, lions, bears and bobcats for the ranchers. (Wolves […]

Dear HCN, Tom McNamee’s predator-prey article is one of the finest pieces on the subject of predators and predator control I have ever read (HCN, 3/31/03: Tinkering with nature). Typically writers who tackle this highly controversial issue are biased either for or against predators. Such articles seldom shed light on the issue, but do generate […]

Dear HCN, Poor Senator Harry Reid. He says if he were king, he’d have lots of wilderness, but he had to compromise in his recently passed Nevada “wilderness” bill (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card). Fortunately, there were bright spots in the legislation for some of Harry’s friends, who got free or cheap land through numerous […]

Dear HCN, I read with great interest the article about Mesa del Sol, “Project mixes suburbs with nature preserve” (HCN, 2/3/03: Project mixes suburbs with nature preserve). The article failed to elaborate one aspect of this “community of 100,000 people, living amid open space and restored rangeland”: It’s also located next to a Cold War […]

Dear HCN, I am writing in response to an article written by Ray Ring (HCN, 11/25/02: Feds bail on snowmobile ban), regarding the National Park Service bailing out on the proposed snowmobile ban in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks. I think this measure is totally wrong, considering that the Park Service has vehemently pushed […]

Dear HCN, From my perspective, your article “Feds bail on snowmobile ban” (HCN, 11/25/02: Feds bail on snowmobile ban), is a little one-sided. I think that the snowmobile riders are just being Americans, and enjoying themselves. Now, I myself do not ride snowmobiles, but I do still believe in why this country was formed. These […]

Dear HCN, I am deeply disappointed in HCN’s misrepresentation of the mission and efforts of Wilderness Watch (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card). Contrary to what was reported, Wilderness Watch does not work to undo any special provisions that were “grandfathered” by Congress into wilderness legislation. The Wilderness Act itself allows a number of special exceptions […]

Dear HCN, Since when is standing firm on fundamental wilderness principles seen as counter to those very principles? “The wild card” by Matt Jenkins (HCN, 3/3/03″ The Wild Card) portrayed Wilderness Watch as an organization more concerned about “purity” than reality. The reality is: They seem to be the only organization that has the courage […]

Dear HCN, The article on the 40th anniversary of the Wilderness Act (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card) gave readers the impression that, until recently, conservationists always advocated multi-area wilderness legislative packages, that the supposed slowdown in wilderness designation is something new, and that compromises of the Wilderness Act have been routine (and desirable) since 1964. […]

Dear HCN, Thank you for the article on Nevada wilderness (HCN, 3/3/03: The Wild Card). Many of us promoting and protecting wilderness in Nevada didn’t know how much was being traded off. Thanks to your intrepid author, we do now. I’m dismayed that the bill promotes development and that more is proposed in exchange for […]

Dear HCN, Ed Marston, I want to thank you for your column on immigration and overpopulation (HCN, 2/3/03: Son of immigrants has a change of heart). I’m sure you have taken a lot of criticism since then, but you are right in what you’ve said. Overall, people refuse to admit that every problem in the […]

Dear HCN, George Wuerthner is a skilled photographer and a committed activist, but he’s a lousy economist. His letter (HCN, 2/17/03: Condos or cows? Neither!) and his recent book, Welfare Ranching, amply testify to this. Wuerthner asserts that “ranching isn’t preventing sprawl now, nor will it in the future.” Yet he also states that high […]

Dear HCN, I am so tired of seeing these uncomplicated, sentimental appeals that place themselves on the side of pro- or anti-immigration and grace your pages with alarming regularity. I am appalled by the embedded hypocrisy that decries immigrants (read: brown-skinned) encroaching on “our” public space and representing a danger to “our wildlife” when “we” […]

Dear HCN, As the saying goes, there are none so blind as those who will not see. Such blindness must be willful indeed, when the impaired need look no further than nine pages away to sees the light. In his essay, “A son of immigrants has a change of heart” (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of […]

Dear HCN, None of the writers in HCN — including Marston (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart), Nijhuis (HCN, 12/23/02: Holding open the door to the good life up north) and Pritchett (HCN, 2/17/03: Anti-immigration myopia) — understand that the world population grows by 11,000 babies per hour, 264,000 per […]

Dear HCN, In my view, Ed Marston’s column “A son of immigrants has a change of heart” (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart) is wrong in several particulars. First, overpopulation is, as it was in the Rev. Malthus’ day (a couple of centuries ago, when he first suggested that the […]

Dear HCN, Oh, come on, Ed! Your apology for anti-immigration sentiment bespeaks loss of nerve (HCN, 2/3/03: The son of immigrants has a change of heart). That is not vintage Marston. Despair overwhelms me, too, sometimes, as our grotesque problems proliferate daily. But you know very well, or should know, that Mexican immigration is a […]

Dear HCN, The debate over cows on public lands (HCN, 1/20/03: THE GREAT RANCHING DEBATE) missed the best book I’ve yet read on the subject. HCN probably reviewed it back in 1995 when it was published, but its emphasis on national dialogue between opposing factions and realistically looking at what actually happens on the ground […]