The Forest Service has extended the comment deadline for the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness management plan until March 1. The plan will manage 2.4 million acres of wilderness – the largest and one of the most heavily used in the country. Alternative 9 supports restoring wilderness conditions. To request a copy, call 208/756-5100. […]
Wildlife
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
A simpler salmon plan
Amid the hefty government reports, long-winded debates, and lengthy articles that surround salmon recovery in the Northwest, there emerges a 49-page paperback book with a simple message: Help salmon survive. Down to the Sea, by Jay W. Nicholas, a passionate fisheries biologist, struggles to explain Oregon’s recovery proposal to a baby coho salmon. “This is […]
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
Mumma resigns – wildlife division shaken up
Nine years ago, Northern Regional Forester John Mumma stood tearfully before a House subcommittee and said he had been betrayed by the Forest Service (HCN, 10/7/91). Because he didn’t meet timber quotas in the 13 national forests under his care, he said, powerful industry and political interests had conspired to force him out of his […]
Posted inFebruary 14, 2000: Land of the fee
‘Hunting’ for elk in the salt pits of the upper Yellowstone
This October, on a slant-sunny day, I rode with friends just outside Yellowstone Park’s southeastern corner, where an old hunting practice called salt baiting still occurs. For 30 years, commercial big-game outfitters in Wyoming’s Teton Wilderness have strewn salt in the meadows of the upper Yellowstone River and along the park boundary. They do it […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Yellowstone wolves are here to stay
Almost 300 wolves that are part of a transplant program in Yellowstone National Park and Idaho can remain in their new homes, thanks to a new ruling. On Jan. 13, a three-judge panel from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed a two-year-old decision by Federal Judge William Downes that a federal […]
Posted inJanuary 31, 2000: Searching for pasture
Political war continues over bison herd
All is quiet on the western front of Yellowstone National Park. As 50 bison graze within a few miles of the park border near West Yellowstone. So far this winter the animals have had no reason to cross the park line; mild weather has made foraging easy. Outside that boundary, in what has become an […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
How the Indians were set up to fail at bison management
I wasn’t born soon enough to be a cowboy on the West’s old open range. But for the last 10 years, I’ve been lucky enough to help gather a herd of up to 500 bison every fall on 30 square miles of Montana prairie. I live on the reservation, though I’m not a Native American, […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
The swift fox comes home
Visitors to the rolling grasslands of Montana’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation may wonder what animal is making a chirping sound. It sounds like a bird, but it’s the mating call of the swift fox. The long-legged, long-eared and bushy-tailed animals were once common on the range, eating grasshoppers and Richardson’s ground squirrels. Lewis and Clark first […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
In their own words
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “It’s really a pivotal moment. The battle lines have been drawn. We’re pointing our fingers, but we’re pointing them pretty much at ourselves. We’re saying that we have to start exercising restraint in when and where we choose to recreate. A lot of people […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
‘They’re not good stewards of the land’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Jim Gonzales lives in Minturn, Colo., and grew up hunting elk, deer and grouse with his father, who mined zinc and lead at the now-defunct Eagle Mine, near Vail. He prowled the backcountry roads in a four-wheel drive until two decades ago, when a […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
‘Managing for biodiversity is a mistake’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Lou Dawson, a guidebook writer in Carbondale, Colo., was the first person to ski down Colorado’s 54 “fourteeners.” He also hunts, jeeps, snowmobiles and once started an avalanche while downhill skiing out of bounds at Aspen Highlands, suffering an injury that still nags him: […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
The White River National Forest
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The White River National Forest is the very prototype of a New West forest. The Forest Service estimates that 34,000 people make their living from the forest, though that far underestimates its value. The forest is a huge backyard for those who live along […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
Take your pick of forest plans
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. While the original White River forest-plan alternatives numbered nine, lettered A through I, now there are six. The survivors are: Alternative B: The status quo, which emphasizes production of goods, recreation and grazing. Few restrictions on travel, no new recommendations for wilderness; timber harvest […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
Chainsaws fall silent in Cove-Mallard
NEZ PERCE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho – Just a few years ago, Cove-Mallard, a roadless area, was a rallying cry for anti-logging activists. As bulldozers pushed into the rolling mountains above the Salmon River in north-central Idaho, protesters locked themselves to gates, buried each other under piles of slash and erected and perched in a series […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
Experiment takes the cut out of logging
COLUMBIA FALLS, Mont. – Surrounded by mountain forests that stretch 80 miles north to the Canadian border and 120 miles east to the Great Plains, this town grew from the seeds of logging. And in contrast to neighboring communities like Whitefish, which now depend on tourism generated by Glacier National Park, Columbia Falls remains a […]
Posted inJanuary 17, 2000: STOP
Turning the road builders around
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Roads are at the heart of the dispute on the White River National Forest. Gold miners around Breckenridge and silver miners around Aspen built the first roads, while livestock grazers improved Ute Indian trails for stock drives. Later yet came roads for power lines, […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Barely there
After decades of searching, federal biologists haven’t found a single grizzly bear in Montana and Idaho’s Bitterroot/Selway ecosystem. But the Missoula-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies and seven other local environmental organizations say there may be a remnant population – one that people have overlooked. The groups recently launched a “Great Grizzly Search.” It involves […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Westerners take sides on road ban
Around the West this winter, citizens flocked to Forest Service “listening sessions,” part of an initial scoping process to collect comments on President Clinton’s October directive to protect roadless forests (HCN, 11/8/99). Conservationists dominated regional meetings held in 10 cities, including Portland, Missoula, Salt Lake City and Albuquerque. Many supported the Oregon-based Heritage Forest Campaign: […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Counties grab for control of national forests
Last month, the House of Representatives struck a blow for local control of the national forests. For decades, counties have received 25 percent of the revenue from Forest Service timber harvested within their borders to fund county schools and roads. But in this decade, as federal logging has declined by 70 percent, so have timber […]