SOUTH FORK, Colo. – “They’re back!” yelled wildlife biologist Gene Byrne in February, as a lanky-legged lynx, trapped in Canada, bounded from a cage in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains. “They never left,” another Colorado Division of Wildlife officer, Bill Andree, said quietly. That exchange was symbolic of the lynx’s return to the Southern Rockies this […]
Wildlife
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
The fall of an Arizona saguaro
In the dead of a late winter night in Arizona, my wife, Joyce, awakened me. “I think I heard the cactus die,” she whispered. So, we dressed, found the flashlight and trekked down the driveway to the road at 2 a.m. It had fallen. About four feet up from the ground the trunk had splintered. […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Spinning back the bison
The trouble with being a handspinner is that people are always giving me bags of fiber: a plastic bag full of hair from their ever-shedding malemute; a paper sack containing coarse waxy hanks of hair from a pet Angora goat. I never turn them down. Most handspinners are hoarders by nature; we go to fiber […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Don’t trust everything you see
MISSOULA, Mont. – A few years ago, Chuck Bartlebaugh photographed a young girl in Yellowstone National Park, standing about 10 feet in front of a bull elk whose head was submerged in the tall grass. The girl stood with her back to the elk, facing away from the camera. The girl’s mother noticed Bartlebaugh, and […]
Posted inApril 26, 1999: Visionaries or dreamers?
Counties put a bounty on coyotes
The price of a movie ticket or six gallons of premium gasoline is now the going rate for a pair of coyote ears in two southeastern Colorado counties. Baca County now pays $7.50 per coyote, the first bounty in Colorado in almost 30 years. Since January, the bounty has brought in 412 pairs of ears. […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
Standing up for the underdog
On a sunny fall day about a year ago, Jonathan Proctor arrived in the prairie community of Chadron, Neb., for an evening of proselytizing. Though groomed to become a Lutheran minister like his father, the boyish-looking 31-year-old had not come to town to save souls. His was a more difficult task. He would try to […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Now, salmon in the backyard
Where roads cross the flowing waters of Kelsey Creek, a six-mile-long stream contained entirely within the city of Bellevue, Wash., signs inform motorists: “This is a salmon stream.” Some residents are surprised. Kit Paulsen, who leads the city’s salmon education program, says, “A number of people have called to say they didn’t know there was […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Montana won’t bend for bison
The Montana Department of Livestock continues to play hardball with bison leaving Yellowstone National Park despite urging from federal agencies to let the animals roam. In mid-March, state workers removed protesters blocking a Forest Service road near West Yellowstone, Mont., and arrested six members of the group, Buffalo Field Campaign. That cleared the way for […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Is trapping doomed?
The day after Christmas 1997 is a day that Liz Kehr shudders to remember. Kehr and her husband, Kevin Feist, live in the Flathead Valley in northwestern Montana, snug against Glacier National Park. It’s a place where publicly owned land stretches for miles in all directions, though in the past 10 years the valley has […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
Trapping in the United States
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Long before Europeans came to the North American continent, natives were using traps to catch animals and fish. Eskimos used whalebone nooses to snare waterfowl, the Hopis used dead-fall rock slabs to kill fox and Aleutian Indians used barbed spikes to catch bears. According […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
A Wyoming trapper seeks pelts, and beauty
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. You can hear the pleasure in his voice. “Look at those beauties. Hello, ladies, hello, you beautiful things,” says Tom Lucas. Five bighorn ewes wander away from us, only slightly alarmed at two humans in their territory. “I just love seeing wildlife.” Tom Lucas […]
Posted inApril 12, 1999: Is trapping doomed?
In the ’90s, trapping still has a role
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The heyday of the mountain man lasted only a few decades, ending in the 1830s, when both the market and the supply of beaver fizzled out. But the tradition lives on. In towns around the West, and even in the Midwest, “mountain men” celebrate […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Julia Butterfly won’t come down
Julia “Butterfly” Hill has become something of a celebrity. She has lived in a 1,000-year-old redwood tree near Stafford, Calif., for over a year, spreading the message that “each and every one of the old-growth trees is ancient, precious, and priceless.” From the 300 to 500 letters she receives daily, Hill is confident that people […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Toxic cleanup turns up frogs
During a routine survey of a toxic-waste dump near Santa Maria, Calif., EPA staffers stumbled upon a peculiar surprise. Hiding in the vegetation surrounding a series of rain-filled ponds were an estimated 300 red-legged frogs, a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. While the discovery was welcome news, biologists now worry that […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Here comes a wayward wolf
When the lone gray wolf appeared ahead of a snowplow driver on Highway 7 in the Blue Mountains of northeastern Oregon, it became the state’s first official wild wolf sighting since 1946. Leaving Idaho, the two-year-old female had traveled hundreds of miles over mountains, rivers and highways, looking for a mate, but its days in […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Adopt-a-ferret is under way
Once close to extinction, the black-footed ferret is making a comeback this year. Over the past decade, thousands of the critters have been raised in captivity by a federally funded breeding program. This year, scientists plan to release around 250 ferrets in five Western states, adding to the estimated 200 captive-bred ferrets already in the […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Are salmon bear essentials?
New research shows that the decline of salmon populations in the Northwest has drastically altered the diet of the region’s grizzly bears. Historically, say Charles Robbins of Washington State University and other researchers, salmon accounted for an average of two-thirds of a grizzly’s diet, and, at times, as much as 90 percent. The biologists examined […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Nebraska National Forest
The national forests of Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming need volunteers who are passionate about the outdoors and conservation. There are a variety of opportunities, from trail work to answering questions at visitor centers. Contact Nebraska National Forest, 125 N. Main St., Chadron, NE 69337, or www.fs.fed.us/r2/nebraska/volunteer/ index.htm. This article appeared in the print edition […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Bison may get ground to stand on
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. The Church Universal and Triumphant remains willing to remove all cattle from its Royal Teton Ranch and to allow bison to roam there once state and federal government make some commitments of their own. Here are the highlights of the church’s proposal, some of […]
Posted inMarch 15, 1999: Selling off the Promised Land
Chaos reigns in Idaho wildlife agency
In Idaho, the state Fish and Game Commission is almost a hallowed institution. Its history extends back to the 1930s, when a national committee led by writer and conservationist Aldo Leopold advanced a management formula devised to protect wildlife from the political whims of the day. Voters adopted Leopold’s plan by approving a citizen’s initiative […]