Last fall, I traveled to a war in central Idaho. For six years, in the longest-standing Earth First! demonstration in the country, environmentalists have laid pipe, cement, trees and themselves in front of logging trucks at the Cove-Mallard timber sale, 80 miles southeast of Lewiston, Idaho, in the Nez Perce National Forest. And though this […]
Wildlife
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
From croaks to chirps
I used to spend a lot of time chasing frogs. It would be easier to say that I quit doing this at age 12, like the other kids, but the truth is a little harder to explain. I would show up at work – I got paid for this – with a long-handled net and […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
Westslope cutthroat trout
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has added 60 days to the comment period on the petition to list the Westslope cutthroat trout as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. See the petition at www.mcn.net/~amwild and send comments by Oct. 13 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Native Fishes Management, 4052 Bridger Canyon Rd., […]
Posted inAugust 31, 1998: Excavating Ecotopia
Timber mills close in the Northwest
BOISE, Idaho – When an angry mob of Boise Cascade Corp. sawmill workers gathered in front of the Idaho Conservation League office in late July, staffer John McCarthy thought twice about going outside. At a similar rally earlier this year, a timber worker grabbed McCarthy by the neck and said, “If I was younger, I’d […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Prairie dogs get a cease-fire
Prairie dog shooting means big business for many small towns across the Great Plains states. So when the U.S. Forest Service recently closed the 70,000-acre Conata Basin in South Dakota’s Buffalo Gap National Grasslands to shooters, many prairie dog shooters and businesses across the plains grew wary. Shooters “make up about 70 percent of my […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Birds bridge borders
Development erects “No Vacancy” signs for migratory birds, forcing olive-sided flycatchers, yellow-billed cuckoos, and loggerhead shrikes to fly farther every year as they seek safe havens to rest and eat. Their familiar breeding spots are also disappearing, says Terry Rich of Partners in Flight, a group created to address declines in populations that breed in […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Lynx as “endangered’
Who cares about the big bad cats? The Predator Project encourages comment on a proposed listing of the lynx as “endangered” under the Endangered Species Act. September hearings will be held in Idaho, Oregon, Maine and Wisconsin. Send comments by Sept. 30 to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Lynx), 100 North Park, Suite 320, […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
In wilderness, don’t phone home
A man recently fell and broke his leg while hiking in the wilderness area above Boulder, Colo. While I wondered aloud how anyone could meet this fate in such a well-worn area, it was his rescue that piqued my attention. The lost hiker carried a cell phone and a hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS), a […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Salmon plan can’t stand alone
Two years ago, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber boasted that his state could do a better job of managing coho salmon than the Endangered Species Act. The Oregon Plan, he said, was an innovative approach to endangered species management on state and private land – a collaborative, mostly voluntary approach that could replace top-down federal regulations. […]
Posted inAugust 17, 1998: Living out the trailer dream
Forest Service pulls anchor ban out of thin air
My skin still tingles when I recall our helplessness as the sound of thunder and flash of lightning struck our senses simultaneously. My rock-climbing partner and I had just reached the summit of a long, remote climb in California’s High Sierras, when a fast-moving thunderstorm broke over us. I yelled to my partner to start […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Judge nixes salmon plan
Oregon’s Democratic Gov. John Kitzhaber had high hopes that his plan for saving coastal coho salmon from extinction could stave off listing the fish as endangered, and set an example of stewardship for other Western states. The “Oregon Plan” featured collaboration among private landowners, who own 65 percent of the salmon’s habitat, the local timber […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
Utah finds 3 million more wild acres
Equipped with an old Jeep Cherokee 4×4 and a stack of large-scale topographical maps, Kevin Walker spent two years combing southern Utah. He was looking for wild, unprotected tracts of Bureau of Land Management land that might have been left out of a coalition’s wilderness proposal. His team – Walker helped lead the citizens’ inventory […]
Posted inAugust 3, 1998: Tribes reclaim stolen lands
At Tahoe, it’s agreed: old growth gets to stay
The residents of the Lake Tahoe Basin want their old-growth trees, dead or alive. A regulation that took effect last month all but prohibits the harvest of trees over 30 inches in diameter, whether they are on public or private land. Because it applies to both green and standing dead trees, the Tahoe ordinance expands […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Victory for the tortoise
Though notoriously slow to the finish line, the desert tortoise came out ahead this April in the first endangered-species act case to be prosecuted in Idaho in 15 years. Russell G. Jones of Star, Idaho, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a protected species under federal law and was fined $1,000 and ordered to serve […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
The illustrated adventures of bison
What weighs 4 pounds, boasts stunning watercolor illustrations of wildlife, and purports to regulate brucellosis in free-ranging bison? The new 400-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Interagency Bison Management Plan for the State of Montana and Yellowstone National Park, of course. The statement, a collaboration by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Justice for the cutthroat
When it listed bulltrout as a threatened species recently (HCN, 6/22/98), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also announced that westslope cutthroat trout deserved study for possible protection. The move was pushed by six conservation groups – American Wildlands, Madison Gallatin Chapter of Trout Unlimited, Idaho Watersheds Project, Montana Environmental Information Center, Clearwater Biodiversity Project […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Still on the hit list
When the Wilderness Society released a list of the 10 most endangered wild places in the U.S. last year, it hoped media attention would slow down the development threatening these unique areas. But this year’s list has been expanded to 15 sites, and only one area dropped off the list because of increased protection. The […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
Begging bears are back in Idaho
REXBURG, Idaho – A cinnamon-colored bear ambles over to the green GMC camper truck, sniffs the tires and stands up on his hind legs. The 400-pound predator paws at the hood and laps at the bug-spattered windshield, behind which sits a giddy young family of four packed on the truck’s bench seat. They’re not in […]
Posted inJuly 6, 1998: Riding the Wyoming 'brand'
A timber town rallies for roads
CASCADE, Idaho – The open-air protest was hastily organized, but Idaho Republican Rep. Helen Chenoweth found time to travel to this timber town of 900. “You’re the best environmentalists in the world,” she told 500 cheering people who had gathered to close the road through town with logging trucks and send a message to the […]
Posted inJune 22, 1998: Western water: Why it's dirty and in short supply
Victory for the bull trout
Compelled by continuing litigation from environmentalists, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed two populations of bull trout as threatened – one in Oregon’s Klamath River Basin and the other in the huge Columbia River Basin, reaching into Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. The legal battle was waged by three nonprofit groups – Alliance for […]