Bighorn sheep and longtime sheep ranchers face off in Hells Canyon, where a legal battle over public-lands grazing could cause ripples across the West.
It’s another disaster
I am glad to see HCN finally writing about the BLM’s plan to aerial spray nearly 1 million acres of public land annually for the purpose of controlling invasive plants (HCN, 9/3/07) The West is a storybook of public-land calamities and this is yet another. Most of these have been foisted upon us by public…
Portrait of the artist – as many young men
In the opening chapters of the extraordinary new novel Flight, Sherman Alexie’s narrator, a lonely, orphaned, biracial teenager who calls himself Zits, fires two guns in a bank and is quickly shot dead by a guard. What follows is a series of scenes, all violent and each of increasing personal significance for the protagonist. They…
Two weeks in the West
In southern Arizona’s Tumacacori Highlands, the tropics meet the desert. Black bears roam steep canyons and oak-covered hillsides alongside Mexican vine snakes, cuckoos and jaguars. Located just north of the border, the region is one of the most biologically diverse in the country. In September, Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., introduced a bill that would protect…
The population bomb
The article by Valerie Brown illustrates our country dancing around the gorilla in the kitchen (HCN, 9/3/07). No amount of mitigation for stopping climate change will work unless we stabilize population. Nothing will solve this civilization’s spiral into irreversible consequences and unsolvable problems unless we stop population growth. The March 2006 population projections from Fogle/Martin…
Fault lines
Valerie Brown is to be congratulated for pursuing the story line in “A Climate Change Solution?” that some of the greenhouse carbon dioxide (CO2) that human activities are adding to the atmosphere could possibly be sequestered deep within a stack of basalt lava flows (HCN, 9/3/07). But the article fails to describe how scientist Peter…
He probably hates Johnny Cash, too
This response to Jonathan Thompson’s essay is not about the right to bear arms and the purpose of firearms (HCN, 9/3/07). (I do bear arms and I hunt with firearms.) Rather, it is more about the changing West. Thompson’s encounter with the Lexus-driving “bird man” reminds me of the sneer I got when I drove…
What’s it like to live in the West?
Here and there when I am traveling people ask What’s it like to live in the West? And they always ask it with that capital W on West, you can really and truly hear it, And this just happened in Illinois, in the seething earthy redolent middle of nowhere, A young man asked it, and…
Heard Around the West
COLORADO Hikers passing any of 284 high mountain lakes in western Colorado this fall may get to see some flying fish. First, a small plane will appear, flying low. Then, “at precisely the correct time,” the pilot will open a bay and send a stream of fish-filled water into the lake. It’s a native fish-stocking…
Sheep v. Sheep
A legal battle over Hells Canyon grazing could determine the future of wild sheep and sheep ranching across the West
Loosening the grazing knot
For much of the past two decades, High Country News has tried to wrap its head around one of the most vexing subjects in the West: livestock grazing on the public lands. We have talked with angry environmentalists and scientists who can’t understand why public-land managers ignore the ecological damage caused by cattle and sheep,…
Dear friends
WELCOME, MARTY AND LISA HCN’s new online editor, Marty Durlin, is glad to be back home in Delta County. She grew up in the nearby town of Delta, where her father was a state representative and her mother taught school. Marty holds a B.A. in humanities from Colorado Women’s College, and studied music and creative…
Underground movement
In northern Colorado, newcomers to the area lead the charge against planned uranium mining
A downside to downing dams?
Freeing up stopped rivers isn’t always the panacea one might expect
My, what a small family tree you have
In the Northern Rockies, gray wolves may face the problems of inbreeding
Spinner of yarns, maker of floats
Name: Black George Simmons Occupation: Volunteer ranger at the White Grass Ranger Station in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming Unofficial duties: Making root beer floats for hikers, tallying mouse deaths, publishing The White Grass Morning Report newsletter Business White Grass Dating – For Ladies: “The Alice’s Restaurant of the Dating Services” Claim to fame: Chief…