In this issue, we delve into some of the strange intersections between humans and animals. Associate editor Tay Wiles introduces us to members of Nevada’s Agriculture Enforcement Unit, who ride the range investigating a spate of mysterious bovine injuries, and for our cover story, writer Julia Rosen takes us into the paradoxical world of bighorn sheep conservation that’s pitted conservationists against each other.
On nature and human nature
We’re tied to the natural world — despite our efforts to the contrary.
The cost of the bighorn comeback
In California’s Eastern Sierra, bringing back bighorn has meant killing more mountain lions.
‘My Montana’: Depictions that resist Western myths
The works of painter Theodore Waddell, a rancher and Montanan.
An industrious badger; misspelled markers of death; a political shooting match
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Why are coyotes so polarizing?
A new book seeks to make sense of the hated canid’s history.
Avoiding the ‘Moab model’
We just returned from our annual sojourn to southern Utah, visiting Canyonlands, a portion of the new Bears Ears National Monument and our beloved Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. And we couldn’t disagree more with Jim Stiles’ claims that national monument designation harms the land and nearby communities (“Help for Bears Ears?” HCN, 5/1/17). In the…
Elliott for all; Missed connections; Logging in monuments?
HCN.org news in brief.
Anticipating the next ‘Big One’ in Anchorage
Can an imminent disaster draw tourists to Alaska’s largest city?
FLDS leaders are ‘crime bosses’
“Change Comes to Short Creek” by Sarah Scoles illustrates why we need an impenetrable wall of separation between church and state (HCN, 5/1/17). If you ignore the religious blather of the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and look at what they are actually doing, you can see that civil…
Meet Nevada’s cow cops
Where crime scene investigators ride the range.
Mutual support, joint action
In his editor’s note in the May 1 issue, (“Exploitation and the West”), Brian Calvert states a truth: “The same person who would eagerly exploit a human being will just as easily exploit a landscape.” This may seem obvious to younger readers, but for many decades the environmental movement did not get it; public-land activists…
Old friends and new adventures
Wildflowers abound in the Colorado Rockies right now, and as warmer weather settles in, yellow glacier lilies and purple two-lobed larkspur have begun to grace our hikes. What a great time to welcome back an old friend — Michelle McClellen, who interned at HCN in 1996. Michelle was visiting Four Corners and Mesa Verde National…
Meet Jane, a climate scientist who fled Trump’s government
Worries about science censorship drove her from her post at the Energy Department.
Latest: Coal giant emerges from bankruptcy
Peabody is benefiting from the natural gas price hike.
Latest: Interior suspends resource advisory councils
Stakeholder groups have limited options to weigh in on federal policy-making.
Conflicts dog Trump’s Interior secretary nominee
David Bernhardt’s former clients have big business with the department he would run.
Death on the river
As summer rafting season begins, safe passage to all river runners.
Zinke went to Bears Ears to listen, but supporters felt unheard
The Interior Secretary’s monument review is off to a complicated start.
Montana refuge divides tribes and ranchers
The American Prairie Reserve offers a controversial vision for an intact prairie ecosystem.