In this issue we take a dive into pollution, first with an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, produced in collaboration with High Country News and the Ohio Valley ReSource, as mining companies have taken advantage of loopholes to get out of environmental remediation by idling their operations. We also look at aerial spraying in Oregon and how locals are working to upend the practice. Another HCN investigation finds the EPA awarded a contract to do clean up on the Navajo Reservation to an outfit with a troubled past. We look into why California’s program to help low-income residents during PG&E blackouts has nearly zero applications. We travel to Idaho, where many refugees have found success in resettlement. We also provide a perspective on the BLM chief’s fixation with wild horses as a threat to public lands, and more.

An old mine structure in Uravan, Colorado, where uranium mining has left a legacy of cancer and polluted lands. Credit: Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images

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Modern hunting

Emily Benson diplomatically raises some of the issues surrounding hunting in a modern society (“The power of hunting,” HCN, 10/28/19). There are three additional items worth pointing out. First: Show me the cost-benefit analysis for hunting. It might prove out for subsistence hunters or rural folks shooting game in their hayfields, but for most urbanites,…

by Francis Miller

Predators vs. CWD

As a lifelong hunter reared in Denver, and someone who harvested a mule deer near Paonia, Colorado, 60-odd years ago with an 1873 Springfield .45-70, I found Christine Peterson’s reflection on chronic wasting disease very interesting (“Weighing the risks” HCN, 10/28/19). I studied forestry and wildlife management at Colorado State University and worked for the National…

by Norman A. Bishop

‘Revolting’

Cloaked in “elegant” prose, “Killing the Goat” was an absolutely revolting article (HCN, 10/28/19). Hunters can search for kinship with the wild all they want, but it is total BS. This clown wounds the mountain goat, tries to follow it but cannot, then kills a bear who comes towards her as she heads back to…

by Renee DeMartin

A reason not to hunt

“Killing the Goat” was a great article and reminds me of my decision to never hunt again. Halas’ lost goat was my lost elk years before in Colorado. Never again! Ron Mannhalter, via Twitter This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A reason not to hunt.

by Ron Mannhalter

False kinship

I have been reading HCN since 2001, during my early college days at Western State in Gunnison. I have never been as unimpressed by an essay as I was by Gabriela Halas’ “Killing the Goat” (HCN, 10/28/19). The writer’s “true kinship” with the two animals she killed retards the idea of hunting ethics and spirituality…

by Blake Fredrickson

Humans vs. predators

As far as I know, no one is currently sure of the history of chronic wasting disease (“Weighing the risks”). One theory is that it has been around for many millennia, but was controlled by predators like wolves, mountain lions and bears eating the ungulates that were less able to escape them. So predators removed…

by Nancy Stocker