In the wake of the huge fires that swept across the Great Basin in August 1999, the BLM is seeking ways to restore the sagebrush landscape and to control the fire-prone cheatgrass that now infests it.
Heard around the West
Fast asleep at 5 a.m., while illegally camped in a parking lot in Yellowstone< National Park, two tourists from Oregon were rudely awakened " -- not by park rangers tapping on their window, but by a boom so loud they thought it was an earthquake. In a matter of minutes the couple was racing off,…
Dam unites environmental opposition
Dear HCN, I’m disgusted with the tone and inaccuracies of Adam Burke’s article, “One dam, two rallies” (HCN, 4/24/00: One dam, two rallies). “What’s the best way to build support for tearing down a dam?” he wrongly asks. None of the organizations at the rally ever supported “tearing down a dam’; they were advocating the…
Some predators have clout
Dear HCN, Apropos the item “Guides may get guidelines” (HCN, 3/27/00: Guides may get guidelines), Idaho, after long and mighty labors, has produced a draft “Wolf Management Plan.” Among other bemusing provisions in the plan is one which would provide monetary compensation to guides and outfitters for “economic harm caused individual outfitting businesses by decreasing…
‘Militia woman’ is fighting for her rights
Dear HCN, I read with interest your March 13 article about Jim Catron, “The Last Celtic Warlord lives in New Mexico” – which leads the reader to believe he is some kind of hero of the West. Many of us here in Catron County see it otherwise. We see him as a pompous, hot-headed little…
He’s worried about weeds
UNCOMMON WESTERNERS Steve Monsen is a stocky, modest, self-contained man. Sixty-three years old, the son and grandson of Utah sheep ranchers, he works as a botanist for an organization that could not sound more unassuming if it tried – the USDA Shrub Lab in Provo, Utah. There, he wears short-sleeved shirts and jeans and cuts…
Dump cows – for what?
Dear HCN, In Debra Donahue’s opinion, “The writing is on the wall: Livestock grazing on semi-arid public ranges is uneconomic and unsustainable. The only solution is removing livestock altogether” (HCN, 2/28/00: A prof takes on the sacred cow). I’m not familiar with the implications of that statement in the state of Wyoming; I do know…
Carless in Denali
Dear HCN, Larry Warren said in the April 10 High Country News that, “Beginning May 23, Zion (National Park) becomes the first Western park, and just the second in the national park system, to go carless. Acadia National Park in Maine was the first.” Mr. Warren should check out the history of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley…
Service says dams should stay put
NORTHWEST The federal agency charged with recovering endangered salmon won’t recommend dismantling dams – at least for now (HCN, 12/20/99: Unleashing the Snake). Will Stelle, regional director of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said recently that his agency wants to table the breaching debate for five to 10 years while it tries to boost salmon…
How we banned Compound 1080
Dear HCN, In a back-page essay, you show a photograph of Sen. Gale McGee, William Ruckelshaus, and me: Nathaniel Reed (HCN, 3/27/00: HCN at 30: ‘On faith alone’). I was serving as Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The story of how the poisoned eagles were located, the intense investigation that followed,…
The burbs target cougars
WASHINGTON The suburbs of Seattle have historically been home to voters who support wild animals, but as development encroaches on what once was wilderness, new homeowners, such as Tami Cron, feel torn. Last summer Cron opened her front door and came face-to-face with an adult female lion. “It is pretty nerve-racking to think cougars were…
The Wayward West
It’s Idaho’s turn for a new national monument (HCN, 5/8/00: The Wayward West). Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt wants to create a national monument in the Great Rift and lava flow areas, west and south of Arco. The proposed monument would expand Craters of the Moon National Monument by 618 square miles and also protect the…
Lawmaker accepts Babbitt’s challenge
COLORADO Western Colorado’s Black Ridge Canyon has the largest array of sandstone arches outside of Utah, second only to Arches National Park. What it lacks is over-arching protection. That may soon change. Republican Rep. Scott McInnis, from nearby Grand Junction, is proposing to make the 130,000-acre Black Ridge Canyon a national conservation area, with 72,000…
Yelling fire in a crowded West
I was in Jackson, Wyo., in fall 1988, right after Yellowstone National Park burned to the ground. School children were contributing nickels and dimes to build it back up, and there was a lynch-mob attitude in the town toward the National Park Service and other federal agencies (HCN, 9/26/88). Today, the Yellowstone fires are celebrated…
Save Our Sagebrush
In the Great Basin, fires create a chance for redemption
The weedy future of the Great Basin
Fire and cheatgrass conspire to create a weedy wasteland
Are cows the ultimate weed seeders?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Joy Belski thumbs through the dozens of federal weed-management plans now circulating throughout the West, she almost always finds one thing missing. “The agencies will mention that trucks, hikers, ORVs and roads contribute to the spread of exotic weeds,” she says, “but they…
A few facts about weeds
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Between 1985 and 1995, the spread of weeds – exotic plant species – increased on public rangelands in the West from 4 million acres to 17 million acres. Unlike native species, exotic weeds have no native insects, fungi or diseases to control their growth…
Dear Friends
Errare humanum est … Reader Robert Stuart asks: “I wonder if columnist Jon Margolis misquoted the statement ‘oderint, dum metuant’ – ‘let them hate, provided that they fear.’ I thought this statement was made by Caligula, not Cicero …” In a story Feb. 14 we referred to a “Sandia National Forest.” Gary Schiffmiller tells us…
Activist calls for cease-fire on wolves
Others say killing problem wolves was part of the deal
Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell
A recreation explosion forces some action in Utah’s deadlocked wilderness debate
Another compromise plan falls flat
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”Stirrings in the San Rafael Swell.” In Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt’s State of the State address in January, the two-term Republican announced what he called an “unprecedented opportunity.” The opportunity was a huge land swap of state and…
Hikers stumble into an old dispute
Land-grant heirs say until their land is returned, the Continental Divide Trail won’t go through
‘Los Alamos is burning’
Los Alamos is burning. My wife stands in front of the TV in our home in Lewiston, Idaho, watching CNN with her hands to her face, tears in her eyes. She is whispering softly, a litany of actions from deep in her memory. “They have to pack their things. They have to take the family…