Updated March 11, 2008 With bison populations in Yellowstone National Park estimated at a near-record 4,700 animals this snowy winter, buffalo have begun pushing out of the park in earnest, and the usual winter shout-fest is underway. Fine, but the real problem posed by Yellowstone’s brucellosis infection, and the park’s refusal to realistically deal with […]
Dave Skinner
Posted inWotr
Let the states broker roadless lands — it’s the democratic way
This July, the U.S. Forest Service proposed a new administrative rule dealing with the controversial issue of roadless areas in national forests. Environmental groups reacted as you might expect. For example, a “personal” spam I received from John Adams at the Natural Resources Defense Council warned that the Bush administration “is lining up massive timber […]
Posted inMay 10, 2004: Shooting Spree
Motorized recreation belongs in the backcountry
I’ve had motorcycles in some form, on-or-off-road, since I was 11 years old. That’s how I went fishing or just exploring, dodging logging trucks as I gallivanted through the Flathead National Forest in Montana. It was, and still is, great fun; try it sometime. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems with motorized recreation. […]
Posted inWotr
Motorized recreation belongs in the backcountry
I’ve had motorcycles in some form, on-or-off-road, since I was 11 years old. That’s how I went fishing or just exploring, dodging logging trucks as I gallivanted through the Flathead National Forest in Montana. It was, and still is, great fun; try it sometime. That’s not to say that there aren’t problems with motorized recreation. […]
Posted inJune 9, 2003: How we see the West
Ray Ring’s Wrong
So Ray Ring wants us to stand back and let the forests burn (HCN, 5/26/03: A losing battle)? Get real, dude. Even if fires of the past were truly catastrophic, huge, epic or whatever, and are therefore ecologically desirable today (I disagree), the fact remains that there is a modern civilization now in place in […]
Posted inWotr
Protecting fake wilderness goes against the law
Environmental groups are going “wild” over the Interior Department’s recent decisions to recognize Western road claims and chuck out the Clinton administration’s wilderness study policy. Before getting into the angry rhetoric, however, a bit of history is in order. This entire flapdoodle hinges on interpretation of two laws, Revised Statute 2477 — RS 2477 for […]
Posted inWotr
Snowmobiles are the people’s choice for Yellowstone
The Bush administration’s decision to upset the ban on snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park has been met, as expected, with howls of outrage from both environmentalists and a lot of the media. After the millions of grant dollars spent lobbying and litigating to ban snowmobiles, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and other environmental groups should be […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Margolis blows it again
Dear HCN, For someone like myself, writing to HCN has about the same benefits as a Kurd appealing to Saddam, but here goes nothing, anyway. Jon Margolis’ monument (HCN, 5/13/02: New monuments: Planning by numbers) analysis was linked to me and I had to surf it up – and as usual, Jon blows it. The […]
Posted inMarch 18, 2002: How I lost my town
Looking for another spotted owl
Dear HCN, While Hal Clifford wrote a fairly objective article about the sage grouse brouhaha in the Gunnison Valley (HCN, 2/4/02: Last dance for the sage grouse?), he omitted a couple of points that would give readers a fuller understanding of the political landscape. First, Clifford forgets to mention that Andy Kerr is also executive […]
Posted inJanuary 21, 2002: Finding the words
Montana Greens need local roots
Dear HCN, Ray Ring got it mostly right with his dissertation on the relationship of Montana environmentalists with “other” Montanans (HCN, 12/17/01: Bad moon rising). He really nailed it when he got past the “easy” answers and into “rural-thinking, rooted to an immense landscape, and every once in a while rebelling against domination by external […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Greens are still a minority
Dear HCN, High Country News publisher Ed Marston reacted to Sacramento Bee reporter Tom Knudson’s unflattering “Environment, Inc.” series on the fancy finances of the professional Green movement (HCN, 6/4/01: Environmentalism meets a fierce friend) by declaring “environmentalists must be led by relatively well-paid leaders backed by professional staffs,” just like their corporate PR enemies. […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Greens failed grassroots miserably
Dear HCN, I’m sure environmentalists are ready to declare the Sagebrush Rebellion over now that People for the USA is closing its doors (HCN, 12/18/00: People for the USA! disbands). Sierra Clubber Bruce Hamilton couldn’t resist one last distortion, telling HCN readers that PFUSA went about “buying rural representatives.” Hamilton also pointed out that “Corporate […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Lyons is a stereotyper
Dear HCN, Steve Lyons rips on the Aryan Nations as a pack of dimwits (HCN, 8/16/99). Fine, I’m with him there, but it seems Lyons is so blinded by his own politically correct views that he didn’t catch himself perpetrating yet more stereotypes. As an expatriate Montanan, I resented the “Ford-with-Montana-plates’ sound bite. Since when […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Give the mining industry a second chance…
Dear HCN, As a thrice-starved-out Montanan, I have a different take on mining than writer Heather Abel in your Dec. 22, 1997, issue. There are aspects of mining and its politics that High Country News should not have glossed over. A prime example is the so-called Clean Water Initiative, I-122. It failed in the 1996 […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
True portentousness on a Wyoming highway
A few months back I was heading along U.S. 30 east of Kemmerer. It was one of those amazing Wyoming spring evenings, a panorama of sky, sage and sun which encompassed me totally, so totally that it took me a few moments to realize I had pulled off the highway and was standing in a […]