If you’re hungry for more environmental resources on the Internet, there’s a new World Wide Web site that’s sure to keep you connected – in more ways than one. The Wild Rockies Slate, launched into cyberspace last December, features up-to-date information on the issues, organizations and ecology of the northern Rocky Mountains. A project of […]
Diane Kelly
Posted inOctober 16, 1995: In the heart of the New West, the sheep win one
Saying please at Devils Tower
Rock climbers routinely conquer obstacles and they don’t take kindly to “no.” But the conflict between rock climbers and Native American tribes over Devils Tower in Wyoming may be easing, thanks to a voluntary climbing ban. The National Park Service says 85 percent of the tower’s climbers complied with the trial ban in June. The […]
Posted inOctober 2, 1995: Did Idaho libel the feds?
Dinosaur’s monumental quiet is threatened
Visitors to remote Dinosaur National Monument first marveled at the huge dinosaur bones exposed in its Utah quarry back in 1915. In the years that followed, other attributes surfaced. Rafters and hikers visiting the monument straddling the Utah/Colorado border discovered winding river canyons and quiet high desert. But Dinosaur’s serenity may not survive another year. […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Powerlines prove fatal
Even the protected confines of Yellowstone National Park aren’t safe for grizzly bears. Park visitors Aug. 23 found three male grizzlies electrocuted by a downed powerline in the park’s Hayden Valley. The two adults and one adolescent grizzly were probably killed at different times during the previous two weeks when they touched the live powerlines. […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Right-of-way or give-away?
When Congress reconvenes after Labor Day, the House is expected to mark up a new bill that could allow states and counties to bulldoze roads across national parks and wilderness areas. The legislation, introduced July 20 by Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah, attempts to preserve rural rights-of-way that might not be recognized under recently proposed Interior […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Pay-for-wolf play
Tourists who fail to catch a glimpse of wild wolves restored to Yellowstone National Park can troop to the nearby Grizzly Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Mont. For an undisclosed price, the privately owned center recently purchased a 10-member pack from a Montana breeder and unveiled the animals to the public Aug. 7. Director Gale […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Colorado learns bear facts
As encounters between bears and people – in cars, campgrounds and backyards – increase around Colorado’s burgeoning mountain communities, the state’s Division of Wildlife is conducting ground-breaking studies on the wily bruin. Veteran researcher Tom Beck has captured 42 bears so far near Kremmling, Colo., and is tagging and radio-collaring them as part of a […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Hazardous burning plan snuffed
With years of citizen opposition and a zoning ordinance looming over them, a cement company has announced it no longer wants a permit to burn hazardous waste in its Montana City cement kiln. Local environmental groups that fought the project say it’s been a long, hard fight. “They have been absolute hard-core corporate bulldogs about […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Start spreading the news
START SPREADING THE NEWS For environmentalists eager to get their message across but not sure where to start, a couple of grassroots communication guides have hit the bookstores. Getting the Word Out in the Fight to Save the Earth, by Richard Beamish, tells how to publicize and promote an environmental cause. Beamish, who has plenty […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 1995: I came, I saw, I wrote a guidebook
Heard around the West
Everyone agrees that environmentalism has been hit out of the ballpark by “Wise Users’ and Republicans. But no one knew why we’d whiffed until Glen Martin of the San Francisco Chronicle did an analysis. Deconstructing his article (it used to be called reading between the lines) shows that Greens spend too much time hiking and […]
Posted inAugust 21, 1995: HCN's founder fights his last fight, yet again
Pictures worth 2,000 words
Q: When is graffiti not graffiti? A: When it’s very, very old, perhaps as much as 2,000 years old. That’s the opinion of experts who looked at the sandstone wall of Buckhorn Wash in central Utah. They said the human figures and animals were painted by people called Barrier Canyon Indians, although pioneer settlers, explorers […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Human smolts reach Washington
Five mighty strange-looking salmon ended their 450-mile downstream migration at Washington’s Lower Granite Dam July 25. In fact, they weren’t salmon at all but an unusual swim team that started its expedition 25 days earlier at Idaho’s Redfish Lake. Four men and one woman took turns in the water, following the outward migration route of […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Tribes settle for new fishing sites
Half a century after their fishing grounds were flooded by a federal dam, four Northwest Indian tribes will be compensated with replacement sites along the Columbia River. On June 23, the Interior Department and Army Corps of Engineers agreed to spend about $57 million to create access to 31 new fishing areas in Oregon and […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
Four-cornered falcon
FOUR-CORNERED FALCON In his book, The Four-Cornered Falcon: Essays on the Interior West and the Natural Scene, Reg Saner ruminates on everything from the power of wind to the naming of plants and animals. As varied and thought-provoking as the terrain, Saner’s essays meander through familiar landscapes of the interior West, fusing details of the […]
Posted inAugust 7, 1995: Fighting fires, and indignities
A vanishing breed
A VANISHING BREED Roping the Wind: A Personal History of Cowboys and the Land is a eulogy on the life of the cowboy, written by Lyman Hafen, a fifth-generation Utahn and editor of St. George Magazine. Narrated in a down-to-earth style, the book takes a personal and nostalgic look at the cowboy’s vanishing legacy while […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
Turkeys for timber
An unearthed federal report reveals that Kaibab Forest Products Co. deliberately stole more than 1,200 trees from the Kaibab National Forest north of the Grand Canyon. According to the 1992 report, made public after a Freedom of Information Act request by Robin Silver of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, a cozy relationship existed between […]
Posted inJuly 24, 1995: Making a mountain into a starbase
Falling arches
Tourist Jim Lin and his wife, Dafang, stopped to snap a picture of the 306-foot-long Landscape Arch at Utah’s Arches National Park June 5, when they were startled by a loud cracking noise. “It was a very big sound, like a dynamite explosion,” Lin said. What they heard was a 44-foot slab tearing away from […]