“Pay for Prey” (HCN, 7/23/18), written by Gloria Dickie, nicely detailed Oregon’s efforts to manage both ranchers and wolves. Economic compensation programs exist in other Western states grappling with ongoing wolf colonization. Concerns raised in both camps with regard to data accuracy and program graft also persist. Still, cultural divides have always best clarified this issue, […]
Erick Miller
Posted inMay 16, 2016: Grizzly Face-Off
A romanticized past
“The Gold King Reckoning” hit home for me and once again renewed my quandary over the nostalgic interest in all things mining-related in the American West (HCN, 5/2/16). I once participated in the Hardrock Hundred Mile Run, which offered me a unique tour of the vestigial remnants of Colorado’s San Juan mining industry, and I […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2016: Sagebrush Insurgency
Risks and regulations
Wonderful trenchant article on the surface, but the real story lies just below ground (“Coal company bankruptcies jeopardize reclamation,” HCN, 1/25/16). The article mentioned the various methods that are used to ensure a mine site would be cleaned up in the future, i.e., surety bonds, letters of credit, cash deposits, etc. As a young bank […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2015: Water Hustle
We cannot be trusted with guns
In Brian Calvert’s Oct. 26 essay, “Growing up with guns,” the accompanying photo and the context that it suggested led me to expect a far different conclusion. Yet, as I read on, I found that we largely agreed. His experiences, and his resulting observations, were much like mine. I long ago concluded that “we are […]
Posted inApril 30, 2012: A Mexican rancher struggles to shift from cattle to conservation
Common ground in a fractured land
I arrived in Teton County, Idaho, as a regional bank president the week after the development moratorium was put in place back in 2007 (HCN, 3/5/12, “The Zombies of Teton County”). I rode the “real estate wave” in from Telluride, Colo., where I had also been a bank president. For me, conspicuous development and wealth […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
Guide, not gospel
Eureka! As I read the article “Once More Unto the Breach” and glanced at the bookcase behind me, it hit me — I had most of (Michael Kelsey’s) books (HCN, 10/10/11)! But I had never connected the dots. The first, Guide to the World’s Mountains, had steered my climbing itineraries overseas, and ultimately led me […]