It sounds like common sense — require ranchers in wolf-recovery areas to clean up their dead cattle, so that the predators don’t develop a taste for livestock. Now, that may happen in eastern Arizona’s Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. The forest is included in the struggling Mexican wolf reintroduction program. Only about 50 Mexican wolves now roam […]
Jodi Peterson
Posted inGoat
As goes the Red Planet, so goes the West?
NASA just gave the University of Colorado at Boulder its largest research contract ever – to lead the mission that will launch an orbiting probe to Mars in 2013. The benefits of the nearly half-billion-dollar project are many: Every dollar spent on space exploration has an eightfold economic benefit; studying other planets helps us better […]
Posted inSeptember 9, 2008: Reclaiming the low country
Dear friends
Kirk Crawford, of nearby Crawford, dropped by during a hike of the Continental Divide Trail. He had one message to share: STOP. As in Stop Trashing Our Planet, Start Telling Our Politicians, and Start Thinking Of Peace. Good thoughts, Kirk. Judy Muller, an associate journalism professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, […]
Posted inGoat
Score one for whistleblowers
A federal whistleblower will finally get a settlement from the agency that fired him four years ago. Former BLM staffer Earle Dixon, who was in charge of cleanup at the abandoned Yerington copper mine in Nevada, says he was fired in October 2004 after one year of work for informing local residents and the media […]
Posted inAugust 25, 2008: Hot Wheels
Two weeks in the West
Twenty years ago, wildfire blackened 1 million acres in and near Yellowstone National Park, caused more than $3 million in property damage, and killed two firefighters. Such humongous wildfires will become more and more common in Western states as the climate warms, according to dozens of researchers. The latest such report, from the National Wildlife […]
Posted inAugust 25, 2008: Hot Wheels
Dear friends
FROM FRANCE, NEW YORK AND CALIFORNIASummer visiting season is in full swing. Ned Ames and Jane Sokolow, both of New York City, stopped by after visiting some friends in Hotchkiss, just down the road. They were on their way back to New York from their Fort Union Ranch in Watrous, N.M., which has been in […]
Posted inAugust 11, 2008: Trouble in (Private) Paradise
Dear friends
WELCOME, COBUNPaonia native Cobun Keegan is HCN’s summer high-school intern. Before he heads off to Colorado Springs to begin his freshman year at Colorado College, he’s getting some reporting and general publication experience with us. He hasn’t picked a major yet, but is interested in environmental studies, political science, international relations and linguistics. In May, […]
Posted inGoat
Not a moment too soon
“I can attest to the fact that (the Department of Interior) gets in your blood, but I can also say that it does not necessarily turn it green.” — Paul Hoffman, a deputy assistant secretary of the Interior, announcing his resignation this week. Hoffman, who got his post thanks to Vice President Dick Cheney, regularly […]
Posted inAugust 4, 2008: Hostile Takeover
The company we keep
When you hear the words “invasive species,” what comes to mind? Perhaps it’s the amber waves of cheatgrass and buffelgrass that have turned vast stretches of sagebrush and desert into a prickly, flammable hell. Or the hordes of minute quagga and zebra mussels now clogging water intakes and starving fish in Southwestern reservoirs. Or nutria, […]
Posted inJuly 21, 2008: A fractured party
Concert-goers and bird-watchers
Ernie Nelson and Patti Armstrong dropped by in late June. The husband-and-wife team were on their way back to their home in Vail, Colo., after attending the Joe Cocker concert at the Delta County Fairgrounds in nearby Hotchkiss. Another Cocker fan, Mike Massa, owner of Accounting Specialists Inc. in Nederland, Colo., and his wife, Betsy, […]
Posted inJune 23, 2008: Peace on the Klamath
The bone collectors
Wildlife managers clamp down on antlergatherers to protect deer and sage grouse
Posted inJune 9, 2008: Why the West needs Mythic Cowboys
Easing into development
A backdoor agreement between the Forest Service and a timber company cuts out counties
Posted inMay 26, 2008: On Cancer’s Trail
Dear friends
FELLOW NEWSMEN COME TO CALL Kevin Haley, the “founder, publisher, editor, janitor and copyboy” of the San Juan Horseshoe, dropped by to say hi. The Ouray, Colo.-based parody newspaper bills itself as “Refried News for a Half-Baked World.” From Salida, Colo., came Mike Rosso, webmaster for four newspapers owned by Arkansas Valley Publishing. He said […]
Posted inApril 28, 2008: Pillaging the Past
Dear friends
A CRASH IN WESTERN COLORADO What happens when an energy boom collides with an amenity boom? Join High Country News and a panel of experts on Thursday, May 15, at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colo., for a rousing discussion exploring whether a gas-field town and a recreation and retirement community can coexist. Hear […]
Posted inApril 14, 2008: Taking to the Trees
Dear friends
MORE KUDOS FOR RAY Senior editor Ray Ring‘s cover story “Disposable Workers of the Oil and Gas Fields,” April 2, 2007, received an Honorable Mention in this year’s Heywood Broun Award contest. The top winners were Dana Priest and Anne Hull of the Washington Post. The award, from the Newspaper Guild, recognizes journalism that helps […]
Posted inArticles
Primer 3: Recreation
The energy industry isn’t the only one defacing the West’s wild spaces with fresh roads and trails, trampled wildlife habitat, and fouled air and water. Unmanaged recreation, primarily the motorized sort, is one of the top threats facing the nation’s public lands, say federal officials. Other major problems, including the loss of open space and […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Dear friends
POETRY CORNER We usually focus on hard-hitting news about the West, not sonnets and blank verse. But to lighten things up, we thought we’d share a couple of poems we recently received from readers. Subscriber Susanne Twight-Alexander of Eugene, Ore., sent us verses inspired by her reading of Home Ground. The book, edited by Barry […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2008: My Crazy Brother
Two weeks in the West
Remember when that little shack down the road (every Western town has them – real rustic “fixer-uppers” oozing “charm,” “character” and mouse feces) sold for a few hundred grand? Well, today even spanking-new McMansions in some Western burgs won’t fetch that kind of money, thanks to an increasingly uncertain housing market and banks’ stiffer lending […]