My husband grew up in the Pacific Northwest. Whenever we’d go back to visit the cloudy skies of Seattle or Portland, he’d ask, “Can you picture us living here?” and I would try. But I always felt anxious. He seemed so happy, just posing the question, that I put my trepidation down to that arthritis […]
Karen Mockler
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Wyoming’s unsung wilderness heroes
Wyoming’s wilderness culture has its heroes, but unlike the cowboys who get so much play in the state, they are largely unknown. In Ahead of Their Time, a new book covering four decades of the Wyoming wilderness movement, editors Broughton Coburn and Leila Bruno try to remedy that by asking writers to choose a wilderness […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2004: The New Water Czars
A new look at Yellowstone
“Wholly an unattractive country. There is nothing whatever in it, no object of interest to the tourist, and there is not one out of twenty who visits for purposes of observation this remote section.” So declared one congressman in the late 1800s, dismissing the valleys of Yellowstone. What a difference a century can make: Today, […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
West Nile isn’t just for people
Coalbed methane development may be helping spread disease to wild birds
Posted inSeptember 15, 2003: The West's Biggest Bully
Yellowstone’s grizzly stalker
Chuck Neal is a retired ecologist whose nickname, “Wild Grizzly Stalker,” says it all: For more than 25 years, Neal has followed grizzlies around the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — 28,000 square miles in and around Yellowstone National Park. Eschewing bear spray, bells and just about everything else, he has seen more than 3,000 grizzlies, and […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
States crack down on wildlife cruelty
Recent attacks shine a spotlight on animal mutilation and killing
Posted inOctober 28, 2002: Shadow Creatures
Small-town determination at 25 percent off
POWELL, Wyo. – To people just passing through this town of 5,500 people, the department store on the main street, near the post office and True Value Hardware, must seem painfully ordinary. Inside, customers browse displays of clothing, shoes and jewelry, picking out what they want to buy. But there’s a lot more to Powell […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Golfers may oust eagles
WYOMING A developer’s plan to install a golf course and 71 houses along the Snake River near Jackson has raised convoluted legal questions that sound more like bad jokes. One example: How many eagles does it take to build a golf course? That question came up when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service granted Dick […]
Posted inApril 29, 2002: The Great Salt Lake Mystery
Griz ordered to get scarce
WYOMING Grizzlies, wolves and other “unacceptable species” may want to rethink future visits to counties and towns in western Wyoming. In March, two counties and two city councils passed regulations that ban the animals. They were reacting to new federal regulations that require bear-resistant food storage and a minimum distance between campsites and food, trails […]
Posted inApril 29, 2002: The Great Salt Lake Mystery
Are Wyoming’s feedgrounds a hotbed of disease?
Conservationists’ proposed phaseout could cause elk herds to plummet
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Scouts (dis)honor
ARIZONA After Henry Jackson bought the X9 ranch just a few miles southeast of land-hungry Tucson in 1955, he subdivided and lightly developed much of it. But during the ’70s and ’80s, Jackson also deeded 420 acres to the Boy Scouts of America. At the base of the Rincon Mountains, the land is bordered by […]
Posted inNovember 5, 2001: Wyoming's powder keg
Agencies tangle over Hells Canyon dams
Federal energy commission evades endangered species conservation
Posted inMarch 26, 2001: Teach the children well
The tale of a salmon slinger
NEHALEM RIVER, Ore. – My throwing arm always left something to be desired. A decent hitter, I was always a disaster on the softball field. Even when I could catch the ball, I couldn’t throw it to save my life. I didn’t think about that, though, when I signed on with Oregon’s Department of Fish […]
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Chinook tribe recognized
WASHINGTON In 1805, the Chinook Indians met Lewis and Clark at the mouth of the Columbia River. Historians say that without the tribe’s help the explorers would have perished over the long, wet winter. The tribe’s name is now attached to landmarks throughout the Northwest, but for decades the federal government has acted as though […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Land trade threatens trails and trees
Oregon plans to trade away an intact ecosystem
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Down under: Arizona boasts the ‘show cave of the century’
“I love caves.” Just a whisper in the dim light of the cavern, and not addressed to me, but to a husband from his wife. I almost turned and said, “Me too,” then remembered we were on a cave tour – everyone on it probably loved caves. Until that tour of Kartchner Caverns State Park, […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Loggers tap new forests
THE SOUTH In the Pacific Northwest, the federal government can get tough with lumber companies because the forests are publicly owned. Not so in the South, where 85 percent of all timber grows on private lands. After the federal government drastically slowed logging in the Northwest in the 1990s, Boise-Cascade and other big forest-products companies […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Desert development raises dust
‘Tis the season to be coughing: November and December are the worst months for Phoenix’s air quality, says David Feuerherd of the American Lung Association of Arizona. “Picture somebody … shoveling dirt down your bronchial tubes.” Officials in the Valley of the Sun say the area’s familiar brown cloud is caused by “fugitive dust,” brought […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Gracias
-I was like everybody else,” says photographer Celia Roberts. “I’d go to the grocery store and get some broccoli and not think, “Might that last hand that touched it be the one that picked it?” “””Lest we also forget, Roberts is here to remind us. “Gracias,” her bilingual, year 2000 calendar, illuminates the lives of […]
Posted inDecember 20, 1999: Unleashing the Snake
Counties grab for control of national forests
Last month, the House of Representatives struck a blow for local control of the national forests. For decades, counties have received 25 percent of the revenue from Forest Service timber harvested within their borders to fund county schools and roads. But in this decade, as federal logging has declined by 70 percent, so have timber […]