Outdated plumbing at tourist lodges in Yellowstone National Park is spilling sewage into lakes and streams, and the state of Wyoming has taken an unprecedented step: In October, it threatened to fine the National Park Service unless it fixes antiquated sewage systems pieced together over the last 50 years. Such fines are unprecedented in Wyoming, […]
Michael Milstein
Posted inNovember 23, 1998: A patchwork peace unravels
Lake trout linger in Yellowstone
The Park Service pulled 7,000 trout from Yellowstone Lake this year. The fish are lake trout – an exotic first found here four years ago – that scientists blame for ravaging native Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Some of these exotic fish are more than 20 years old, and Park Service biologist Dan Mahoney says the fish […]
Posted inNovember 10, 1997: Drain Lake Powell? Democracy and science finally come West
Bison killing goes inside
Rangers in Yellowstone National Park have permission from park brass to shoot bull bison headed out of the park this winter. It is the first time in decades that rangers may, as a matter of policy, kill wildlife they are charged with protecting. Park managers say the change is intended to control disease, rather than […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Microbes for sale here
As military bands, rangers on horseback and Vice President Al Gore marked Yellowstone National Park’s 125th anniversary in August, park officials signed a contract that formally opened the park’s famous hot springs to bioprospecting. The deal allows San Diego-based Diversa Corp. to collect samples of hot-water microbes, called thermophiles, in exchange for $175,000 over five […]
Posted inApril 14, 1997: Beauty and the Beast
Yellowstone’s ‘geyser guy’ was one of the park’s best friends
In the spray of Old Faithful, in the shimmer of heat within Yellowstone’s turquoise pools, in the steam rolling through the pines, Rick Hutchinson looks back at us. Rick was Yellowstone’s geyser guy, a geologist who was the foremost authority on the world’s foremost collection of geysers and hot springs. I say “was.” But I […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Drug smuggler’s ranch falls into public lands
CLARK, Wyo. – Stewart Allen Bost had a dream, he told his drug ring buddies while smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into south Florida in 1986. He wanted to own a ranch in Wyoming. So after retiring from the drug trade, he bought a secluded riverfront spread here, then guarded it and his […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
‘Good’ rancher goes berserk with an assault rifle
MEETEETSE, Wyo. – A rancher known here as a good steward of his land has been charged with illegally firing on a herd of elk with an assault rifle Jan. 16, leaving at least 10 animals either dead or crippled. Game wardens say they cannot recall another slaying of so many big game animals all […]
Posted inFebruary 3, 1997: Bringing back the bighorn
Grizzlies and tourism collide on Wyoming road
CODY, Wyo. – They razed the best patch of angelica. The nondescript low forb is a favored food for grizzly bears along the highway corridor from Cody to the west entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The North Fork Highway, as U.S. 14-16-20 is called, was once described by Theodore Roosevelt as one of the most […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
The West’s new prospectors seek microbes
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, A park boss goes to bat for the land. Karl O. Stetter and his team ignore the fresh tracks of a grizzly on their way to hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. Once there, an electronic monitor reveals the pH of the soil is […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Our living resources
OUR LIVING RESOURCES Consider a two-inch-thick tome produced by the federal government and your eyelids are likely to fall. If the volume is Our Living Resources, your reaction could be just the opposite. Anyone interested in ecological issues may find this report indispensable. To begin with, the 530-page document holds page after page of full-color […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 1996: At Hanford, the real estate is hot
Yellowstone’s closure sparks local fury
Note: this article appears in the print edition as a sidebar to another news story, “Who felt the federal furlough?“ CODY, Wyo. – After investing in a fleet of 40 new snowmobiles, Bob Coe was counting on a busy winter at Pahaska Tepee, the lodge he runs just outside Yellowstone National Park. At least 80 […]
Posted inMay 15, 1995: Dog and pony show about salmon and owls
Wolves born outside the park
After an international journey, nine weeks in a chain-link pen, a trek over Montana’s Beartooth Mountains and the loss of her mate, a female wolf brought to Yellowstone National Park in January delivered pups near Red Lodge, Mont. “All of a sudden I heard a whimper, kind of a squeal, and there they were,” ” […]
Posted inMay 1, 1995: Land grants under the microscope
Jail for a poacher
A Utah construction worker who killed a large, photogenic elk along a major road through Yellowstone National Park in the fall of 1993 and pleaded guilty to the crime will serve four months in prison and pay $30,000 in fines. But the rank act of poaching the elk was not what led Chad S. Beus, […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Feds flex their muscles
Federal attorneys fired a warning shot March 8 at county governments in the West trying to assert control of public lands. Justice Department lawyers sued rural Nye County, Nev., where local officials have harassed federal land managers. In one instance, Nye County commissioners threatened Bureau of Land Management staff trying to enforce grazing regulations. In […]
Posted inMarch 20, 1995: The fight for Reclamation
Wolves feel the urge
In a promising sign for the effort to restore the ecosystem of Yellowstone National Park, wolves imported in January are already trying to breed. Although the 14 wolves shipped from Canada to Yellowstone are still cooped up in one-acre pens in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, rangers have observed male wolves attempting to mount female wolves. Biologists […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
Happy pack of journalists pursues quarry
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, Wyo. – There were photographers taking pictures of photographers, and another group of photographers taking pictures of them, when wolves came back to Yellowstone National Park. Canadian Broadcasting Company reporter Kelly Crowe called the frenzy […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
This mating is no game
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. Federal biologists are playing matchmaker. When six more gray wolves were trundled into Yellowstone Jan. 20, one male was introduced to a prospective new mate, and biologists hoped the two wouldn’t fight. They didn’t. Although the wolves postured, […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
Canada provides $2000 wolves
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE, Alberta – Someday, perhaps not too far off, residents of the region around Yellowstone National Park may know wolves the way Gerald Gustavson knows wolves. “It’ll happen one day, when you’re out in the forest, […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
Not much fuss over wolves in Canada
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOUSE, Alberta – Canadians who live around wolves have a simple attitude toward the predators: No big deal. As fierce debate continues in the United States over the place of wolves, Canadians who live with the […]
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
The wolves are back, big time
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. – Badged officers blocked traffic as the lengthy motorcade approached. Reporters and photographers crowded both sides of the road, and satellite dishes atop television stations’ trucks stood ready to beam the scene to the rest of the world. At a “media center’” occupying a cavernous gymnasium, banks of telephones were ready […]