“Salmon carcass, cattle blood and time. In a barrel.” That’s the rank concoction that biologists in Washington state are using to coax rare carnivores in for a candid photo shoot, and to snag a few precious hairs. “Burns the nostrils,” says Aja Woodrow, a biological technician with the US Forest Service, wincing as he pours […]
Nathan Rice
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A wild week in Washington
In a remote alpine valley in 1968, Rocky Wilson shot the last grizzly bear to be killed in the North Cascades. Since then, biologists have longed for proof that any grizzlies remain; some wondered if they were all gone. But with the click of a camera, hiker Joe Sebille brought the North Cascades grizzly bear […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2011: The Global West
The fight over a much-needed pesticide: methyl iodide
In May, on a farm outside of Sanger, Calif., a man in a white hazmat suit and a gas mask drove a hulking tractor over bare ground, injecting toxic gas 12 inches deep in the soil. Behind the machine, plastic tarps unrolled like Saran Wrap over the land to contain the chemical. In the next […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
States work conservation into trust lands management
There’s just one place where Washington’s Cascade Mountains reach the sea. Rising steeply from Puget Sound, the Chuckanut Range commands sweeping views of the San Juan Islands. Hikers and bikers wander Blanchard Mountain — the range’s high point — while hang gliders launch from its cliffs. Century-old forests host abundant wildlife, including the marbled murrelet, […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
State trust lands at a glance
Among publicly owned lands, state trust lands are an anomaly. Granted at statehood by the federal government, they run in patchwork patterns across the West, from the red Utah desert to the dense forests of Oregon. Their arrangement on the landscape is utterly arbitrary — generally, two square-mile sections, numbered 16 and 36 in every […]
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Northwest coal port ignites controversy
Bellingham, Washington is no stranger to industry. The seaside college town in the northwesternmost corner of the country was founded on coal and timber in the 1800s. But after the downtown Georgia-Pacific pulp mill shut down in 2007, the city has been more focused on cleaning up the toxic mess left behind than bringing big […]
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When is a Jeep trail not a road?
A popular redrock canyon in Southern Utah is the latest proving ground in the undying Western debate over roads on federal public land. Last Friday, a U.S. District Court ruled that an old jeep trail up Salt Creek in Canyonlands National Park is not a “highway,” thereby upholding the park’s 2004 decision to officially close […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Wolverines in unexpected places
On April 17, biologist Audrey Magoun and husband Pat Valkenburg discovered intriguing tracks in Oregon’s snowy Wallowa Mountains. Five days later, Magoun downloaded photos from a remote camera and realized the creature had company: Two hungry wolverines stared back from her screen, gnashing hunks of bait meat. It’s the first confirmed evidence of Oregon wolverines […]
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Will genetically modified salmon be labelled?
Care to know whose genes are hidden in your salmon fillet? If the federal government approves genetically modified salmon for public consumption, there will be no telling if your seafood dinner’s DNA has been doctored — unless states demand it. Four states — California, Oregon, Vermont and Alaska — are preparing for a federal approval […]
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Lead bullets find a champion in Tester
Last January, three endangered California condors were found dead in Arizona. The cause of death: lead poisoning. After eating carrion riddled with spent lead ammunition, the birds’ digestive systems likely shut down, starving them to death. Since condor reintroduction began in Arizona in 1996, 15 have died of lead poisoning; in California, 18 condors have […]
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Wolverines in the Wallowas
After almost two decades of silence, the North American wolverine (Gulo gulo) is confirmed to be back on the prowl in the mountains of Oregon. Two of the feisty carnivores, dubbed “Iceman” and “Stormy,” were caught on remote camera feasting on hunks of bait meat in the Wallowa Mountains — the first verified wolverine sightings […]
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Clearing the way for renewables
On public lands, mining claims are staked for more than just the riches hidden underground. Some are made simply to wrest cash from competing users — namely possibly renewable energy developers, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Speculators can could grab up mining claims in areas considered for wind and solar energy development […]
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Western pine beetles munch eastward
Now that the mountain pine beetle has chewed through some 70,000 square miles of forest in the western States and Canada, it seems the voracious pest is expanding its palate. Beetles in Canada were recently discovered attacking jack pines (Pinus banksiana) for the first time, a break from their usual diet of lodgepole (Pinus contorta), […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
As seas rise, cities retreat
Climate change is causing seas to rise — and threatening cities along the West Coast. At the current rate of greenhouse gas emission, scientists estimate that global temperatures will increase by an average of 8 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century, melting polar ice sheets and upping sea levels by a meter. According […]
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Rid(er)ing into the sunset
Last week’s heavily wrangled 2011 federal spending deal brought with it some unexpected baggage. Along with $38 billion in budget cuts, unrelated riders attached to the bill derailed the controversial Bureau of Land Management Wild Lands order and yanked Northern Rockies gray wolves from the endangered species list. Deep cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency […]
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Sea lions to the slaughter?
Every spring, hungry California sea lions rendezvous in the Columbia River at the base of the Bonneville Dam for an endangered salmon smorgasbord. After swimming 140 miles up river to the dam, some 100 sea lions munched over 6,000 salmon at the dam last year, about 2 percent of salmon and steelhead runs going through […]
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A new brand of trust land?
Over the last 20 years, timberlands around the West have been falling fast to development. In Washington State, one sixth of commercial forests have been converted to other uses in that time, according to the state Department of Natural Resources (WDNR). Some 1.2 million acres of forest are converted to development and other uses each […]
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Strawberry scrutiny
Methyl iodide is a chemical used to create cancer cells in the laboratory. It’s also a substance that California farmers hope to use to grow those big and beautiful supermarket strawberries. By killing most everything in the soil to clear the way for food crops, the pesticide helps fragile strawberries thrive. But methyl iodide’s toxicity […]
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‘Managed retreat’
Sea level rise is real, and it’s coming to a coastal city near you. Research published last month from the University of Arizona finds that hundreds of coastal cities in the lower 48 will lose an average of 9 percent of their land area as climate change causes seas to rise about one meter by […]
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Wrestling with wolves
The U.S. Senate last Friday proposed a 350-page budget bill with one particularly furry paragraph: Section 1709. Before the end of the 60-day period beginning on the date of enactment of this division, the Secretary of the Interior shall reissue the final rule published on April 2, 2009 (74 Fed. Reg. 15123 et seq.) without […]