Arizona’s cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl may no longer be endangered, according to an August ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The three-judge panel concluded that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to prove that 18 pygmy owls in Arizona are distinct from a much larger population of owls in Sonora, Mexico. In […]
Tony Davis
Posted inFebruary 18, 2002: Here lies the Rio Grande
Will bulldozers roll into Arizona’s Eden?
Rancher’s wilderness inholding caught in a decade-long feud
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Healing the Gila
Three years after the Forest Service booted cows off some Southwestern rivers, the battle over grazing in the desert is still not over
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
One rancher stands in defiance…
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. GLENWOOD, N.M. – It took seven years for environmentalists to get cattle off 230 miles of rivers and streams across the Southwest. It took nearly three more years to get livestock off one mile of river controlled by rancher Hugh B. McKeen. Until late […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
…while another quietly moves ahead
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. ALMA, N.M. – Eight years ago, long before the Forest Service signed the agreement to reduce cattle numbers along rivers in the Gila National Forest, Sewell Goodwin voluntarily pulled his 300 cattle off the San Francisco River. With a little help from the agency, […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Neighbors get nasty in New Mexico
Is Deirdre Wolf a martyr or a menace?
Posted inAugust 13, 2001: No refuge in the Klamath Basin
Court helps candidates
NATION More than 200 wildlife and plant species have waited years for a spot on the federal endangered species list. A recent court decision could soon put an end to their wait. On June 20, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1996 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ban on citizen petitions to list […]
Posted inJuly 2, 2001: Can Nevada bury Yucca Mountain?
Luxury homes torched in Tucson
The fires follow a string of similar arsons in Phoenix
Posted inJune 18, 2001: Transforming powers
A seminal sprawl fight ends in compromise
A historic Arizona ranch will become a retirement community
Posted inMay 7, 2001: Back into the woods
County unveils pioneering protection plan
ARIZONA After two years of biological studies, the Tucson, Ariz., area has the first draft of its pioneering plan to protect from development hundreds of thousands of acres of virgin desert, and 56 vulnerable species, including the endangered pygmy owl. The Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan would also allow 400,000 newcomers to build on less environmentally […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Service leaves endangered species in limbo
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt reshaped a powerful conservation tool
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Feds fight chaos in a desert playground
ORVs are banned from more than half of California’s Algodones Dunes
Posted inNovember 20, 2000: Water pressure
In Arizona’s growth fight, advertising defined reality
The television ad showed a truck unloading a port-a-potty in the desert, while a family of four stood by with forlorn faces. A voice-over warned that if Arizona’s growth-control initiative passed, a family wouldn’t be able to get water or sewer for a new home outside the boundaries. As a youth walked into the port-a-potty, […]
Posted inNovember 6, 2000: 'Re-inhabitation' revisited
On the trail
In July, Arizona’s growth-control initiative looked unstoppable: A poll by KUET, the Phoenix public television station, showed Proposition 202 winning, 68 percent to 17 percent. But the opposition, heavily supported by the development industry, has used its $4.1 million in contributions to mount a no-holds-barred media campaign (HCN, 10/23/00: Arizona’s 202 takes aim at sprawl). […]
Posted inOctober 23, 2000: Stalking Slade
Arizona’s 202 takes aim at sprawl
Note: a sidebar article, “Colorado’s growth amendment rouses voters,” accompanies this story. ORACLE, Ariz. – On a Pinal County cattle ranch about 30 miles northwest of Tucson, El Salvadoran-born real estate broker and developer Alex Argueta envisions thousands of homes, as well as shopping centers, high-tech parks, vineyards and several resorts and golf courses. He […]
Posted inSeptember 25, 2000: Backyard boom
Bush camp backpedals on toppling monuments
Vice presidential candidate Richard Cheney may have spoken too soon in August, when he said George W. Bush might rescind national monuments created by President Clinton (HCN, 9/11/00). U.S. presidents have created 114 monuments under the 1906 Antiquities Act, and undoing them is unlikely, according to University of Colorado law professor Charles Wilkinson. In 1996, […]
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
Subdivision approved in owl habitat
ARIZONA Last year, when the federal government designated Tucson’s northwest side as critical habitat for the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl (HCN, 8/30/99: A pocket-sized bird takes on Sunbelt subdivisions), developers feared their boom had busted. But a federal Fish and Wildlife Service decision in late July may bring the bulldozers back. The agency says developer […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Los Alamos races against time
Summer monsoons could wash laboratory waste into the San Ildefonso Pueblo and the Rio Grande
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
The West’s hottest question: How to burn what’s bound to burn
In the wake of the Cerro Grande fire, everyone ponders prescribed burning
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
More trouble waits in the wings
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”The West’s hottest question: How to burn what’s bound to burn.” While the 1988 fire at Yellowstone National Park stands today as an ecological success story, some scientists and forest managers say the Cerro Grande fire will be […]