Ranchers and environmentalists in Wyoming are still squabbling over wolves as the animal bounces on and off the endangered species list.
The Doc is in
Rural folks find common ground at the vet’s office
Who’ll clean up when the party’s over?
Land managers and industry are stepping up efforts to reclaim public lands scraped and drilled for oil and gas. Is it too little, too late?
Let it mellow
One does not expect to learn about conservation via the sight of one’s 85-year- old great-grandmother hunkered down bare-bottomed under the rosebushes, but there it is. In my formative years, “Grandmary” taught me to reduce, reuse and recycle everything from bacon grease to urine. “Pee makes the roses bloom bigger,” she told me when I…
Snapshot
Renewable roller coaster
Heeding history’s lessons
The rollercoaster plight of the northern gray wolf — the subject of this issue’s cover story — is a good metaphor for American ambivalence toward the natural world. For more than a century, wolves were simply enemies that threatened cows, sheep, dogs and children. Determined government agencies channeled this fear into a campaign of poisoning,…
Still Howling Wolf
Will Westerners finally learn how to live with Canis lupus?
Burning issues
Name Tom BonnicksenAge 67Occupation Retired forestry scientistSpent childhood Outdoors sliding down the Indiana Dunes, canoeing the upper Wisconsin River, living at 8,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains.On how he gathers data “I walk through the woods. I know every inch of these places I study. I’m on the ground all the time. And if I’m…
From the Beltway to the mountains
His close-cropped hair, aviator shades and straight-backed bearing hint at his Navy past, but the silver hoop in his left ear and baggy bike shorts give Keith Baker a twist of hip outdoorsy-ness. He stands in the HCN office with his wife, Evelyn, also in bike garb, and their dog, a sleek weimaraner named Prana.…
A battle for the land – and soul – of the West
Denver native Stephen Trimble fell in love with the West from the back seat of the family car. On summer field trips with his mother and geologist father, Trimble developed a fine eye for red-rock country and the light that filled unspoiled valleys and vistas. He’s since produced gorgeous photography books and insightful natural and…
Throwing off the yoke
Where the Ox Does Not Plow: A Mexican American BalladManuel Peña235 pages, hardcover: $24.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2008. An alcoholic father, a patient, long-suffering mother, a history of anxiety and depression, and a blinding desire to escape a troubled childhood. If that sounds like every other memoir you’ve read in the past decade, you’d…
Dear Friends
The saws of autumn
Passing gas
Western states struggle to capture methane emissions from coal mines
Real Mormons are diverse
As a Mormon with Eastern roots, I found this article woefully lacking (HCN, 10/27/08). Mormons are not part of the Christian right cabal. Look at Harry Reid, for crying out loud. I voted for the Green candidate in 2004, and Obama in the California primary and may well vote for him again. Ray Ring simply…
Perspective on the religion card
The Mormon Church engages in overt political activism, and as such it deserves the same muckraking scrutiny as any other advocacy organization (HCN, 10/27/08). Its claim to foster moral leadership shouldn’t exempt it from critique. Ray Ring’s revelations about the “underbelly” of Rexburg are relevant to the investigation of a politico-religious institution that clearly aims…
River giveaway, too
“The great giveaway” did a great job of bringing attention to the Utah BLM’s mad rush to finalize plans that manage 11 million acres in Utah (HCN, 10/13/08). Unfortunately, the article and most other news coverage of this issue overlooked what these plans mean for Utah’s rivers. These plans make recommendations on which rivers should…
Guns and God
Kudos to Jonathan Thompson, who will surely get plenty of negative responses to his editor’s note in Volume 40, Number 19, from numerous fundamentalists whose understanding of the First Amendment is nearly nonexistent (HCN, 10/27/08). I’m happy to have a Constitution that, at least on paper, allows everyone to worship whatever deity or higher power…
While you were voting …
Bush administration races ahead with environmental policy changes