Human impact on the West is explored in this issue. On the border between Wyoming and Montana, river otters now scamper where they weren’t found until after the 1960s. The animals may have been drawn to the plateau by the fish stocked in its alpine lakes. Our other feature story looks at the scourge of microplastics: tiny particles that are now ubiquitous in our environment, our water and even our food. Stories examining whether to label anti-Indian groups hate groups, the wisdom gained on a dogsled in the Arctic, a plan that paves the way for more oil and gas drilling in New Mexico and more round out this issue.

On the cover: River otters traverse the icy Yellowstone River between Hayden Valley and Canyon, Wyoming, where they swim in unfrozen holes and race from one to the next. Credit: Michael L. Haring via Istock

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Follow the fish

Fish-stocking has drawn otters to the Beartooth Plateau of Montana. What effect do they have in their new environs?

by Wudan Yan

Bighorns, big livestock herds

I wanted to commend Paige Blankenbuehler’s “The Big Threat to Bighorns” (HCN, 9/3/18). My friends and I do a big backpacking trip each year in Western wilderness areas. This year, we did a roughly 40-mile loop through the Flattops Wilderness in northwest Colorado. There were few people, but lots of cows. For roughly seven miles,…

by Joel Strohecker

Imperial Beach is not planning ‘managed retreat’

A recently published article (“Nature Retreat,” HCN, 10/15/18) asserts that Imperial Beach is addressing sea-level rise by planning massive moves away from the coastline, technically known as “managed retreat.” Contrary to the author’s assertion that little has been done to address this “slow-moving catastrophe,” many California coastal communities either recently have or will soon complete…

by Ed Spriggs

Rising seas will touch us all

I find it interesting that Peg Ferm of Monroe, Washington, writes in a letter to the editor that she thinks HCN’s article on Imperial Beach has no relevance for her (HCN, 10/15/18). Monroe, in Snohomish County, is located in a floodplain. There have been record (disaster-level) floods 18 times in the past 56 years in…

by Linda McCone

Thank you for asking hard questions

A recent letter to the editor laments the author’s belief that HCN “seems to have become just another ‘woke’ partisan magazine” (HCN, 10/15/18). I disagree and applaud HCN’s efforts to diversify your coverage and engage the less-than-savory realities of the American West — racism, extraction and destruction. Basic historical literacy reveals that genocide is the…

by Charlie Macquarie

The other dangers of drilling

Oil and gas drilling poses significant future safety and environmental threats (“When Your Neighborhood Goes Boom!” HCN, 10/28/18). Wells are drilled and cased with steel and a layer of cement to prevent reservoir fluids from contaminating fresh water zones above the hydrocarbon reservoir and escaping to the atmosphere. Unfortunately, over time, the cement degrades, allowing…

by Ronald Collings