The problem of controlling Africanized bees is now widespread, and some are taking advantage of the frightening invasion to earn a good living.
The Latest Bounce
The Department of the Interior has approved the controversial Fence Lake coal mine in New Mexico (HCN, 10/8/01: Salt Woman confronts a coal mine). The Salt River Project will mine 80 million tons of coal to generate electricity for Phoenix, but Indians at the Zuni Pueblo worry that the project could destroy trails and grave…
Cross lawsuit divisive, petty
Dear HCN, “Does desert cross cross the line?” (HCN, 5/13/02: Does desert cross cross the line?). Well, maybe, but Frank Buono and the American Civil Liberties Union should apply their energies to lawsuits of a more important nature. In an age where our public lands are being assaulted by forces much more menacing than a…
Temporary protection yanked in the Siskiyou
OREGON The Siskiyou National Forest, home to five Wild and Scenic rivers, a healthy salmon and steelhead population, and rare salamanders and wolverines, just lost protection from the drill. In January 2001, then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt placed a temporary moratorium on new mining leases for more than 1.2 million acres of the forest. The Bureau…
Review gives only one view
Dear HCN, While I thought Dan Flores’ thoughts in the lead article “Beyond Ecology: Restoring a Cultural Landscape” (HCN, 5/13/02: Beyond ecology: Restoring a cultural landscape) were right on, I found it bothersome in Ed Marston’s review of Flores’ book, The Natural West, to see the wiping out of the large mammals from North America’s…
Is this wilderness perverted?
UTAH Create a wilderness, stop a nuclear waste dump: It sounds like a crowd pleaser. Utah Rep. Jim Hansen’s amendment to the Defense Authorization Act would establish about half a million acres of wilderness in western Utah, much of it near an active testing range for military aircraft (HCN, 5/27/02: Hansen pops a wheelie). It…
Growth boundary grows
COLORADO All along the Front Range of the Colorado Rockies, development continues to roll out like freshly laid sod. Five years ago, in an effort to limit sprawl, a voluntary association of business leaders, developers and elected officials from 48 local governments drew up a plan that included an urban growth boundary. But the growth…
Bomb blasting goes bust
CALIFORNIA After more than four decades, Army officials have halted the open-pit burning and blasting of obsolete munitions and rocket motors at Sierra Army Depot near Herlong. The depot’s open-air weapons destruction was challenged in federal court early last year by a coalition of Indian tribes, environmental groups and private citizens (HCN, 8/13/01: Depot neighbors…
Columbia dredging closer
OREGON Plans to dredge the Columbia River are one step closer to fruition, thanks to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has changed its biological opinion for the third time since 1999. In late May, NMFS, in charge of endangered salmon recovery, found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal to dredge 106.5 miles…
A wide-angled wilderness
WASHINGTON Washington state could soon gain a unique new wilderness area – its first in almost 15 years. Unlike most of Washington’s 4 million acres of federally protected wilderness, the proposed Wild Sky Wilderness northeast of Seattle would encompass more than just high alpine crags of rock and ice – it would also include often-ignored…
Wolf reintroduction balances nature
Dear HCN, Ray Ring’s article “Wolf at the door” (HCN, 5/27/02: Wolf at the door) gives one the impression that things are going so well with the wolf recovery program in the Northern Rockies that any day now wolves will be marching through southern Wyoming and into Colorado. Much as we’d like that to be…
Zero sympathy for hunters
Dear HCN, If I concentrate really hard and cross my fingers behind my back, I can summon up a grain of sympathy for ranchers in Montana who lose a calf to a wolf (HCN, 5/27/02: Wolf at the door). But one group for whom my sympathy is precisely zero is hunters who go after mountain…
Predation a risk ranchers must accept
Dear HCN, It is evident that most of the wolf predation of livestock occurs within national forest leases or adjacent areas which are often managed by the Bureau of Land Management. As a part owner of these lands, I think it is time that stock growers accept the fact that multiple risks exist on government-leased…
To say nothing of cruelty
Dear HCN, I’m sorry it took me so long to write you about “Raising a Stink: Factory dairies catch Idaho’s Magic Valley by surprise” (HCN, 4/15/02: Raising a stink). One important aspect of factory farming not addressed in your story is the inhumane and cruel treatment of dairy cows, who aren’t allowed any kind of…
In the lion’s eye
I like to work alone, far from other people, in the deserts and mountains of southeastern Idaho. These are the forgotten lands, rarely seen by the public and only occasionally by agency personnel. On one job I will always remember, I am in the Black Pine Range, working as an independent biologist for the Black…
Mount Hood recreation may go big time
Will a destination resort push out pear orchards?
Can green-certified lumber make it?
Some foresters say environmental management doesn’t reap extra profit
2,997 … 2,998 … 2,999
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about the killer-bee invasion of the West, headlined: The Buzz Business. Counting killer bee stings is a tedious chore. Usually the total is estimated, but one person gets exact counts – Justin Schmidt, a research entomologist who’s spent 22 years at the Carl Hayden Bee Research…
Restoring the West, goat by goat
In the early 1990s, Leslie Barclay bought a ranch a half-hour south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was from back East, and like many newcomers to the West with some money and energy, she was romantic about the region and the land. She understood that it wasn’t in great shape, but she thought it…
The buzz business
Some people try to make a killing on killer bees
Dear Friends
Conflagration Troubles of the modern West continue to break out around the home of High Country News. A month ago in this space, we talked about coalbed-methane developers beginning to target the mesa slopes near our office in Paonia. Now the trouble is wildfire in areas where people have chosen to live. Even though the…
Heard around the West
It is rare that reading a press release leaves us feeling a sense of amazement, if not downright wonder. The one that follows, from Yellowstone National Park, was sent to the news media by staffer Olivia McCombs under the ho-hum headline: “Bear Incident in Yellowstone National Park.” But here’s the story that followed: “Abigail Thomas,…
Earth First!er Judi Bari avenged at last
Federal court finds FBI and police violated activists’ free speech