On the coast of British Columbia, tribes, fishermen and
environmentalists are fighting the spread of Atlantic salmon farms,
which they fear could have catastrophic effects on already
endangered native salmon runs.
Also
in this issue: Westerners are becoming more concerned
about incidents of cruelty to wildlife, but laws against such acts
remain inconsistent in the region.
Parasite could help save salmon
Endangered salmon may get help from a strange source: Blood-sucking, eel-like fish called lampreys. On Jan. 28 a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect four species of lamprey under the Endangered Species Act. Two of the species are parasitic, latching onto salmon and other ocean-going fish to feed…
Dredging plans stall on the Snake River
By now, the dredging machinery would have been sucking 319,000 cubic yards of sand and silt from the bottom of the Snake River west of Lewiston, Idaho. Barges would be hauling the muck downriver and dumping it out of the way. Then tugboats would have dragged giant rakes across the spoils, trying to recreate habitat…
Looters sneak into monument
President Clinton established the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southwestern Colorado to protect an estimated 20,000 archaeological sites, ranging from scattered potsherds to intact cliff dwellings (HCN, 4/23/01: Monuments caught in the crosshairs). Monument officials, however, are having a hard time fending off looters and vandals. Since the monument was created in June…
Coastal open space gets a boost
Score one point for endangered steelhead and the threatened California red-legged frog: The 82,000-acre Hearst Ranch, on the Pacific Coast just south of Big Sur, may be forever protected from development. Famous for Hearst Castle, the elaborate mansion built for media tycoon William Randolph Hearst early in the 20th century, the sprawling, hilly ranch includes…
Backcountry adventure in the comfort of your living room
Armchair horseback riders can hit the trail with Don West’s Have Saddle, Will Travel: Low-Impact Trail Riding and Horse Camping. The book features West’s personal stories, poems and “Don’s Daily Dozen,” 13 of the author’s favorite exercises to keep riders in top form. As readers relive West’s wilderness adventures — which include chasing down frightened…
White House record on rollbacks
It’s undoubtedly grim reading. But it should be required for every conservationist — Democrat, Green, Republican or Independent. The Natural Resources Defense Council has just released its review of the Bush administration’s 2002 record on the environment. In Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration’s Assault on the Environment, the council details more than 100 federal…
Does your representative make the grade?
It’s report card time again for Congress, and Western politicians are seeing more Fs than As. According to the League of Conservation Voters’ annual National Environmental Scorecard, Western congressional members had some of the worst environmental voting records in the nation. Out of a possible score of 100, the senators of Colorado, Idaho, Utah and…
Tangled up in blue
“It has been rightly said: Color is the first principle of place.” A quick look across any desert reveals a lack of watery blues and leafy greens. But Ellen Meloy fills that void in her memoir, The Anthropology of Turquoise. She uses turquoise — the color and the mineral — to explore desert geology, flora…
Short Takes
Learn more about the benefits and challenges of local food production at the “Connecting Through Local Foods” conference, March 28-29, at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls. The conference will feature keynote speaker Gary Paul Nabhan, and cover topics from seed saving to farm bills, and marketing to alternative pest control. For more…
American culture is doomed by growth
Dear HCN, Ed Marston, I want to thank you for your column on immigration and overpopulation (HCN, 2/3/03: Son of immigrants has a change of heart). I’m sure you have taken a lot of criticism since then, but you are right in what you’ve said. Overall, people refuse to admit that every problem in the…
Ranching is preventing sprawl
Dear HCN, George Wuerthner is a skilled photographer and a committed activist, but he’s a lousy economist. His letter (HCN, 2/17/03: Condos or cows? Neither!) and his recent book, Welfare Ranching, amply testify to this. Wuerthner asserts that “ranching isn’t preventing sprawl now, nor will it in the future.” Yet he also states that high…
The Latest Bounce
The money’s still rolling in to protect 97,000 acres of Colorado’s San Luis Valley. After The Nature Conservancy negotiated a $31.28 million price tag for the Baca Ranch last year, the federal government kicked in $10.5 million (HCN, 2/18/02: Dunes shifts toward park status). Now, Congress has pledged $12 million from the Land and Water…
Water face-off in Fresno
The federal government has given the city of Fresno an ultimatum: Either change the way you write your water bills, or risk losing a third of your water supply. A 1992 law forbids the federal government from renewing water contracts with central California cities, unless the cities bill residents based on how much water they…
‘Horse Whisperer’ wins a round in natural gas fight
A recent ruling in a Wyoming district court signals a win for ranchers who say energy companies are running roughshod over their land. The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit from Mary Brannaman and her husband, Buck, the horse trainer who inspired the novel and film The Horse Whisperer (HCN, 11/5/01: Wyoming’s Powder Keg).…
Bracing against the tide
On the rugged coastline of British Columbia, tribes, fishermen and environmentalists fight a ‘salmon apocalypse’
Dear Friends
Fear and loathing in HCNland Change is always a little scary, and changing times at High Country News are no different, we’ve discovered. We mentioned in Dear Friends last month that we’re planning to give the newspaper its first major face-lift in probably two decades. The goal is to make the paper look more smart…
Of Western myth and jackalopes
“Are there jackalope around here?” the dude from Chicago asked. “Well, up here there’s too much elevation. They’re down on the sagebrush flats.” from Jackalope by Hilda Volk On Jan. 6, 2003, the West lost one of its great mythmakers, 82-year-old Douglas Herrick, of Casper, Wyo. No, Herrick wasn’t a writer, an artist, or a…
Fish farms challenge our commitment to the wild
If you’ve ever been to the Pike Street Market in Seattle, you’ve undoubtedly witnessed one of the pinnacles of fishmonger bravado. Order up a whole salmon at Pike Place Fish and employees snap into action, shouting like a platoon of marines. One hoists the fish you’ve chosen from an ice-heaped display table. Another dashes to…
States crack down on wildlife cruelty
Recent attacks shine a spotlight on animal mutilation and killing
Are you gonna eat that?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Bracing against the tide.” PORTLAND, Ore. — When Dan Wasil plucks a white Styrofoam package of “Fresh Atlantic Salmon” from the grocery store cooler, he gives the label no more than a second thought. “I assume that it comes from the Atlantic,” says Wasil,…
Taosenos take on Wal-Mart
Backers use populist rhetoric to promote a corporate giant
Heard Around the West
Vive la France! There, we’ve said it, knowing full well those are fighting words — especially in Nevada. The owners of a restaurant in Reno were so angry at France for thwarting our Iraqi war plans at the United Nations, they poured expensive French champagne into a bucket on the sidewalk. And if they’d had…
Engagement in a time of terror
Who do we believe? How do we behave? These are questions I hold as we watch President Bush make his case for war. Our Department of Homeland Security recently placed us on “high alert/code orange,” advised us to buy duct tape and cover our windows with plastic, then in the same breath told us not…