The first bison hunt in 15 years was supposed to offer hope for a reasonable solution to Yellowstone’s ‘buffalo problem,’ but a lifelong hunter who watched it says the senseless slaughter continues.
Also in this issue: A group of scientists at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry publish a controversial study saying salvage logging may actually slow forest recovery.
Why are all the rangers deskbound?
Regarding the article “Where have all the rangers gone?” (HCN, 12/26/05: Where have all the rangers gone?): During my nearly 30-year career with the U.S. Forest Service, it was very disturbing to observe many dedicated professional wildland managers being forced to change from a situation where nearly all were in the field, managing the forest…
Forest Service needs more budget, not just volunteers
Michelle Burkhart points out that staff shortages in the national forests mean that citizens often step in to pick up the slack (HCN, 12/26/05: Where have all the rangers gone?). This is certainly true on Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest (“co-managed” as one unit with the Arapaho National Forest and the Pawnee National Grassland, thus spreading…
Fair trade reduces illegal immigration
Over the years, HCN has published a number of articles on the issue of illegal immigration. There is a simple fix for this problem that would probably cost much less and be more effective than the current border protection or the proposed Berlin Wall on the Mexico-U.S. border (HCN, 10/31/05: Homeland security gets to bypass…
Washington state makes progress on organics
The article on organic agriculture clearly lays out the challenges and opportunities in this area (HCN, 12/26/05: A New Green Revolution). Although our universities are lagging behind growers and consumers, as pointed out by a sidebar, Washington State University is poised to offer an undergraduate degree in Organic Agriculture Systems as early as 2006. The…
Colorado State unveils organic ag program
Regarding the sidebar article entitled “Universities lag on organics” (HCN, 12/26/05: Universities lag on organics): I am a professor of soil science at Colorado State University, and, of course, it’s true that organic agriculture research is limited at land-grant universities, primarily due to funding limitations. But we are putting together a new interdisciplinary program in…
Seeking peace in nuclear times
In Folding Paper Cranes: An Atomic Memoir, former U.S. Marine Leonard Bird offers a personal account of nuclear war. His story shifts between Japan — the only place atomic bombs have been used in combat — to the pockmarked Nevada deserts that for 40 years were ground zero for the U.S. nuclear test program. Nearly…
Urban planning — with a wild touch
Feeling overwhelmed by pell-mell developments that consume the landscape of your community? Two new books suggest a remedy — a variety of innovative planning methods, illustrated with plenty of maps, diagrams and photos. Typical subdivisions are shaped around the “human context” — roads and schools, zoning, and the marketability of the lots and houses —…
The Latest Bounce
Pete McCloskey, the 78-year-old former Republican Congressman who helped write the 1974 Endangered Species Act, does not take kindly to having his handiwork messed with. So he’s rented a house in the district of Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., and is planning to run — as a Republican — against the anti-environmental crusader this November (HCN,…
The Colorado Plateau II: Biophysical, Socioeconomic, and Cultural Research
The Colorado Plateau II: Biophysical, Socioeconomic, and Cultural Research Charles van Riper III and David J. Mattson, eds. 352 pages, hardcover: $35 University of Arizona Press, 2005. Every two years, scientists gather to discuss the history, biology and geology of the vast Colorado Plateau, which sprawls across the Four Corners area. This book presents their…
John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures
John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures Sally M. Miller and Daryl Morrison, ed. 272 pages, hardcover: $29.95 University of New Mexico Press, 2005. This new collection of essays, John Muir: Family, Friends, and Adventures, manages to break fresh ground in discussing the great naturalist. Historic photographs, sketches and excerpts from letters brighten the sometimes-scholarly essays,…
Slaughter in Serene: The Columbia Coal Strike Reader
Slaughter in Serene: The Columbine Coal Strike Reader Lowell May and Richard Myers, ed. 196 pages, softcover: $19.05 Bread and Roses Workers’ Cultural Center, 2005. workersbreadandroses.org, 303-433-1852 Coal mining has played a major role in the histories of most Western states, including Colorado. Slaughter in Serene tells the story of striking miners in the late…
Congressional group plans for oil’s decline
Within the next 20 years, worldwide oil production will likely peak and no longer meet demand (HCN, 12/12/05: Final Energy Frontier). Now, some members of Congress are saying we need to prepare for life after that point. “We are going to peak, and we should be planning for it, and we’re not,” says Rep. Tom…
First fatal wolf attack recorded in North America?
Conservationists have long assuaged the public’s fear of wolves by saying that there have been no documented instances of a healthy wild wolf killing a human being in North America. Until now, that is. On Nov. 8, a search party found the partially consumed body of 22-year-old Kenton Joel Carnegie in the woods of northern…
Judge orders litigating enviros to pony up
A federal judge is forcing environmentalists to back their challenge of a logging project with cold, hard cash. In November, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ordered a halt to logging on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, outside of Butte, after three environmental groups appealed the judge’s earlier decision to allow the 2,600-acre timber harvest. Then, on…
Lawmakers chop up renewable-energy fund
As the demand for renewable energy becomes palpable across the West, lawmakers have taken a bold step: They’ve slashed the U.S. Department of Energy’s budget for renewable energy programs and directed funding toward such projects in their own districts. In mid-November, Congress cut about $160 million from the Energy Department’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy…
Public-lands freedom fighter
NAME Stephen Maurer AGE 68 HOME BASE Albuquerque, New Mexico KNOWN FOR Fighting the Soviet-backed regime in Hungary, his native country; working to protect public lands in his adopted country. HE SAYS “Don’t use (the phrase) ‘federal lands.’ They are ‘public lands.’ If it’s the government’s land, it belongs to them, and it’s not ours.”…
The Killing Fields
A buffalo hunt turns into a slaughter on the border of Yellowstone National Park. But could this be the key to setting the animals free?
Time for a little outrage
Outrage is a risky emotion. It tends to carry people over the cliff of acceptable behavior, sometimes into acts of destructive extremism. Yet some of our best conservation writers, like John Muir and Rachel Carson, have tapped their heartfelt outrage over the abuse of nature and created literature that inspires the rest of us to…
The unbearable triteness of skiing
Q: Why did Utah choose the slogan “The Greatest Snow on Earth” when it so closely resembled the Ringling Brothers’ slogan “The Greatest Show on Earth?” A: Both enterprises attract a lot of bozos. It’s OK to own an automobile without a ski rack. You don’t need to keep your Web browser bookmarked to all…
Dear friends
WELCOME, JANIEC! Janiec (rhymes with “Denise”) Gutierrez is the newest addition to our marketing department and is responsible for advertising sales. Janiec, a native of Southern California, moved to town last May after becoming engaged to a Paonian she met in Germany, where they were both working in the outdoor industry. She enjoys the pink…
Study questions value of post-fire logging
Scientists find that salvage logging may slow forest recovery
Tiny stream invaders may harm Western trout
Researchers tackle a problem likely to be spread by hatcheries and anglers
Trouble in the Delta
A water peace effort in California falls apart at the worst possible moment
Living with the ghosts of the Indian Wars
I live in enemy territory. The problem is, I am the enemy. Montana’s Department of Commerce calls it “Custer Country”: the southeastern region of the state, a million or so acres of sage-dotted grassland, juniper draws and hillside stands of ponderosa pine, stretching east from Billings to the Dakota border. My husband and I raise…
Heard around the West
NEW MEXICO A mouse living in the house of 81-year-old Luciano Mares of Fort Sumner did not take kindly to being set on fire. Mares said that after he caught the intruder, he threw it outside onto a pile of burning leaves. The burning rodent, however, got its revenge by running back to the house…