The Forest Service struggles with its biggest restoration project yet, fireflies are rediscovered in Utah, California drought and more.
When is lightning likely?
The National Weather Service’s new lightning potential index.
On the hunt for fireflies in Utah
Scientists find the flashing bugs after a 30-year search.
No solutions in border story
Normally, I find your articles balanced and productive, often with suggestions for solutions and remedies. This one was simply a Border Patrol-bashing article (“Border Out of Control,” HCN, 6/9/14). The problems for the desert, its environment and the wildlife certainly were well documented, which is a good thing. But Ray Ring offers absolutely no solutions…
A fine idea
Your wilderness issue (HCN, 7/21/14) was waiting for me on the day I returned from my own five-day reverie in Oregon’s Three Sisters Wilderness. I went on this trip to contemplate life and salute all who had a hand in creating the Wilderness Act 50 years ago. First, Christopher Ketcham’s article, “The Death of Backpacking,” gave me…
Species shortsightedness
Sarah Jane Keller’s speculation on what the Endangered Species Act could do for animals facing climate pressure reveals a maddeningly narrow scope of political will among lawmakers and judges (“A new climate for wolverine protection,” HCN, 8/4/14). If science can give us projections of future threats to species — and it can — why wouldn’t…
Safe crossing
Thank you for such thought-provoking articles, especially “Roads Scholar” (HCN, 8/4/14). I traveled from Ronan, Montana, to Missoula, Montana, every day to work and soon realized how valuable those animal-safety crossings would be. Then I got to see them being built. The amount and types of road kill were very dramatically reduced, thus saving lives…
Beautifying degradation
The stunningly beautiful photographs on HCN’s Aug. 4 cover and illustrating “Idaho’s Sewer System” effectively neutralize the incisive messages in Richard Manning’s well-researched article. I bet any Idaho Big Ag exec would be proud to display any one of these on a corporate waiting room wall. After all, do not these crystalline-sharp, color-saturated views convey the…
Zen and the art of wildflower science
In the Rocky Mountains, a long-term study yields surprises.
Murder in Old San Francisco
Review of ‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue
Sovereign contempt
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire:A Story of Wealth, Ambition and SurvivalPeter Stark366 pages, hardcover: $27.99.HarperCollins, 2014. Everyone knows about the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-’06, but another entrepreneurial foray a few years later — larger, bolder, and, ultimately, a debacle – has fallen into historical oblivion. The Astor Expedition…
A dam difficult job
California’s drought through the eyes of a water manager.
Wildfire and bare-bottom bike riders
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
From paradise to Paonia
Here in HCN’s tiny hometown, Paonia, Colorado, we remain amazed by — and grateful for — all the folks who drop by just to say hello, since Paonia is on the way to pretty much nowhere else. Ulli Lange, 80, and family and friends, visited right before July Fourth and Paonia’s Cherry Days celebration. Ulli,…
Watching the world slip away
How our children respond to a world threatened by climate change.
Forestry fandango
In 2013, the U.S. Forest Service thinned and intentionally burned more than 2 million acres of the nation’s public land, which is largely in the West, in order to improve forest health and reduce the risk of destructive wildfires near houses and towns. That’s an impressive figure, until you consider that the agency itself acknowledges…
Lost in the woods
How the Forest Service is botching its biggest restoration project.
Smoke and mirrors
Congress can’t seem to solve a big problem: how to pay for battling wildfires.
The Latest: Southern Utes make another energy investment
Backstory The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has suffered plenty of historical setbacks; today, however, its 1,400 members are collectively worth billions. In the 1970s, the tribe began taking control of energy profits from its southwestern Colorado reservation, home to one of the country’s richest gas fields. In the 1990s, it formed its own energy company,…
The Latest: Ruptured tailings pond spills waste in Canada
Backstory In the remote northwestern corner of British Columbia, next to Alaska, plans for large mining and hydropower projects have sounded alarm bells on both sides of the border. Critics, mostly environmentalists and tribes, warned that Canada’s resource rush threatens rivers that support a vital wild salmon fishery in both countries, and that the race…