A grazing buyout program to ease tensions between ranchers and wolf advocates in New Mexico, Native American super heroes, a bacteria that could save bats and frogs from deadly disease, and more.
Pacific Crest Trail: A Journey in Photographs by Chris Alexander
We recommend using the gallery view to enjoy these photographs. Pacific Crest Trail: A Journey in Photographs Chris Alexander, 120 pages, hardcover: $49.95. wanderingthewild.com, 2013. At 2,660 miles long and with over 400,000 total feet of elevation change, the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches from Mexico to Canada, is not for the weak-legged. Chris Alexander’s…
The Sacramento-San Joaquin deltas of 1772 and today
Remembering explorers past of this California water source.
Crisis biology: Can bacteria save bats and frogs from deadly diseases?
As populations plummet, biologists race for a solution.
Ranchers, enviros and officials seek a middle path on public-land grazing
Moving beyond stalemate to meaningful reform in Utah.
Can a grazing buyout program ease life for wolves and ranchers?
A fledgling effort in New Mexico’s ‘Yellowstone of the South.’
How political extremism and primary reforms limit choices for Western voters
‘Top-two’ primary systems banish third parties from the ballot.
Montana escape
High and InsideRussell Rowland230 pages, softcover: $16.95Bangtail Press, 2013. Ex-Red Sox pitcher Pete Hurley comes to Bozeman to start a new life after a series of tragic mishaps that left him publicly shamed in Massachusetts. “Just as I was about to get over the incident that ended my baseball career,” he explains, “a drunken accident…
New HCN employees and several visitors at the office.
Thank you for helping us blow our gift-subscription goal out of the water! Our loyal readers gave their friends and families more than 1,600 holiday gift subscriptions. We joyfully welcome our new readers and thank our existing ones for sharing your commitment to our journalism and to the region that binds us together. New development…
Older and wiser
I first heard of WildEarth Guardians’ quiet effort to buy out grazing permits in New Mexico’s Gila country more than two years ago. Headlines instantly blared in my head: “Anti-grazing enviros pay off anti-enviro ranchers to make way for wolves!” What a great story, I thought: It would show enemies becoming if not friends, then…
One man’s sustainable city is another’s environmental scourge
Usually, the lies we tell ourselves are subconscious and hard to describe. That’s why I found two items in HCN‘s recent “urban sustainability” issue so maddening (1/20/14). In “The Vegas Paradox,” Jonathan Thompson informs us that southern Nevada’s official goals would have developers building huge numbers of new “Water Smart” homes by 2035 to achieve…
Postcard from a livestock sperm bank
Your one-stop shop for bison semen, oyster embryos and testicular turkey tissue.
Terrorized by coyotes, denied a school lunch, and a controversial superbowl ad
UTAHIf you’re like us, you’ve occasionally fallen behind in paying your credit card or utility bills. And maybe you’ve had to face the consequences, perhaps nasty letters from a collection agency or a robo-caller with a vague accent demanding that you make an “arrangement.” But the folks at Uintah Elementary School in Salt Lake City…
The first comic book with an all-Native American superhero team returns
Conversation with Jon Proudstar about the return of his comic book series, ‘Tribal Force.’
The great electric road trip
Blanding, a remote city of 3,504 in one of Utah’s poorest counties, received the state’s first Tesla Supercharger station in January. City Manager Jeremy Redd says it’s an ideal spot to power up an $80,000 electric car: “We’re halfway between Arches and Monument Valley,” and within an hour of Hovenweep and Natural Bridges national monuments.…
The Latest: Ecoterrorist in Vail fire is sentenced
Backstory In 1998, the Vail, Colo., ski resort was growing, and so were the tensions around it. Some accused the rich of monopolizing public lands for pricey recreation; others saw Vail’s planned expansion as encroaching on habitat essential to the rare Canada lynx. That October, members of the radical Earth Liberation Front set fire to…
The Latest: Nevada charges renewable energy companies for eco mitigation
BackstoryLarge-scale renewable energy projects benefit the climate but can harm ecosystems. Critics fear that industrial solar arrays planned for California and Nevada will ruin viewsheds, guzzle water, and destroy the habitat of threatened desert tortoises (“Sacrificial land: Will renewable energy devour the Mojave Desert?” HCN, 4/15/13). In October 2013, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that…
Tracking America’s ice-age pioneers
In the Shadow of the Sabertooth: A Renegade Naturalist Considers Global Warming, the First Americans and the Terrible Beasts of the PleistoceneDouglas Peacock200 pages, paperback: $15.AK Press/ Counterpunch, 2013. Doug Peacock, author of Grizzly Years and Walking It Off, once walked point as a polar bear guard on an Arctic expedition, armed with only a…
Counterpoint: Brave New L.A.
In his essay, “Brave New L.A.,” Jon Christensen cites what he considers two pivotal and progressive moments in Los Angeles’ quest for sustainability: the July rise of former Los Angeles City Council Member Eric Garcetti to the mayor’s office and the November centenary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct (HCN, 1/20/14). Both occasions can equally be…
Water Economics
I found your article on Las Vegas water consumption interesting and well-written (“The Vegas Paradox,” HCN, 1/20/14). Clearly, the water department’s water rates are not sufficient to incentivize conservation. Although it employs a four-tier rate system, its rates are less than half of Denver’s, which also uses Colorado River water. You would think that since Nevada…