Letters to the editor, October 2023

EDIFYING READING, YEAR AFTER YEAR

We have been readers since the newsprint days of HCN and keep coming back! This September 2023 issue, however, is outstanding, particularly Ben Goldfarb’s “The Blab of the Pave.” I work trying to keep wild areas wild in my larger high Sierra Nevada community and so value his fine writing and observations. Also, “We don’t need utopias” by Ruxandra Guidi has a potent message. Thank you for choosing these important stories for our continuing education.

Barbara and Donald Rivenes
Grass Valley, California

LAND FOR FARMS, NOT BILLIONAIRES

What I see is U.S. billionaires driving prices of land beyond the reach of family farms (“Who owns the West?” September 2023). There should be a price cap on agricultural land that will benefit smaller farmers against the likes of Bill Gates and Ted Turner. If some wealthy individual from Iran decides to buy 10,000 acres at 200% the value, what’s to stop them?

Robert Campbell
Pueblo, Colorado

LEARNING FROM THE BIRDS

I thoroughly enjoyed “A naughty, queer little bird,” in the September issue. Miles Griffis writes beautifully and brought forth wonderful thoughts about gender. We have Mexican jay down here in the deep southeast of Arizona that behave like his gray jay. The ravens talk as well. I swear they say good morning, flying low overhead as I enjoy my outdoor breakfast.

Katherine Brown
Cochise, Arizona

ABSURD WHINERS

I found the article “The Movement to Make Oregon Great Again” (August 2023) very informative. The people pushing the Greater Idaho movement are anti-government, disgruntled conservatives with an emphasis on white supremacy similar to the people involved in the Bundy takeover of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The idea that the state of Oregon is going to allow a minority of people to take two-thirds of the state and make it Idaho is absurd. If these people are so enamored with the conservative policies of Idaho, why don’t they just move to Idaho?

I spent 20 years teaching high school in Madras, Oregon, and many of my students were Indigenous kids from the Warm Springs Reservation. I was pleased to read the comments from Carina Miller, member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and chair of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, who was one of my students. Carina always knew what she wanted and was never shy in saying what she felt was right. She was always a leader. I am not surprised that Carina got the last word over Greater Idaho spokesman Matt McCaw when she asked if he thought his group was more disenfranchised than Native people. She is actively working to make things better instead of whining like the Greater Idaho discontents.

Chris Scranton
Stevensville, Montana

THE COST OF EAGLE KILLS

“People are shooting birds off power lines in the West” (hcn.org, Aug. 4, 2023) was a great article. Glad to see that it’s being publicized; it may help readers possibly witness a shooting and lead to a prosecution.

We study several hundred golden eagles nest sites in Oregon, and on one Hawk Watch International roadkill deer/raptor study it was documented on study cameras that people are also shooting golden eagles off roadkill carcasses and taking the eagle.

If someone shoots an adult golden eagle, we lose almost 12 years of effective productivity, because of the time it requires a juvenile to become an adult (five years), and also smart, effective adults that can build a nest, hatch eggs and feed their young, and for those young surviving to breeding age.

Rick Vetter and Joan Suther
Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologists, retired
Hines, Oregon

BROADENING THE FOCUS

Reader Margaret J. Hayes deplores HCN’s straying from a primary focus on the Inner Basin West in the July issue, and I appreciate that. I deplored the change years back when Ed and Betsy Marston first merged their Western Colorado Report with Tom Bell’s High Country News and made regional coverage their focus instead of Colorado’s Western Slope. But HCN’s recent shift to highlighting Indigenous issues about and by Indigenous writers has been thrilling. I pair that important focus with the award-winning Southern Ute Drum to begin to better understand my place as a settler immigrant resident of the West.

And, on a personal note, thank you for bringing poetry back into the HCN mix, missing since the days of Chip Rawlins. A particularly moving poem by Jacqueline Balderrama in the August issue.

Art Goodtimes
Norwood, Colorado

HOPE IN HELD

Thank you for the powerful and moving article by Richard Forbes about the young plaintiffs in the Held lawsuit (“In the nation’s first youth-led climate trial, a case for hope,” hcn.org, June 26, 2023). With thoughtful young people who are committed to addressing climate change in order to protect the planet, there’s hope. Congratulations to the plaintiffs for all of their efforts and to Our Children’s Trust for representing them.

Laurie Albright
Boulder, Colorado

We welcome reader letters. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.

This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Letters to the editor, October 2023.

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