“Salmon carcass, cattle blood and time. In a barrel.” That’s the rank concoction that biologists in Washington state are using to coax rare carnivores in for a candid photo shoot, and to snag a few precious hairs. “Burns the nostrils,” says Aja Woodrow, a biological technician with the US Forest Service, wincing as he pours […]
Blog Post
Posted inGoat
Livid over livestock
Just 18 months ago, ranchers effectively defeated a voluntary federal program to trace disease among their livestock. Now U.S. Department of Agriculture officials are coming back to the traceability table with mandatory interstate livestock trade regulations they hope will kick disease out of the barn and are improved enough to overcome rancher resistance. The agriculture […]
Posted inRange
Know your H2O: The review
Editor’s note: David Zetland, is a senior water economist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands who trained in California. We cross-post occasional content from his blog, Aguanomics, here on the Range. The Surfrider Foundation sent me this 20 minute video. I liked most of it but had some comments (below). Watch the video and see if […]
Posted inGoat
Gutter Trash
On August 1, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Anchorage officially charged Arne Fuglvog, a veteran commercial fisherman and the fisheries aide to U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, with the crime of poaching wild Alaskan fish. His crimes led to an eventual charge and sentencing for misdemeanor violation of the Lacey Act, which protects wildlife, fish, […]
Posted inGoat
Haze be gone
When I started researching regional haze rules a few months back, a source warned me that I was wading into the Clean Air Act’s wonkiest, most technically complicated depths. I remember her asking me something like: “Are you sure you want to go there?” Which is to say, you’d be forgiven if you paid little […]
Posted inRange
Rural unemployment slightly better in Interior West and Plains than elsewhere
By Bill Bishop, the Daily Yonder (click to view larger) Unemployment in rural counties turned up sharply in June, cracking nine percent for the first time since March. The rural unemployment rates rose from 8.7% in May to 9.2% in June. Unemployment in rural America remains lower than in urban counties or in the nation […]
Posted inGoat
Surf and turf update
After two decades of restoration, roughly 1,700 gray wolves now roam the Northern Rockies. But constant court battles over their management led Congress to end federal protection in May, using a budget rider to sidestep the Endangered Species Act (see our May 30 story). Last week, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy unhappily upheld the rider, […]
Posted inRange
Lewis, Clark and Darwin
Charles Darwin wasn’t born until three years after the Lewis & Clark Expedition was over, but evolutionary science is shedding a new light on a question that has perplexed me and other history buffs about their epic journey. Here’s the question: Why were the Indians so friendly to Lewis & Clark? The answer might just […]
Posted inGoat
Air quality and all that gas
If you’ve been following the recent media blitz surrounding fracking — where water, chemicals and sand are pumped at high pressure down a well to help release oil or natural gas — you might think that concerns over the process are all about groundwater pollution. After all, thanks to the “Halliburton loophole,” the process is […]
Posted inRange
A tale of three women conservationists
In the beginning, there was only water as far as the eye could see, according to the Chemehuevi Indians, who once traversed the rocky peaks and steep slopes of what is now Joshua Tree National Park. Ocean Woman, afloat on a woven boat with wolf, mountain lion and coyote, created the land by rubbing dead […]
Posted inGoat
The Visual West: Going with the Monsoonal Flow
Over the past several weeks, the monsoon season has kicked in nicely across the Southwest, reaching up into Colorado, where it has created some spectacular lightning, downpours and sunsets. In my humble opinion, summer afternoons during monsoon season were meant to be spent working (not too vigorously) in the garden and watching the thunderheads build […]
Posted inGoat
Proposed Alaska dam pushes state to examine hydropower options
Corrected August 5, 2011, 2:53 p.m. Mile 184 on the Susitna River halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks may look a little different in 12 years. Imagine a 700-foot high dam with a reservoir 39 miles long. That’s what could be there if the proposed $4.5 billion Susitna-Watana hydroelectric project secures permits and financing. The project […]
Posted inGoat
Game on, Government!
Updated 8/3/2011, 2:46 pm A grouse, a prairie chicken, and a rabbit walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “There’s a two for one special on drinks tonight. Who’s game?” Okay, cheesy pun, I admit. But here’s a worse joke: In June, Safari Club International, a wealthy hunters’ rights group, filed a […]
Posted inRange
What does it mean nowadays to be a Westerner?
By Steve Bunk, NewWest.net Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt’s re-entry in the political fray in recent weeks, which he says was precipitated by fears over the future of the nation’s wild lands, brings up the question of what it means nowadays to be a Westerner. To many people, the answer probably would be […]
Posted inRange
BLM issues final EIS for Over the River
The federal Bureau of Land Management has issued a final Environmental Impact Statement for the controversial “Over the River” art installation. Proposed by the artist Christo and his late wife Jeanne Claude, the project would suspend nearly six total miles of translucent fabric in various spots along a 42-mile stretch of the Arkansas River between […]
Posted inGoat
Next train to … China?
Billionaire Forrest Mars, of Mars candy bar fame, used to be the Tongue River Railroad’s most high-profile foe. The much-disputed rail line — first proposed some 30 years ago — gained new momentum in recent years as interest mounted in mining southeastern Montana’s untapped coal reserves, which currently have no path to market. Mars, like […]
Posted inBlog
Industry boosts pro-fracking PR
Like you, lately I’ve been getting a rapid education in fracking, the natural gas extraction method that’s been much in the public eye, including extensive coverage of the April spill in Pennsylvania , the release of the anti-fracking documentary Gasland, and HCN’s recent in-depth article “Hydrofracked?” in the June 27th issue. The environmental justice connection […]
Posted inGoat
How much should hunters with ATVs be regulated?
The hunters stalked their game for hours, carefully taking note of scat and tracks the herd left behind. They hunted on foot through the West’s backcountry wilds, through brush and over mountains. A rumble in the distance sounded like the characteristic clap of a Rocky Mountain thunderstorm. It spooked the elk. Over the hill emerged […]
Posted inRange
Hydropower remains dominant energy source in the West
By Jamie Bedwell, guest writer at NewWest.net ABOUT THIS SERIES: Students from The University of Montana School of Journalism, with the help of American Public Media’s Public Insight Network, reported and wrote stories for New West on the energy economy of the Rocky Mountain region. The project originated as part of the Green Thread initiative […]
Posted inRange
How troubling is ocean acidification?
By Jennifer Langston, Sightline.org This post is part of the research project: Northwest Ocean Acidification Not every commercial fisherman is convinced that curbing carbon emissions is necessary to stop global warming. But the evidence that fossil fuel pollution is making the oceans more corrosive—and removing building basic building blocks of the marine world—starts to get […]