Puzzling piscine sex reversals have left salmon researchers scratching their heads. A study released by the University of Idaho and Washington State University reported that of the female salmon sampled, 84 percent tested positive for a male genetic marker, suggesting that these females actually began life as males. Sex reversals could hold clues to declining […]
Books
Posted inFebruary 12, 2001: Mr. Babbitt's wild ride
Assessing Sunbelt sprawl
A recent poll found that nearly half of Phoenix’s residents would pack up and leave tomorrow, if given the chance. Two-thirds think the region is doing a “poor” or “fair” job of preserving the desert or open space. With this harsh assessment of the city’s quality of life in mind, a team of university researchers, […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Agency will try to track trails
The Bureau of Land Management has a new nationwide strategy for off-highway vehicle management. The plan, released Jan. 19, calls for local environmental analyses of vehicle impacts, saying that some endangered species habitat may need further protection from OHV use. It also broadens BLM’s definition of off-highway vehicles, which will now include snowmobiles, personal watercraft, […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
X-rated on the rocks
“I am glad I have seen yournakedness;it is beautiful;it will rain from now on.” — Talashimtiwa Hopi Indian from Oraibi, 1920from The Serpent and the Sacred Fire: Fertility Images in Southwest Rock Art The record on rock left by the Southwest’s early people is mostly mystifying. What do those galaxy-like clusters really represent? What are […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Beyond the white noise
The environment doesn’t begin as you leave the city – workplaces and neighborhoods are part of it, too. But battles to protect these places, especially those belonging to minority groups, have not often been visible to the public. The 2000 Directory of People of Color Environmental Groups brings these community fights to life, listing the […]
Posted inJanuary 29, 2001: Power on the loose
Tagging a protest
Opponents of a new pass to visit the Red Rock area of Coconino National Forest near Sedona, Ariz., are using a rearview mirror tag to claim exemption from fees. The Forest Service says its fee demonstration program is needed to restore and enhance a scenic treasure, but members of the AZ NoFee Coalition fear “the […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Lifting the veil of secrecy
Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, by Len Ackland, The University of New Mexico press. Hardback: $34.95. 308 pages. Most people know that the Cold War spawned a number of nuclear bomb manufacturing facilities in the spacious American West – places like Hanford in eastern Washington state and Rocky Flats just […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Get artsy in the parks
Over the years, the work of numerous artists has focused the eye of the public on national parks. Thomas Moran’s paintings helped swing the debate for protecting Yellowstone National Park. Ansel Adams’ photographs continue to introduce new generations of Americans to the beauty of Yosemite and Sequoia national parks. And Ann Zwinger’s writings and sketches […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Straw bales relieve housing crunch
For six years, Red Feather Development Group has been pushing a low-cost solution to the housing crunch on Indian reservations, where extended families often squeeze into tiny government-issue homes. One answer, according to the Bellevue, Wash.-based nonprofit, lies in building houses with bales of straw. The bales are a product of the wheat harvest on […]
Posted inJanuary 15, 2001: Plains sense
Hecho a mano
Hecho a Mano, by James S. Griffith. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Paperback: $17.95. 104 pages. Driving through Tucson, Ariz., a visitor might not register the ornate front-yard fences and low-rider cars along the city’s palm-lined streets. Yet in the book Hecho a Mano, by folklorist Jim Griffith, what’s everyday comes vividly alive. Griffith takes […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Atomic farmgirl
It was a headline in The Spokesman-Review that informed my family that both the bomb at Alamogordo and the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki contained plutonium produced at Hanford. That’s how everybody – everybody in the whole world and everybody in our neighborhood – found out what was going on down there: from the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Agency gets rebuked
Since the late 1980s, scientists have known that more than 100 federal nuclear sites, over half of which lie in the West, will remain toxic forever. The problem is how to manage these former bomb sites for thousands of years. Though the Department of Energy commissioned a National Academy of Sciences study over two years […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Bring back towns
Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream makes the buzzwords “new urbanism” come alive. The authors, who are community planners, have written and designed an easily accessible and smartly illustrated book, which is not surprising, since Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck believe that what works to build […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Bovine weedeaters
Leigh Frederickson, a natural resources professor at the University of Missouri, has been testing whether cattle can hold down the spread of noxious weeds, particularly white top. Last summer, the 14,186-acre Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado worked with five neighboring ranchers, who rented pasture with mixed results. “Depending on the moisture and the […]
Posted inDecember 18, 2000: Still here: Can humans help other species defy extinction?
Of raptors, rats and roadkill
At the Northern Rockies Raptor Center in northwestern Montana, Ken Wolff has been nursing injured birds back to health for 12 years. But this August his nonprofit operation hit a small snag. Five hundred pounds of frozen rodents, which Wolff uses to feed birds of prey, failed to arrive at the Missoula airport. He spent […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Backtracking
“Western road maps are full of old trails: the Lewis and Clark Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Sante Fe Trail, the Outlaw Trail, and the Nez Perce Trail. Their vague lines connect the West that was to the West that is. They may even stretch to the West we imagine will be. But underneath them, […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Ferrets are back in town
Black-footed ferrets once roamed the prairies of South Dakota. But the destruction of prairie dog towns vastly reduced the ferret’s habitat and pushed it onto the endangered species list. Now, the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe is restoring ferrets to the reservation, where the predators fill an important niche in the fast-disappearing shortgrass prairie ecosystem. So […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Saving Places 2001
Colorado Preservation Inc. invites anyone interested in preserving historic and diverse cultural sites to Saving Places 2001. The event will take place Feb. 2-3, 2001, at the Denver Athletic Club and will feature tours, workshops, social events and speakers. For more information, call 303/893-4260 or write: 910 16th St. #1100, Denver, CO 80202. This article […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
Rivers without water
Rain pelts cities in western Oregon at up to 10 inches a month in the winter wet season. Yet each summer, 10 major rivers and streams, including the often-visited Deschutes, dwindle to trickles or dry out completely. “The average person isn’t even aware this problem exists,” says Reed Benson, executive director of Portland-based WaterWatch, a […]
Posted inDecember 4, 2000: Road Block
A bird? A plane? It’s the environmental air force
Soaring above oil and gas wells in a six-person Cessna 210 is a far cry from flying in a crowded commercial plane. LightHawk, a nonprofit airline, uses the view to protect the environment. Based in San Francisco, Calif.; Aspen, Colo; and Seattle, Wash., LightHawk flies nearly 1,300 politicos, conservationists and journalists over degraded landscapes every […]