Question: When does a state wildlife commission turn into a death commission? Answer: When it does what Nevada did last December. That’s when the Nevada Wildlife Commission approved a $212,000 raid on the state’s Heritage Fund, a reserve dedicated to wildlife conservation projects. But instead of conservation, the Nevada Wildlife Commission redirected the Heritage Fund […]
Essays
Posted inWotr
Good fences don’t mangle wildlife
This winter a small tragedy took place on a ridge above the Bitterroot Valley of western Montana near where I live. I was nearly home when two neighbors out for a walk frantically flagged my truck down. They’d found a deer silently struggling, hanging upside down by one back leg, gripped in a loop of […]
Posted inWotr
When a scientist becomes an activist
In my office, I have a picture of a man testifying to Congress. He is haggard, with the look of someone under great strain. Behind him, engraved on the wall, is a quote from the book of Proverbs: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The man in the picture is NASA climatologist James […]
Posted inMarch 15, 2010: Mobile Nation
East to the West
A writer contemplates the beginning of the West
Posted inWotr
When school budgets get cut to the bone, what then?
Last fall, a massive budget deficit was uncovered within the Grand County School District in Moab, Utah, leaving parents aghast. Because of mismanagement, the school district faced a cascade of shortfalls, from $1 million for the 2008-’09 school year and $1.4 million for 2009-’10, to $1.9 million for 2010-2011. Just before the holidays, the district […]
Posted inMarch 1, 2010: The War Next Door
Good night, sweet trees
Sudden Aspen Decline is like a Shakespearean tragedy
Posted inFebruary 15, 2010: Prodigal Dogs
The squeal of silence
Alone in a cabin, a writer finds that silence is more than the absence of noise
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
The easy way to purify our geography
If it’s named for a scoundrel, change the namesake
Posted inFebruary 1, 2010: 'The environment ... is where we live'
Drive that Hummer
Is it a car or a statement?
Posted inDecember 7, 2009: Dueling Claims
Birders without borders
Border SongsJim Lynch291 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Knopf, 2009. “In war, truth is the first casualty.” It’s a quote attributed to the Greek playwright Aeschylus from the fifth century B.C., back when wars were wars, fought on actual battlefields by men in helmets who wielded swords and spears. Novelist Jim Lynch understands this adage, and he also […]
Posted inNovember 23, 2009: After the Floods
How wild is a managed wolf?
Another wolf made the news last month: SW266M received capital punishment in Wyoming for the crime of eating woolly domestic mammals. His “name” means he was the 266th male wolf captured and tagged in southwestern Montana. His record yielded the further information that he was born in May 2007 on the east side of the […]
Posted inNovember 9, 2009: Roadless-less
The kindness of hunters
I despise guns. If a Winchester appears in a movie, I gnaw my fingernails, heart galloping. Firearms show a lack of imagination, I think; they slant the playing field, and sometimes threaten to tip the whole thing over. Recently, a student of mine penned a lyrical essay on the spirituality of hunting. I gave him […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
My father’s political career
The family also wins and loses.
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Our national parks: Another idea
In 1912, James Bryce, the British ambassador to the United States, proclaimed that the national parks are “America’s best idea.” Others have called the parks “America’s best places.” But if the parks are our “best” places, what about all those other places where we live and work and go about our daily rounds? Don’t they […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
Socialism and the West
This region was built on government subsidies and aid
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
A guide to the past — and the future
A 1930s Montana guidebook contains lessons for today