“They both do not exist.” — Wyoming Attorney General Patrick Crank, equating the federally protected Preble’s meadow jumping mouse with the mythical jackalope. Crank made the comparison at a congressional hearing on the mouse in Greeley, Colo., in September. U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., led the hearing. This article appeared in the print edition of […]
Wildlife
Posted inOctober 2, 2006: From the ground up
Zine Roundup: Gone fishing
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, “Undaunted muckraker,” in a special issue about community media in the West. Named for the brown rubber boots with hefty soles popular among fishermen, the zine Xtra Tuf is a richly tinted window into the fishing industry’s turbulent culture. Its creator, Moe […]
Posted inWotr
How do you enter a roadless area?
How do you enter roadless lands in the West? Quietly, with a walking staff, a sketchbook, a camera? Not according to the Bush administration: It enters with a chainsaw. On Aug. 7, loggers arrived at the Mike’s Gulch timber sale in the Siskiyou Mountains of southern Oregon, fired up their chainsaws, and began cutting trees. […]
Posted inWotr
Gutsy science wins the day
For any scientist, publishing in Science magazine marks a giant success. It’s one of the world’s premier scientific journals, and only about 7 percent of submitted manuscripts are accepted. But Dan Donato, a second-year graduate student at Oregon State University’s College of Forestry, overcame the odds. Donato was lead author of a study on the […]
Posted inSeptember 4, 2006: Blast from the Past
Endangered Species 101 — in poetry
Harvard entomologist Edward O. Wilson, father of sociobiology and a relentless biodiversity advocate, once estimated that human gluttony helps exterminate species at the rate of one every 20 minutes. The Dire Elegies laments the plight of North America’s endangered wildlife in poetic detail — but this is more than a disgruntled ode to dying species […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Loss and renewal in the Northwest
“These stories of loss are about farming and forestry in the Pacific Northwest,” writes Steven Radosevich in this compact collection of essays. “They come along with me out of my vineyard.” Radosevich, hunter, fisherman, grape grower and professor of forest science at Oregon State University, writes simple, painful prose about the diminishing natural wealth of […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Bearable ways to deal with bruins
Generally speaking, the last thing anybody wants is a book waving a “practical” banner. But practical can also be informative and funny, especially when it comes to bears. Linda Masterson, an award-winning writer and volunteer for the Colorado Division of Wildlife’s Bear Aware team, has succeeded in converting what could have been a boring how-to […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Xeric Families of the West
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Lure of the Lawn.” Harold and Joan Leinbach First, it was floods, which left 10 inches of water standing in Harold and Joan Leinbach’s Boulder yard — and seeping under their foundation — in the spring of 1995. Then it was drought, which […]
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
Wilderness cliffhanger
Three compromise bills pass the House, await Senate approval
Posted inAugust 21, 2006: The Lure of the Lawn
What is Xeriscaping?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “The Lure of the Lawn.” Twenty-five years ago, Ken Ball and his Denver Water colleagues developed the seven basic principles of Xeriscaping. Those commandments are still in use today. Plan and design the landscape for water conservation and beauty from the start. Create practical […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Is It or Isn’t It (Just Another Mouse)?
Why science alone will not settle the West’s endangered species dilemmas
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
‘You’ve got me wrong’: A Conversation with Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth
This June, Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth flew into Delta, Colo., to meet with the local staff of the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests — “GMUG” in local parlance. Bosworth, who became the chief in 2001, told a crowd of Forest Service employees, retirees and local conservationists that the agency he runs has […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
Where there’s fire, there’s global warming
“I think there was a tendency to think that the overwhelming factor (driving forest fires) was short-term weather. There’s this idea that drought matters, and it does. But it’s taking time and a lot of research to show that climate plays a big role as well.” — Anthony Westerling Six years ago, climate scientist Anthony […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
A few scientific definitions
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Is It or Isn’t It (Just Another Mouse)?“ When people think about the creatures protected by the Endangered Species Act, they tend to picture gray wolves, grizzlies or spotted owls. But the act draws finer distinctions than that, providing protection for subspecies and even […]
Posted inAugust 7, 2006: Is It or Isn't It (Just Another Mouse)?
There was no green in this Rainbow gathering
When we tell folks that we became the unwitting hosts for the Rainbow Family’s annual gathering, the first response is “the who?” The Family’s Web site, welcomehome.org, styles the Rainbows “the largest non-organization of non-members in the world.” At the beginning of July, more than 17,000 of them gathered in Big Red Park, north of […]
Posted inWotr
Watch out for hijackers in national parks
Yellowstone National Park, spring last year. Marypat and I have stopped for a picnic break on our annual April ride through the Yellowstone. We prop the bikes against a bridge railing, take our sandwiches and stroll to a grassy patch near a creek. It is quiet and tranquil in a way it never is during […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Falcon’s future rests on a definition
Endangered aplomado falcons in southern New Mexico may be stripped of their protections — by the very agency trying to bring the bird back to the state. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is moving forward with a controversial plan to release up to 150 captive-bred aplomado falcons as a “nonessential experimental population.” Because the […]
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
As states ponder protection, roadless forests unravel
Forest Service says it’s bound by the rules to allow some logging, drilling and mining
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Failing Bay-Delta may take a living fossil with it
As farmed sturgeon thrive, wild populations are in trouble
Posted inJuly 24, 2006: Taking Liberties
Prey at the waterhole
I came around a corner and there was a mountain lion. It was a big male, tail longer than my arm. I stopped in dappled ponderosa shade. I was close enough that I could have tossed a pebble and hit the lion’s tawny block of a head. He was facing the other way, lapping water […]