When people who don’t live here write about the Great Plains, they usually use the words “bleak,” “empty” and “wasteland” to describe it. The writer often suggests that our economy and people are “depressed” because their “lifestyles” are “vanishing.” Photographs show sky and clouds above miles of windblown, rolling — not flat — grass. Prairie […]
Wildlife
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Western governors wary of roadless forest mess
Bush administration touts state control, but Washington, D.C., will make the final call
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Wolf man John
NAME John Morgart TITLE Mexican wolf recovery program coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service HOME BASE Albuquerque, N.M. AGE 53 HE SAYS “I’ve known what I wanted to do with my life ever since I was 3 or 4 years old. I just always knew I wanted to be a wildlife biologist.” John Morgart has […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
A most unusual sanctuary, where the Yeti roams free
The Kingdom of Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist country nestled in the Himalayas between India and Tibet, sounds like an enchanting place. People who’ve traveled there describe snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and ancient monasteries. The country is known for its progressive environmental laws, and is sometimes even called “the last Shangri-la” for its unspoiled natural environment. […]
Posted inJuly 25, 2005: The Many Faces of Richard Pombo
Life rises from the ashes, in the form of a humble toad
Change can be good — even violent, earth-shaking change. Just ask Charlie Crisafulli. Twenty-five years ago on May 18, at 8:32 in the morning, Mount St. Helens erupted, blasting ash, steam and superheated gases 80,000 feet into the atmosphere high above southern Washington. The north end of the mountain collapsed in the largest landslide in […]
Posted inWotr
A most unusual sanctuary, where the Yeti roams free
I keep hearing that the Kingdom of Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist country nestled in the Himalayas between India and Tibet, is an enchanting place. People who’ve traveled there describe snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and ancient monasteries. The country is especially known for its progressive environmental laws, and is sometimes even called “the last Shangri-la” for […]
Posted inWotr
The last I looked, national parks weren’t zoos
“Yellowstone is a better park than Glacier because you can see more animals,” so announced one hiking client as I guided us through dense old-growth cedars. I didn’t know how to respond. Was I puzzled by the implication that our national parks should be rated on the same scale, even though each was set aside […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Wyoming’s unsung wilderness heroes
Wyoming’s wilderness culture has its heroes, but unlike the cowboys who get so much play in the state, they are largely unknown. In Ahead of Their Time, a new book covering four decades of the Wyoming wilderness movement, editors Broughton Coburn and Leila Bruno try to remedy that by asking writers to choose a wilderness […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Sometimes it’s hard to tell who the turkeys are
So you think wildlife biology is a science? Sure it is, if estimating wild turkey populations by counting the birds that run across the road in front of your truck is “science.” In Stalking the Big Bird, an often-amusing tale of his 27 years with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, biologist Harley Shaw reveals […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Frozen in time: Endangered species science
If scientists have learned anything new about the genetics of rare species in the past three decades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may not want to hear about it. In January, H. Dale Hall, the Service’s Region 2 director, released a new policy for developing recovery plans for rare species: Scientists are to use […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Hungry sea lions put salmon-savers in a bind
The California sea lions that snarfed up 3,000 chinook salmon at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River have finally headed south to mate. But their big appetites this spring have some fishermen calling for the quick removal and even killing of the protected mammals. “Our fishermen are very concerned. It’s their livelihood and they are […]
Posted inJune 27, 2005: Reflections on a Divided Land
Highway plans aim to keep habitat — and wildlife — in one place
In the Cascade Range, the question isn’t why animals cross the road, but how they can do so without becoming salamander road-cakes or elk a la SUV. The answer, say Washington state transportation officials and biologists, lies under and over a humming mountain highway. In June, the state’s Department of Transportation released plans for widening […]
Posted inWotr
Salmon find a judge who listens
For more than 20 years, the fate of 13 threatened and endangered salmon stocks in the Pacific Northwest has been a contest between the status quo agenda of politicians and power producers and a legacy of the Nixon era, the Endangered Species Act. A few months ago, many of us in the press who have […]
Posted inWotr
Lions and tigers and wolves, oh my, even in the Midwest
Don’t look now, but there may be a couple of keen eyes within a placid suburb or rural Midwestern neighborhood. In fact, they might be up a tree. That’s where Nebraska’s most recent mountain lion was spotted earlier this year. The 100-pound animal was lounging comfortably in a tree in South Sioux City, across the […]
Posted inJune 13, 2005: Owning a Piece of Paradise
For salmon, a crucial moment of decision
Ruling could set in motion dramatic changes on Northwest rivers
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Tax credits make eco-logging pay
The trouble with logging these days is that it’s hard to make a profit while still looking out for forest health. That may change, at least in some depressed Northwest timber towns, thanks to a federal program that usually helps blighted urban neighborhoods. In May, the U.S. Treasury Department gave $50 million in federal tax […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Bringing back the wolf = bringing back the habitat
The wolf today inspires polarized emotions. It is viewed by some as a slavering, rapacious killing machine; by others, as the noble symbol of a lost wilderness. In the fascinating Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone, biologist Douglas Smith and nature writer Gary Ferguson seek to sort myth from reality. They describe […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
The Singing Life of Birds
The Singing Life of Birds Donald Kroodsma, 482 pages, hardcover: $28.00. Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Have you ever wished you could distinguish the song of a wood thrush from that of a hermit thrush? Kroodsman’s new book combines his personal observations of birds with scientific descriptions of how they develop their songs. Accompanying diagrams show the […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
Wild Echoes: Encounters With the Most Endangered Animals in North America
Wild Echoes: Encounters With the Most Endangered Animals in North America Charles Bergman, 325 pages, softcover: $21.95. University of Illinois Press, 2003. Biologists know that human activities are causing thousands of species to go extinct. According to Bergman, our attitudes contribute to extinction just as much as our automobiles do. By imagining animals as separate […]
Posted inMay 30, 2005: Write-off on the Range
For sale: Your local ranger station?
Budget cuts and forest thinning force agency to trim down