With its return to the nickel after 67 years, the bison bears messages that went unmentioned during the coin’s recent unveiling. The new nickel was designed to commemorate the government’s 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition — initiated by Thomas Jefferson — whose face also appears on the coin. But although bison provided […]
Wildlife
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Is Preble’s just another meadow mouse?
After finally scoring a place on the endangered species list, the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse may have to hop back off it. Nine inches long, the Preble’s mouse inhabits streamside meadows along the rapidly developing urban corridor from Colorado Springs to Cheyenne (HCN, 8/30/99: Can the Preble’s mouse trap growth on Colorado’s Front Range?). In […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Bees don’t grow on trees
Honeybees are in trouble, and so are the farmers who rely on them to pollinate an estimated one-third of the human diet — everything from almond and fruit trees to cantaloupes and cucumbers. Tom Theobald, who owns Niwot Honey Farm outside Boulder, Colo., says 30 percent of his bees died this year. Other beekeepers say […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Tribe close to sharing federal bison refuge
Unless Congress derails a deal that took years to negotiate, on March 15, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will take over 10 of the 19 jobs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Bison Range Complex. And the tribes will begin sharing management of 26,000 federal acres north of Missoula, where hundreds of […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Dogs could chase big cats again
A bill that would let hunters use dogs to chase down cougars is circulating in the Oregon state Legislature, pitting animal rights activists against hunters. In 1994, Oregon voters passed a ballot measure banning the use of hounds in cougar hunts. Dozens of subsequent efforts to weaken or repeal the measure have all failed. “I […]
Posted inMarch 7, 2005: Anarchy in the Gas Fields
Political appointee slashes forest protections
White River National Forest may lose safeguards for water and rare wildcat
Posted inWotr
Don’t call shooting from the sky hunting
The small airplane circles in the sky, its pilot and passenger peering out the windows as the plane banks to the left and right. They see a dark-colored dot moving against the snow below, and quickly, they circle tighter and downward until, yes, they realize it’s a wolf. The circling then changes to a slow […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
State sues over Sierra forest plan
In early February, the state of California sued the U.S. Forest Service for approving a new management plan that more than triples logging in national forests in the Sierra Nevada. In January 2004, the Forest Service rolled out a major revision of the 2001 Sierra Framework, a comprehensive plan for 11 national forests that was […]
Posted inWotr
What New York needs is a few million prairie dogs
Everybody but me is celebrating Lewis and Clark’s achievements, but I’m too peeved at William. Among other feats, those two travelers from Virginia named about 1,528 places, plants and animals. Captain Lewis, who studied science especially for the trip, correctly named one of the creatures they encountered a “barking squirrel.” William Clark changed the name […]
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
A bold, if impractical, new plan for Yellowstone bison
A new governor sparks debate with a controversial solution
Posted inFebruary 21, 2005: Have Environmentalists Failed the West?
Evolution of a timber family
My family owns a timber company in Washington state, and for us, money grows on trees. Every time we buy something, we see the physical signs of our consumption in our backyard. Paying for my recent college education, for example, took about 300 truckloads of second-growth Douglas fir, cedar and hemlock trees. A $60 pair […]
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Caught in the Headlights
A personal obsession leads one woman into a world of scientists, wildlife rehabilitators and eccentrics who are mesmerized by the often bloody relationship between wildlife and roads
Posted inFebruary 7, 2005: The Asphalt Graveyard
Roadkill statistics
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Caught in the Headlights.” 4 million Miles of roads in the United States. 226 million Number of vehicles registered in the United States. 23 trillion Vehicle miles traveled in the United States in 2002 6.3 million Number of automobile accidents annually in the United […]
Posted inWotr
Drive-up nature is better than nothing
The woman dubbed “eagle lady” grabbed a chunk of fish and threw it out on the sand in front of her trailer. Fifteen bald eagles immediately jumped off their perches and flew into a scuffle for the meat. A large, younger eagle, its feathers still gray-brown and mottled, emerged with the prize clamped in its […]
Posted inWotr
Let’s hunt wild bison instead of plugging them where they stand
I’m a hunter, and I believe that the recent decision by Montana’s officials to postpone a bison hunt near Yellowstone was a stroke of bold leadership. It was also downright gutsy and the right thing to do. It earned Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and the state game commission a lot of uninformed criticism. They’ve been […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Feds to hand wolves to states
Idaho and Montana are poised to take greater control of gray wolves, but the Nez Perce Tribe, and some environmentalists, are resisting
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Butterfly escapes endangered species net
New Mexico community creates its own conservation plan
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
Wyoming wildlife faces twin threats
Drill rigs and houses gobble habitat and sever migration routes
Posted inWotr
Wolf opponents just don’t get it
Time flies when the sky is falling. At least, we were told to expect the sky to fall in 1995. That’s when federal biologists snatched a bunch of Canadian wolves, hustled them south of the border and cut them loose in central Idaho and Yellowstone. Ten years sped by in a flash. But when I […]
Posted inWotr
Bears in the backyard, oh my
A grizzly bear lumbered through my herb garden before winter set in. It was a striking visual experience. His muscles powered under his fur like an overloaded freight train, and his eyes swung to take me into his scrutiny. Northwest Montana is bear country — grizzly bear country, to be precise. Unimpeded by fences, unaware […]