After years of a disastrous free-for-all on the sea, one Oregon fishing community searches for a sustainable future
Wildlife
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
Wilderness areas for the ocean
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” In the absence of good science about how much fishing a healthy ocean can handle, some fishermen and many environmentalists say a cautious approach is best. They want to place specific swaths of the sea off-limits to fishermen. These “no-take marine […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 2004: Mending the Nets
A new breed of marketers gives fishing towns a leg up
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Mending the Nets.” COOS BAY, Ore. — Abandoned fish-processing plants cling to the harbor’s edge in this town of 15,000 along the Oregon coast. Less than 20 years ago, there were nine places where local fishermen could sell their fish. Now there are four. […]
Posted inJanuary 24, 2005: Written in the Rings
A bear book that tames the fear factor
“Wyoming is bear country,” Tom Reed writes in Great Wyoming Bear Stories, a book of yarns from the wild high county in and around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks — land he calls the grizzly bear’s “last, best stronghold.” Unlike the authors of the many “slasher” bear books on the market, Reed writes with […]
Posted inWotr
To lions, we may be just a link in the food chain
A 100-pound mountain lion can kill an 800-pound elk. Keep that in mind the next time you go hiking in cougar territory. If you are alone and unarmed, and one of these powerful predators attacks you — intent on killing and eating you, rather than merely trying to drive you away from its offspring or […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Warm-water native fish are left out in the cold
Little is being done to pull the Southwest’s native fish back from the brink of extinction, according to an independent team of biologists. The study of a dozen warm-water fish in Arizona’s Gila River Basin found that half the species no longer exist in wild populations, while five species occupy less than one-fifth of their […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Wilderness activists look on as the Bush administration gives oil and gas drillers first crack at the West’s last wild lands
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
In New Mexico, a homegrown wilderness bill makes headway
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Two decades of hard work, plowed under.” In the face of the Interior Department’s top-down decision to stop looking for new wilderness areas on federal land, some communities are working to protect wilderness from the bottom up. Sidestepping White House-appointed bureaucrats, wilderness advocates are […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 2004: Two decades of hard work, plowed under
Proposed wilderness on the auction block
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Two decades of hard work, plowed under.” The following areas, which are proposed by citizens for wilderness protection, will be up for grabs during the BLM’s January/February 2004 lease sale. WIA = wilderness inventory area CWP = citizens’ wilderness proposal New Mexico (Jan. 21) […]
Posted inWotr
Bark beetles are gnawing their way through our ponderosa-pine forests
When Mike Wagner took Northern Arizona University students to the site where he was trapping bark beetles near Flagstaff, he expected to show them a simple lesson: Once freed from a funnel-trap, the insects would find a juniper tree and burrow into it. But as the entomologist tipped the trap, thousands of beetles poured out, […]
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Massive logging plan shakes Northwest
One of the largest timber sales in history uncovers old animosity, and undermines the Roadless Rule
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Fires take toll on San Diego’s wildlife
Rare butterfly is likely extinct, while imperiled gnatcatcher loses a chunk of habitat
Posted inDecember 22, 2003: Being Green in the Land of the Saints
Biologist busted for moving endangered cacti
A darling of developers, consultant gets five years’ probation and $5,000 fine
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
American Speedster
With its distinctive markings, an American pronghorn on the prairie range is about as inconspicuous as pepper in salt. But then again, when you can sprint at 60 miles per hour and sustain speeds of around 45 mph for mile after mile, stealth and camouflage aren’t that important. In Built for Speed, John Byers — […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
News flash: Fish do need water
Federal wildlife managers admit that a massive fish kill was caused, in part, by diversions of water to farmers
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
Forest protection on the honor system
After nearly a year of contentious debate about how best to reduce wildfire danger, the House and Senate passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act on Nov. 20 (HCN, 5/26/03: Congress jousts over forest health). Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who worked to craft the bill, is hailing it as a compromise and a bipartisan success, but […]
Posted inDecember 8, 2003: Riding the middle path
In Boulder-White Cloud mountains, another wilderness compromise
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Riding the middle path.” A hundred miles north of the Owyhee Canyonlands, another bold wilderness deal is brewing in Idaho, and the brewmaster is another conservative Republican congressman. “We have a rare opportunity to control our own destiny, by crafting our own legislation that […]
Posted inWotr
Sportsmen for Bush: Wise up!
Without enthusiastic support from most of America’s 50 million hunters and anglers, George W. Bush and his appointees would still be employed by oil, gas and coal companies. I still see bumper stickers that say: “Another Sportsman for Bush.” Yet as a lifelong sportsman myself, I wonder why even one sportsman, let alone “another,” would […]
Posted inNovember 24, 2003: New Mexico goes head-to-head with a nuclear juggernaut
Logging faces new pollution controls
A recent federal court ruling and a new California law could both curtail stream pollution by the timber industry. On Oct. 12, outgoing Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill that allows regional water quality boards to veto logging plans if they would damage streams classified by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as “impaired due to […]
Posted inNovember 24, 2003: New Mexico goes head-to-head with a nuclear juggernaut
Whirling disease hits Yellowstone
Cutthroat trout, a native species in trouble around the West, are facing an increasing threat in a key sanctuary, Yellowstone National Park. Whirling disease, spread by a European parasite that showed up in the park five years ago, now infects 12 to 20 percent of the cutthroats in Yellowstone Lake, according to biologists’ studies. And […]