Most Americans — even those fanatical about eating only organic foods — assume that eating fish raised in the ocean is a healthy act that does no harm to the environment. Not necessarily. Some seafood varieties are overfished, and some are caught and farmed in ways that damage ocean ecosystems (HCN, 3/17/03: Bracing against the […]
Wildlife
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
Planting time
The native-seed business is blooming, but can a restoration economy take root in the West?
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
To restore the West, go big and go native
It’s always disconcerting to have a myth blown apart — like when you discover that your favorite sports star, whom you always thought to be a nice, upstanding person, cheats on his wife or abuses his kids. The world wobbles; food doesn’t taste as good; you just want to fall asleep and wake up when […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
New forest plan leaves owls in a lurch
Sierra Nevada plan gets logger-friendly
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
In search of the desert manna
TAOS, N.M. — Winter was coming, and like so many others, I was broke. I had a freezer full of elk meat, but it wasn’t enough to survive the cold months in the high country. There’s no fat in elk meat; explorers Lewis and Clark lost weight on it, my friends say. With little money […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Roadkill 101
“Don’t touch that!” is what most kids hear when they investigate dead animals. But in Hayden, Colo., elementary school teachers are encouraging students – armed with maps and global positioning systems – to go in search of roadkill. Second- and fourth-grade students at Hayden Valley Elementary School have produced a map of roadkill patterns along […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Birdman’s biography soars
He’s known as the Birdman of Boise, and is perhaps the most underrated conservationist in the West. In Cool North Wind: Morley Nelson’s Life with Birds of Prey, Idaho writer Stephen Stuebner tells the story of a former Soil Conservation Service employee, “a flamboyant salt-of-the-earth character, a father of four, a husband, a widower, a […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Wilderness takes a massive hit
The door closes on new BLM wilderness proposals
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Montana debates bison-hunting season
Critics say bison should simply be allowed to roam
Posted inWotr
Sometimes, it’s trout that have to be killed
Having written for and about trout anglers for 33 years, I’ve repeatedly admonished them for their lack of what Aldo Leopold, sire of wildlife management, called an “ecological conscience.” Too often a “trout is a trout,” and where it came from and what it’s displacing doesn’t matter. So I am astonished and delighted to see […]
Posted inApril 14, 2003: Change comes slowly to Escalante county
Forest thinning slows fires, increases concerns
Not only did forest thinning slow the spread of last summer’s Hayman Fire in Colorado, it helped prevent subsequent damage from erosion, according to a study conducted by the U.S. Forest Service (HCN, 7/8/02: The anatomy of fire). The blaze, which was the largest fire in Colorado history, slowed when it hit the sites of […]
Posted inApril 14, 2003: Change comes slowly to Escalante county
Tribes, residents find a solution in the Sandias
Congress has settled a long-standing dispute between an Indian tribe, the federal government and private landowners over the western face of the Sandia Mountains (HCN, 11/9/98: Who controls the sandias?). Starting in 1976, Sandia Pueblo fought to reclaim about 10,000 acres of private and national forest land. Citing a 1748 Spanish land grant, the tribe […]
Posted inApril 14, 2003: Change comes slowly to Escalante county
Debate rages over ‘de-listing’ wolves
Wolves may not be ‘endangered’ anymore, but have they recovered?
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
Tinkering with Nature
Can we leave wildlife to its own devices, or must we continue to meddle?
Posted inWotr
If wolves can return to the West, why not New York?
Eight years after a wolf walked out of a pen and howled in Yellowstone National Park, it is clear the predators are here to stay. The restoration of wolves to Idaho and Yellowstone in 1995 has been wildly successful, even though many Westerners remain bitter about an intrusive federal government. Now, a decision announced earlier […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Parasite could help save salmon
Endangered salmon may get help from a strange source: Blood-sucking, eel-like fish called lampreys. On Jan. 28 a coalition of environmental groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect four species of lamprey under the Endangered Species Act. Two of the species are parasitic, latching onto salmon and other ocean-going fish to feed […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Bracing against the tide
On the rugged coastline of British Columbia, tribes, fishermen and environmentalists fight a ‘salmon apocalypse’
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Fish farms challenge our commitment to the wild
If you’ve ever been to the Pike Street Market in Seattle, you’ve undoubtedly witnessed one of the pinnacles of fishmonger bravado. Order up a whole salmon at Pike Place Fish and employees snap into action, shouting like a platoon of marines. One hoists the fish you’ve chosen from an ice-heaped display table. Another dashes to […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
States crack down on wildlife cruelty
Recent attacks shine a spotlight on animal mutilation and killing
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Are you gonna eat that?
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, “Bracing against the tide.” PORTLAND, Ore. — When Dan Wasil plucks a white Styrofoam package of “Fresh Atlantic Salmon” from the grocery store cooler, he gives the label no more than a second thought. “I assume that it comes from the Atlantic,” says Wasil, […]