OREGON Six years ago, a landslide that began in a clear-cut slammed into a house in western Oregon, killing four people (HCN, 12/23/96: Rain and clearcuts make fatal brew). That tragedy prompted state officials to limit logging on steep slopes near homes and busy roads. Now, a coalition of Oregon environmental groups says salmon should […]
Wildlife
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Scientists uncover a weevil gourmand
COLORADO In the early 1990s, the U.S. Forest Service released approximately 500 flower-head weevils on the edge of Gunnison National Forest, near Almont, Colo., to control the invasive Canada thistle. Apparently, tastes change. In the 12 years since a 1990 study suggested that the weevil preferred Canada thistle to native species, the insect has been […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
The anatomy of fire
I came like an investigator to a crime scene, notebook open, walking slowly, alert to changes in the perpetrator’s footprints, to oddities in the smoke-smell air. Anything could be evidence revealing the mind of fire: a blade of grass still alive in a forest of black skeletons; an unburned swing set that had parted an […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Prescribed burns tame the beast
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Ten days after the Hayman fire erupted southwest of Denver, Colo., and began spreading to the north and east, firefighters finally found a place where they could stand their ground: Polhemus Gulch. Weeks earlier, firefighters there gained the upper hand against the Schoonover Fire; […]
Posted inJuly 8, 2002: The anatomy of fire
Life amid fire – the mundane and the macabre
Life in Durango, Colo., has taken on a surreal quality. Even for those of us not directly affected by it, the fire dominates our days. Handling mundane problems, pursuing our normal jobs and hobbies, grocery shopping and gassing up the car – everything takes place against a backdrop of disaster. It’s a crisis situation, but […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Columbia dredging closer
OREGON Plans to dredge the Columbia River are one step closer to fruition, thanks to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which has changed its biological opinion for the third time since 1999. In late May, NMFS, in charge of endangered salmon recovery, found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ proposal to dredge 106.5 miles […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
A wide-angled wilderness
WASHINGTON Washington state could soon gain a unique new wilderness area – its first in almost 15 years. Unlike most of Washington’s 4 million acres of federally protected wilderness, the proposed Wild Sky Wilderness northeast of Seattle would encompass more than just high alpine crags of rock and ice – it would also include often-ignored […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
The buzz business
Some people try to make a killing on killer bees
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
Can green-certified lumber make it?
Some foresters say environmental management doesn’t reap extra profit
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
2,997 … 2,998 … 2,999
Note: This is a sidebar to a feature story about the killer-bee invasion of the West, headlined: The Buzz Business. Counting killer bee stings is a tedious chore. Usually the total is estimated, but one person gets exact counts – Justin Schmidt, a research entomologist who’s spent 22 years at the Carl Hayden Bee Research […]
Posted inJune 24, 2002: The buzz business
In the lion’s eye
I like to work alone, far from other people, in the deserts and mountains of southeastern Idaho. These are the forgotten lands, rarely seen by the public and only occasionally by agency personnel. On one job I will always remember, I am in the Black Pine Range, working as an independent biologist for the Black […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Hatching reform
SEATTLE, Wash. – From 80 feet above downtown, the throngs of people wrapped in raincoats on the sidewalk below look like a spilled package of multicolored candies. The view is less colorful looking outward from the eighth floor window of the historic Cobb building, but no less busy; glass and steel high-rises thrust upward in […]
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
No magic bullet for wasting disease
Critics assail slaughter of elk, deer as strategy against CWD
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
Exotic-killing herbicide is ousted from the range
BLM’s most promising tool for fighting cheatgrass backfires in Idaho
Posted inJune 10, 2002: Hatching reform
The wild (and not-so-wild) sex life of salmon
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. A quick trip through the life cycle of a salmon, be it hatchery or wild, makes human development appear quite simple. In late summer or early fall, the female salmon deposits several thousand eggs in a shallow river bottom nest called a redd. In […]
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
The garden of good and evil
Follow the simple steps listed on the back of any of the popular wildflower seed mixes for sale, and voila! A thick carpet of kaleidoscopic blooms will grace your garden. Problem is, you probably just broke the law. At least, that’s what researchers with the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture discovered when they […]
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
Spreading seeds of knowledge
When Greek scholar turned cattle rancher Claude A. Barr died in 1982, he left behind a lifetime of discoveries and observations about South Dakota flora. He was “a self-taught wizard of Great Plains native plants,” says Cindy Reed, a South Dakota native and protege of Barr’s. To preserve Barr’s legacy, Reed founded the Great Plains […]
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
Woody leviathans
Robert Van Pelt, a forest ecology researcher at the University of Washington and Evergreen State College, has two lifelong obsessions: trees and curious facts. So it seems inevitable that he would hunt out the woody leviathans showcased in his book Forest Giants of the Pacific Coast. Measuring trees is a science, and Van Pelt takes […]
Posted inMay 27, 2002: Wolf at the door
We’d like 2,387 salmon and a Pepsi, please
A new federal report enumerates, for the first time, exactly how many wild salmon and steelhead need to survive for them to be removed from the endangered species list. The report, produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), suggests specific annual fish populations in more than 60 tributaries of the Columbia River. The figures […]