UTAH A struggling population of rare trumpeter swans may be the unintended victims of an ongoing tundra swan hunt in Utah. That’s the word from some anonymous Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, who say their agency has ignored science and bowed to political pressure from Utah wildlife officials. Federal biologists have worked for years to […]
Wildlife
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
Grassfires burn bigger
In Montana’s Gallatin National Forest this past summer, rays of sunshine filtered through pine trees, diffusing in the smoky haze produced by ravenous flames. While such scenes make for alluring photographs and dramatic headlines, a new study says that wildfires in national forests account for less than 15 percent of acreage burned this year to […]
Posted inOctober 22, 2001: Healing the Gila
A graceful gazelle becomes a pest
The exotic oryx is wearing out its welcome in the Chihuahuan Desert
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Three fiery reads
In the sixth chapter of his newly released book The Seasons of Fire, David J. Strohmaier pens an articulate elegy for the firefighters who died in Colorado’s 1994 South Canyon Fire. When Strohmaier traveled to the fatality site, “it had been only six weeks since the fire, but already thousands of small, light-green Gambel oak […]
Posted inOctober 8, 2001: Whoa! Canada!
Coho salmon lose federal protection
OREGON For years, scientists have argued over the differences between hatchery and wild salmon (HCN, 10/9/00: Killing salmon to save the species). When it listed the coho salmon as endangered, the National Marine Fisheries Service included only wild fish, drawing a line between hatchery and wild populations. In fall 1999, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Oak killer on the loose
OREGON, CALIFORNIA A new plague threatens thousands of native oak trees in southern Oregon. Sudden oak death, which causes trees to bleed a reddish-black fluid and their leaves to droop and turn brown, has already killed thousands of trees in Northern California. Last month, forestry experts in Oregon learned that the disease had made its […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Klamath water is finally for the birds
OREGON, CALIFORNIA Amid all the fighting this summer over water in the Klamath Basin of Oregon and California, many forgot about a significant water user that couldn’t protest in the streets or file a lawsuit – the threatened bald eagle. Although a biological opinion issued in April by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service mandated […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
Nature hits a home run for salmon
Record salmon, steelhead runs buy time for endangered stocks
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
The timber sale that won’t die
Eagle Creek has become an icon for anti-logging activists
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
The enduring Endangered Species Act
Four years ago, Bruce Babbitt stood at a podium in Austin, Tex., and, in his most sonorous, Garrison Keillor-like voice, delivered the new gospel on endangered species. The conservationists’ most effective tool in the restoration of species and their habitats – the Endangered Species Act – was in peril, the then-Interior secretary told the Society […]
Posted inSeptember 24, 2001: River of dreams
In the house of the grizzly
We have begun to think of this place as ours. Every year, we cross the creek, ride up the long slope to the timbered bench, then drop into the meadow, as we have for a decade. It’s a coming home; a flood of memories of previous hunts, good times, hard work; a shared experience of […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Organics, timber cut healthy deal
OREGON If chemicals from a private logging operation show up on Ed Smith’s organic herbal extract farm, all his worst fears will come true. Though Boise Cascade commonly sprays herbicides after it logs, Smith, cofounder of Herb Pharm in Williams, Ore., says his company would have to forfeit its organic certification and face ruin if […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Voice of the Butterfly
Change can be as miraculous as a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis … or as surreal as a wild landscape sprouting highways and leapfrog subdivisions. John Nichols’ newest work of fiction, The Voice of the Butterfly, is a hyperactive meditation on transformation in our post-modern, uber-consumption world. Full of gritty slapstick zen, Nichols’ morality play […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Boulder utilizes burns
Last May, when a prescribed burn in New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument blew out of control and destroyed 200 structures in nearby Los Alamos, burn programs around the nation faced intense scrutiny. But in Boulder, Colo., support for prescribed burning in local open space remains strong. The Boulder Fire Department’s prescribed fire management specialist Rod […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
Cease-fire on the Tonto Forest
Forest Service bans ‘plinking’ on 81,000 acres in Arizona
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
New forest chief becomes a lame duck
It could turn out to be the shortest tenure as Forest Service chief in history. Dale N. Bosworth was named the 15th chief of the United States Forest Service on April 12, 2001. He may have made himself a lame duck on Friday, Aug. 24, 2001, when he removed Brad Powell as regional forester for […]
Posted inSeptember 10, 2001: The rise and fall of a desert stream
A murder mystery on Whiskey Mountain
DUBOIS, Wyo. – John and I are hiking on Sheep Ridge on a blustery day in February, and we are busy counting sheep. These Rocky Mountain bighorns look healthy – their dusty brown coats thick, their bodies sleek – but their looks belie the numbers, and their numbers tell the story. The sheep are dying […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
The wild West lives
Jack Hunter abandons his Sierra Club lobbying job in D.C. and a marriage gone sour, eager to settle on life’s placid surface near the Diablo National Forest of southwestern New Mexico. He takes up horseshoeing and jumps into a meaningless affair, enjoying the respite from strenuous work for hopeless causes. But then he meets a […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Arctic Refuge
“When a lone wolf howls it sounds distinctively alone. When a pack howls, the sounds harmonize and mix until the voices of a few blend into the chorus of a multitude. A call answered and passed on. A call to gather.” – Lentfer & Servid in Arctic Refuge: A Circle of Testimony That the call […]
Posted inAugust 27, 2001: Restoring the range of light
Minnow melee continues
NEW MEXICO As the battle for scarce Rio Grande water pits central New Mexico farmers against the three-inch silvery minnow (HCN, 8/28/00: Shaky truce on the Rio Grande), a controversial federal-state agreement is aiming to ensure the survival of both species. Under the three-year plan, signed June 29, the state will sell 100,000 acre-feet of […]