Front Range communities work to protect their water supply from post-fire soil erosion
Wildlife
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Protesters rock roadless area hearings
MONTANA Hundreds of logging trucks and busloads of protesters circled downtown Missoula, Mont., June 21 to rail against the Forest Service’s proposal to protect 43 million acres of its roadless forests. About 2,000 people from all corners of western Montana joined a barbecue and rally sponsored by the timber and off-road-vehicle industries. Loggers and millworkers […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
The basin has a much-ballyhooed plan
NORTHWEST No one’s holding their breath, but approval may be close for an interagency plan outlining management of 63 million acres of federal land across Idaho, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and western Montana (HCN, 6/23/97: New plan draws hisses, boos). In the works for over six years, the hefty and ballyhooed Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Environmentalists challenge aerial gunning program
COLORADO Shooting coyotes from the air came under fire this spring. Twenty environmental groups sent a letter to Colorado Bureau of Land Management Director Ann Morgan demanding a halt to aerial gunning in the state until the agency studies its effects on wildlife. “Aerial gunning needs to stop because of the biological impact and the […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Caterpillar concoction causes concern
OREGON, WASHINGTON The U.S. Forest Service is using ground-up caterpillars and another biological insecticide to target an infestation of tussock moths on national forests in the Pacific Northwest. In a widespread outbreak in the 1970s, the moths defoliated trees across 700,000 acres in Oregon and Washington. The agency hopes that the caterpillar concoction, which carries […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Los Alamos fire offers a lesson in humility
The Cerro Grande fire in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico blackened 42,869 acres, destroyed the homes of 400 families, and penetrated the security of Los Alamos National Laboratories more effectively than any Cold War enemy. In much the same way that the Cerro Grande restarted ecological succession on the scorched slopes above Los […]
Posted inJuly 3, 2000: A river resurrected
Fires illuminate our illusions in the Southwest
Air, earth, water and fire. In the dry Southwest, the ancient fundamentals emerge clearly, and act upon each other in plain sight. When the wind moves rapidly above the earth after water has been scarce, little fires become big fires, and big lessons. For a few days after the fire at Los Alamos, the usual […]
Posted inJune 19, 2000: Accidental refuge: Should we save the Salton Sea?
Crawdads colonize the West’s waterways
Down South, they call them ‘Cajun popcorn.’ In the West, they’re a menace.
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
The roadless tour begins
NATION Environmental groups and the timber industry are united for once. Both oppose the Forest Service’s plan for protecting roadless areas. The plan, released May 9, comes in response to President Clinton’s promise last October to protect undesignated wilderness in national forests (HCN, 11/8/99: A new road for the public lands). The proposal would ban […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Grizzlies: going, going …
People are the greatest threat to grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, according to a 73-page Sierra Club report, Rural Residential Development Trends in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem Since the Listing of the Grizzly Bear. Writer Vanessa K. Johnson says rapid growth in the counties surrounding Yellowstone chews up what’s left of the bears’ habitat. […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Help Hells Canyon
Managers of Hells Canyon on the Oregon-Idaho border, the deepest river-cut canyon in the world, are hoping for more direction in dealing with increasing numbers of visitors, longstanding grazing and logging and a mandate to protect the area. Until June 20, the public can have a say in the future of the canyon by commenting […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Elk find no home on the grasslands
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When rangers at North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park culled the park’s burgeoning elk herd early this year, they sent about 200 of the animals to Kentucky. There, the state wildlife division reintroduced the once-native animals to parts of the Appalachian state. This struck […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
Invisible roads block wilderness
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Imagine a map of North Dakota with every section line – the crisscrossed lines that stretch north-south and east-west across the state precisely one mile apart – converted into a public road. That’s just what the Dakota Territorial Legislature imagined in 1871, when it […]
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
The West’s hottest question: How to burn what’s bound to burn
In the wake of the Cerro Grande fire, everyone ponders prescribed burning
Posted inJune 5, 2000: Change on the Plains
More trouble waits in the wings
Note: in the print edition of this issue, this article appears as a sidebar to another news article,”The West’s hottest question: How to burn what’s bound to burn.” While the 1988 fire at Yellowstone National Park stands today as an ecological success story, some scientists and forest managers say the Cerro Grande fire will be […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
The burbs target cougars
WASHINGTON The suburbs of Seattle have historically been home to voters who support wild animals, but as development encroaches on what once was wilderness, new homeowners, such as Tami Cron, feel torn. Last summer Cron opened her front door and came face-to-face with an adult female lion. “It is pretty nerve-racking to think cougars were […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
The weedy future of the Great Basin
Fire and cheatgrass conspire to create a weedy wasteland
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Activist calls for cease-fire on wolves
Others say killing problem wolves was part of the deal
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
‘Los Alamos is burning’
Los Alamos is burning. My wife stands in front of the TV in our home in Lewiston, Idaho, watching CNN with her hands to her face, tears in her eyes. She is whispering softly, a litany of actions from deep in her memory. “They have to pack their things. They have to take the family […]
Posted inMay 22, 2000: Save Our Sagebrush
Yelling fire in a crowded West
I was in Jackson, Wyo., in fall 1988, right after Yellowstone National Park burned to the ground. School children were contributing nickels and dimes to build it back up, and there was a lynch-mob attitude in the town toward the National Park Service and other federal agencies (HCN, 9/26/88). Today, the Yellowstone fires are celebrated […]