Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Is RBM Lumber a one-of-a-kind operation, or could there be many such firms at work in the Northern Rockies? Judge for yourself. RBM originally stood for three Thompsons, Roy, Ben and Malcolm. Malcolm, Ben and Roy’s father, is a philosopher-ascetic who has returned to […]
Wildlife
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Restoring our future
Note: This essay appears in the print edition of this issue as a sidebar to a feature story. Moments of affirmation are rare in Washington, D.C. So I was pleased to run into a friend, living now in Los Angeles, whom I last saw in college, and to hear her excitement about the Forest Service’s […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Wanted: experienced firefighters
The Forest Service discovers it’s hard to find good help
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
After the fall
As big timber companies leave the Northern Rockies, a family mill turns to restoring forests
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Change is coming
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. John McCarthy is conservation director of the Idaho Conservation League. He lives in Boise. John McCarthy: “The big message in the forest today is, “change is coming – hard and fast.” We know the days of towns built around big, wasteful sawmills that required […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
‘We don’t need a revolution’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Teresa Catlin of Priest River, Idaho, is involved in a community forestry project called Forest Community Connection. She is an ecologist for the Colville National Forest in eastern Washington. She also operates a forest consulting company in Idaho called Total Land Management. Teresa Catlin: […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Pump failure pummels salmon
OREGON A southern Oregon hatchery’s salmon stock was devastated when a pump failure killed nearly 1.4 million baby chinook. But no one is pointing fingers. When the Army Corps of Engineers shut off power to do some routine maintenance at the Cole M. Rivers Hatchery on the Rogue River, it was business as usual. “They […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Fish find friends in farmers
WASHINGTON Protecting threatened salmon in the Northwest has become everybody’s business, with Washington’s farmers the newest group to enter the fray. Now, farmers are under the gun: In the next 18 months, they must make sure their standards are compatible with habitat conservation guidelines published by federal agencies overseeing salmon recovery. If farmers are not […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Tough but threatened
The ironwood tree, long a symbol of desert abundance, may soon be protected by a new national monument in southern Arizona. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt toured an ironwood forest near Tucson in mid-March, and expressed interest in protecting about 71,000 acres of BLM land. A recent report by the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson says […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Backpacks and quacks
Sporting highly sophisticated “backpacks’ that are really 20-gram satellite transmitters, 50 female pintail ducks are flying north from the Central Valley in California this spring. The ducks are the focus of Discovery for Recovery, a four-year study by Ducks Unlimited, the U.S. Geological Survey and the California Waterfowl Association. Its object is determining pintail migration […]
Posted inApril 24, 2000: At your service: Unions help some Western workers serve themselves
Management plan for the Yellowstone grizzly
The Fish and Wildlife Service released its management plan for the Yellowstone grizzly, a requirement before the bear is taken off the endangered species list. View the plan at www.r6.fws.gov/endspp or obtain a copy from local libraries in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Address comments to Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University […]
Posted inApril 10, 2000: Beyond the Revolution
A letter fans the flames
NEVADA When Humboldt-Toiyabe Forest Supervisor Gloria Flora resigned last November, she said local hostility toward federal employees was a major reason for stepping down (HCN, 11/22/99: Nevadans drive out forest supervisor). Now, a letter has surfaced from a county official that supports her words. In a Dec. 30, 1998, letter to public land-use advisor Gene […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Whirling disease keeps spreading
NEW MEXICO A deadly fish disease that has been spreading across the West now has a foothold in New Mexico. Three state hatcheries recently tested positive for whirling disease, prompting New Mexico Game and Fish officials to begin testing streams, rivers and lakes. Whirling disease spores, now known to be present in 10 Western states, […]
Posted inMarch 27, 2000: The last wild river
Forest chief steers agency down a rocky road
Forest supervisor warns that Dombeck’s policy will spark civil disobedience
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Hunter orange is a long shot
IDAHO Five Idaho hunters died accidentally during last year’s hunting season, the highest number of fatalities for the sport since 1982, says a report from the Idaho Fish and Game Department. Since the fall accidents, a member of one victim’s hunting party has vowed to see Idaho implement a law that would require hunters to […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
A scarce bird tests the new rule
The Gunnison sage grouse thrives in open country
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Loggers tap new forests
THE SOUTH In the Pacific Northwest, the federal government can get tough with lumber companies because the forests are publicly owned. Not so in the South, where 85 percent of all timber grows on private lands. After the federal government drastically slowed logging in the Northwest in the 1990s, Boise-Cascade and other big forest-products companies […]
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Goose got your gander?
Pooping plagues people in urban settings
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Endangered species must learn to wait
Conservationists worry wildlife will be stuck in bureaucratic limbo
Posted inMarch 13, 2000: Libby's dark secret
Poison traps kill unintended victims
A rash of dog deaths puts the federal Wildlife Services agency in the hot seat