Should predators be killed to protect prey? That’s the strategy in New Mexico, where the state’s Game Commission says killing mountain lions is the best way to bolster dwindling populations of desert bighorn sheep. To save the remaining 220 sheep, most of which have been reintroduced by the state’s Fish and Game Department, the commission […]
Wildlife
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
Save land now
In 1948, the state of Montana bought a 67,000-acre ranch near the southern flank of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area in order to protect land for wintering elk and deer. The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks manages the tract, known as the Blackfoot-Clearwater Wildlife Management Area, but private inholdings are increasingly susceptible to […]
Posted inDecember 6, 1999: Peggy Godfrey's long, strange trip
An angry, compassionate memorial to a mysterious tragedy
A new book reconstructs and analyzes all that led up to the deadly firestorm on Storm King Mountain where 14 firefighters died.
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Tree-sitters and timber company celebrate
Sarah Vekasi was prepared to spend the winter perched in an old Douglas fir tree near the town of Randle, Wash., in order to stop the trade of old-growth forest out of public ownership. Thanks to a recent reworking of a complicated land swap, it looks like she’ll stay warm, dry and on the ground. […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Hunters cry: too many predators
A booming wolf population around Yellowstone National Park has local sportsmen up in arms. More than 2,500 people have sent in a dollar to join the newly formed Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd, according to founder Robert Fanning. The group wants to take wolves off the endangered species list and give the state […]
Posted inNovember 22, 1999: Go tell it on the mountain
Nevadans drive out forest supervisor
RENO, Nev. – After enduring a year and a half of what she calls Nevada’s “fed bashing,” Gloria Flora couldn’t take it anymore. The supervisor of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, the largest national forest in the lower 48 states, submitted her resignation Nov. 8. But Flora didn’t go quietly. Instead, she used her resignation to […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Score one for the owl
A federal judge has clamped down on permits for new subdivisions, roads, power lines, shopping malls, and other projects in the habitat of the endangered cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl in and around Tucson. Many of Tucson’s suburbs continued to approve subdivisions after the pygmy-owl was listed in 1997, despite a county-wide effort to preserve the owl’s […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
USFS plans for more planning
The Forest Service proposes to improve national forests by reshaping the 15-year management plans that guide them. The agency’s draft rule says plans must emphasize ecological balance and sustainable use of forests, boost public involvement during the planning process, and shift some decision-making from regional and national offices to forest-level managers. The current system of […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
A road-ripper’s report
-The Road-Ripper’s Guide to Wildland Road Removal takes up where the first four Road-Ripper’s Guides left off. While the first four explain legal and political strategies for challenging different land-management agencies to close and remove roads, this guide explains how to make sure those roads are removed correctly.” * Bethanie Walder In 1997, Forest Service […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Montana Audubon
Montana Audubon will be offering grants totaling more than $1,000 in the year 2000. The money will be awarded to individuals or nonprofit organizations whose project will directly benefit wildlife in Montana. Preference will be given to projects involving non-game wildlife, from birds to invertebrates, and their habitats. Interested applicants should call 406/443-3949 to obtain […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Wolves at Colorado’s door?
During a recent presentation at the University of Colorado by a Boulder-based wolf recovery organization, Sinapu, a captive-raised wolf named Rami was introduced to the audience. As Rami calmly walked up and down the aisles with her handler, sniffing boots and licking faces, audience members sat in awed silence. Wolves, like many other predators, are […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Wolff campaigns for wolves
For nine years, New Mexican Pat Wolff has been working to shut down publicly funded programs that kill predators and other problem animals (HCN, 4/27/98). Last year, the organization she founded, New West Research, won a lawsuit requiring the government to release names of ranchers who get federal help to control predators. Now, she’s touring […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Wising up to whirling disease
Scientists are considering new management strategies for whirling disease, which has been attacking fish in the West since the early 1990s. The disease has spread from one Western river to the next, eluding attempts at a cure and draining funds from state game and fish department budgets. Trout get the disease by eating worms infected […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
Judge topples small timber sales
HOTCHKISS, Colo. – Allen Todd has been in the timber business on Colorado’s Western Slope for about a quarter of a century, and his small but tidy custom sawmill outside the town of Hotchkiss reflects his years of experience. Looking like oversized games of Jenga, neat towers of square timbers, which will soon reinforce shafts […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
The Forest Service sets off into uncharted territory
TARGHEE NATIONAL FOREST, Idaho – Jim Gerber is staring me in the eye and he doesn’t look happy. He’s tall and lean, wears his gray hair clipped in a buzz cut, and he’s angry. The U.S. Forest Service has dug itself into a hole, he says, and he’s hell-bent on digging the agency out, and […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
A convert to conservation
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Shawn Regnerus is a native Montanan, a hunter, angler, hiker and a former lover of dirt bikes. Regnerus, 30, grew up in rural Amsterdam, near Bozeman, where his father worked as a high school teacher. He later studied law at the University of Montana […]
Posted inNovember 8, 1999: A new road for the public lands
One forest takes on roads
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. On the Clearwater National Forest in north-central Idaho, a group of hikers follows a Forest Service tour guide along a creek not far from where Lewis and Clark crossed the Bitterroot Mountains. Under clear August skies, they discover a different sort of pioneering effort. […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Clinton proclaims a far-reaching forest plan
President Clinton made headlines Oct. 13, when he announced a sweeping initiative to protect 40-60 million acres of unroaded national forests. At a ceremony in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest in Virginia, Clinton put his full support behind permanent protection for land currently covered by an 18-month road-building moratorium, in addition to roadless […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
The least of these
A tiny, colorful fish that lives in the desert springs and marshes of western Utah is on the rebound – without ever having been listed as threatened or endangered. The algae-feeding least chub once lived throughout Utah’s West Desert, but by the early 1990s, the fish were found only in four ponds along the Utah-Nevada […]
Posted inOctober 25, 1999: Monumental chaos
Finally, a National Grassland Wilderness?
LONG X DIVIDE, N.D. – The green Forest Service rig pants like a winded dog on the rim of this canyon. The two-track ahead is washed out; I’ve taken the vehicle as far as it will go. But the view from the edge is breathtaking. On the horizon, a dusky cerise sky. Below lie rugged […]