Wildlife

In 1987, foresters on the Clearwater National Forest in north-central Idaho pledged to set aside 10 percent of the Clearwater’s 1.8 million acres in old-growth forest reserves. The agency says it has lived up to that pledge, reserving almost 200,000 acres. Environmentalists in Idaho who have studied the agency’s data say the numbers don’t add […]

On the morning of June 19, a truck driver hauling road base to the Vail ski expansion reported he had seen what he believed was a squashed Canada lynx on Vail Pass. He had. A radio collar revealed it was a small, two-year-old female, trapped in British Columbia in December and released into Colorado’s San […]

As a relentless summer sun bakes the ponderosa pine forests surrounding Flagstaff, Ariz., an experimental logging project meant to restore forest health and reduce the risk of wildfire around the city has hit a snag. On June 18, an administrative appeal filed with the Forest Service by a coalition of seven environmental groups halted a […]

The 1 million acres of Olympic National Park could sustain as many as 56 gray wolves, says a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report. Yet even though the peninsula provides ample prey and habitat, no wolves will wander the park soon. The obstacle is Washington Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, says Gerry Ring Erickson of Defenders […]

The arid grasslands and shrub steppe prairie of the Columbia Plateau have gradually dwindled as farmers have plowed up thousands of acres to plant lucrative crops such as potatoes and onions. The Washington ground squirrel is among the species linked to this dwindling habitat, and over the past decade the squirrels’ population has dropped by […]

As the prowler approaches, metallic shrieks reverberate across the grassy benchland, and strobe lights pulsate in the black night. The would-be assassin escapes into the forest – on all fours. The high-tech alarm system, designed by a scientist at the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo., is the newest tool in wolf management. […]

When the Bighorn National Forest drew up a plan to bring more visitors to the centuries-old Medicine Wheel, a Native American sacred site in northern Wyoming, tribes organized to stop it (HCN, 5/26/97). And they succeeded. Eight Plains tribes, known as the Medicine Wheel Coalition, worked with government officials to write a Historic Preservation Plan, […]

New recreation fees have incensed some Southern Californians who say they don’t want to pick up the tab for playing on public lands. A major point of conflict is what the Forest Service calls its “Adventure Pass,” which is sold for trailhead parking at $5 a day or $30 a year. In the Los Padres, […]

During the height of the summer boating season in central Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the sky buzzes with airplanes bound for one of 31 wilderness airstrips. At the Indian Creek airstrip, as many as 50 planes will land in a day. The Montana-based Wilderness Watch says that volume of traffic doesn’t belong […]