I’ve tried to put my finger on the time when wild animals ceased being public property in North America and entered the domain of chattel. It isn’t an easy date to find. It’s not like a geologic event, when you can point a finger at a volcano and say: “Yes, that’s when the trouble started.” […]
Wildlife
Posted inApril 27, 1998: The old West is going under
Forest Service seeks a new (roadless) road to the future
Note: see end of this feature story for a list of four accompanying sidebar articles. In his first major appearance as the 14th chief of the nation’s Forest Service, Mike Dombeck was summoned the winter of 1997 before the House Agriculture Committee to testify about a “forest health” bill sponsored by Rep. Bob Smith, the […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Panel says fish gotta swim
After a two-year study, a group of scientists says half of the Snake River’s endangered salmon and steelhead should be allowed to migrate to the ocean naturally instead of being transported in barges and trucks. The report, issued by an independent science panel created by Congress, questions whether shipping salmon around dams can save fish […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Scat Spot, scat
Man’s best friend is helping the Wolf Education and Research Center in Boise, Idaho. Hounds with a hankering for fetching are being retrained to sniff out bear, lynx, wolverine and even rhino scat, resulting in less need for tagging and radio-tracking (HCN, 2/16/98). A trained dog can survey a livestock depredation site for scat, which […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
The Western Ancient Forest Campaign
Join the directors of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council and the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance June 1 for a benefit float trip down the Snake River through Hells Canyon in wooden dories. Oars/Dories guides will pilot the five-day whitewater trip, prepare meals and donate all proceeds to the organizing groups. Contact the Hells Canyon Preservation Council […]
Posted inApril 13, 1998: Oil clashes with elk in the Book Cliffs
Be careful what you wish for the wolves
Half a century ago, Yellowstone’s last native wolf died with its leg clamped in the jaws of a trap. As a nation, we encouraged the extermination of wolves. But time passed and attitudes changed. Three years ago, wolves were returned to Yellowstone and central Idaho, initiating history’s most popular and successful reintroduction of an endangered […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Wildlife dollars fund prison
A recent federal audit of Colorado wildlife funding has gotten some people upset. Among other violations, the audit has revealed that license fees intended for state wildlife programs were spent on land for a prison in Rifle, Colo. Each year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reimburses state agencies for a portion of their wildlife […]
Posted inMarch 30, 1998: A bare-knuckled trio goes after the Forest Service
Staffers say their agency betrayed the land
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. In his 28 years of working for the U.S. Forest Service, fish biologist Jim Cooper never thought of himself as an idealist. Even when he was starting out, he says, he thought a rising human population would continually stress the national forests, yet he […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
The mouse that roared “Preble”
Naturalist E.A. Preble, who bagged a nondescript mouse on the bank of an irrigation ditch near Loveland, Colo., in 1895, might be surprised at the ruckus he’s caused. The meadow jumping mouse named for him – a subspecies restricted to the foothills of Colorado’s Front Range – is now at the center of a controversy […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Elk are the battleground
The state of Wyoming wants to give 2,000 elk a shot in the rump and has asked a federal court for permission. Each winter as many as 10,000 elk migrate down from the deep snows of Yellowstone National Park and surrounding lands (HCN, 9/15/97). They spend the winter on the National Elk Refuge just outside […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Lawmakers struggle to rewrite the Endangered Species Act
For six years, the federal Endangered Species Act has been on probation, limping along on a budget renewed in Congress every year while lawmakers try to come up with a new law that pleases conservationists and conservatives alike. What’s new this year is legislation introduced by Sen. Dirk Kempthorne, R-Idaho. Although no environmental group fully […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Cousin to mad-cow disease hits deer, elk
As anybody who has followed the Oprah Winfrey beef libel trial knows, mad-cow disease has never been found in American cattle. Deer and elk, though, are another matter. Chronic wasting disease, a cousin to the mad-cow plague that decimated British cattle herds, has been identified in deer and elk in three Western states. Infected animals […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Show me the science
It was the 1960s, and the signs plastered everywhere in western Colorado suggested that I “Ask a Friendly Native.” The “natives” were not the Utes – they were long gone. The signs referred to the Anglos who ran the gas stations and cafes scattered across the region’s 30,000 square miles of desert, forest and canyon. […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Shooting down high-tech hunting
-Our tools for the pursuit of wildlife improve faster than we do,” said Aldo Leopold in his 1949 book A Sand County Almanac. But even the far-seeing Leopold might not have anticipated hunting 1990s style: Hunters locate game with airplanes and two-way radios, track animals before dawn with infrared night-vision goggles, aim with electronically illuminated […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
‘Ghost roads’ haunt forests
In his announcement of the Forest Service’s 18-month road-building moratorium on Jan. 22, Chief Mike Dombeck admitted that there are over 60,000 miles of unmapped “ghost roads’ in national forests (HCN, 2/2/98). This was no news to members of the Bozeman, Mont.-based Predator Project, whose Roads Scholars program has been documenting these roads in the […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Backyard birds
A new report by the Colorado Division of Wildlife helps backyard birders care for what they’re watching. For instance, cleaning feeders with soap and rinsing with a dilute bleach solution followed by plain water can help prevent the spread of diseases like avian pox and salmonellosis. And if you take a few months off from […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
A difference of opinion over numbers
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. People have been bickering about how many wild horses live in Nevada ever since 1992, when horse lover Michael Blake, author of Dances With Wolves, conducted a census there. His observers found only 8,324 — less than one quarter of the BLM figure. Agency […]
Posted inMarch 2, 1998: Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Wild horses: Do they belong in the West?
Note: two sidebar articles, titled “A difference of opinion over numbers” and “For some, horse meat ain’t all bad,” accompany this feature story. BRITTON SPRINGS, Wyo. – From the top of the ridge we can hear the helicopter droning behind pastel desert hills, and see the distant slopes of the Pryor Mountains just across the […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
No, ma’am, this isn’t Mississippi
When people think of catfish, they’re more likely to imagine roadside cooking shacks in Mississippi than desert streams. But that could change now that the native Yaqui catfish has been restored to Arizona. In October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released 350 of the blue-gray fish in the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge near […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
When green becomes red
Red ink is red ink, but the U.S. Forest Service and The Wilderness Society color their images of commercial logging on our national forests in grossly different shades. The Forest Service says it made $16 million from commercial timber sales in Oregon and Washington in fiscal year 1996. The Wilderness Society estimates the agency lost […]