Richard Manning’s article “Working the Watershed” (HCN, 3/17/97) could easily have been titled “Overworking the Watershed.” It described efforts to restore salmon fisheries and oyster beds to Willapa Bay, a part of southwestern Washington state that has been logged and logged and logged again. Now the neighboring, and similarly overworked, Chinook watershed is the subject […]
Wildlife
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
Scat dogs earn their keep
Moja and Molly aren’t ordinary Labrador retrievers – they earn their keep by locating animal scat for senior scientist Sam Wasser of the Center for Wildlife Conservation in Seattle, Wash. “This is going to completely revolutionize the science of animal monitoring,” Wasser said. Wasser has trained the dogs to sniff out bear and wolf droppings […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
Fore! on the Inyo National Forest
For the first time in its history, the U.S. Forest Service says a golf course will be built on agency land. The owners of the Snow Creek golf course in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., have a permit to turn 95 acres of sagebrush on the Inyo National Forest into a “back nine,” despite the opposition of […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
Wolves go wild in the Southwest
In the fall of 1917, Stanley P. Young rode into the Canello Hills in southern Arizona, saddlebags packed with the tools of his trade: steel-jawed traps, metal stakes and chains, leather gloves and a bottle of odiferous wolf lure. The hired gun for the Bureau of Biological Survey was following a pair of wolves whose […]
Posted inFebruary 16, 1998: Private rights vs. public lands
The spotted owl has a new enemy
Last May, a birdwatcher in California’s Redwood National Park found the partially eaten body of a spotted owl lying in the trail. Nearby he saw the killer – an agitated barred owl, the feathers of its victim still clinging to its talons. Barred owls and spotted owls are cousins, both woodland owls, with large, dark […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Heart of Home: People, Wildlife, Place
For many years I was a vegetarian, an avid anti-hunter, who cursed the arrival of the orange-clad mob in the fall that violated everything that was pure and gentle. I was cheered on by many writers, including Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, who urged a gentle alliance with nature, not a violent blood sport. […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Confessions of an Eco-Redneck
Certain books come along once in a generation that change the lens through which we view the natural order. Now there’s Steve Chapple’s Confessions of an Eco-Redneck – Or How I Learned to Gut-Shoot Trout & Save the Wilderness at the Same Time. Well, OK, maybe it’s not a paradigm changer. For one thing, Chapple’s […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Zoologist says listing process is endangered
Ronald Nowak, a national-level Fish and Wildlife Service zoologist, has resigned from his position in protest, claiming the agency has “fought tooth and nail to avoid doing its job” of protecting the Canada lynx and other sensitive species. Nowak calls the lynx – a cousin of the bobcat – -one of the most blatant examples […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Road ban proposal eroded by exceptions
The Forest Service has overseen the addition of more than 380,000 miles of roads to national forests – a network more than twice the size of the national highway system. Now, the Clinton administration wants to call an 18-month halt to the construction of new roads in roadless areas. Forest Service spokesman Alan Polk says […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Rabies, Lyme Disease, Hanta Virus, oh my!
RABIES, LYME DISEASE, HANTA VIRUS, OH MY! Some of the furry creatures that scamper around camp aren’t as harmless as they seem. E. Lendell Cockrum, who has spent his life studying animals and the diseases they carry, has written a book telling why. The title spells it out: Rabies, Lyme Disease, Hanta Virus and Other […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Wanted: More Colorado Natives
WANTED: MORE COLORADO NATIVES Trout Unlimited wants to see more wild trout in Colorado’s rivers and lakes and fewer diseased fish. If a new Wildlife Commission policy becomes a reality, the nonprofit group may get its wish. Issued in November, the state policy emphasizes restoring streams and native trout like the Colorado cutthroat – a […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Some cattle ranchers sell out to hunting
GREAT FALLS, Mont. – Cattle rancher John Bodner didn’t have to worry about monitoring hunters last fall on his spread in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains in central Montana. He left that to an outfitter. “The outfitter is like a game warden,” said Bodner, who won’t say how large a ranch he runs. […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Protester starts her sentence
On Jan. 5, a former teacher began serving a 30-day sentence for refusing to part from a 400-year-old Engelmann spruce she was trying to protect from loggers. Joni Clark’s sentence of 30 days is the stiffest penalty yet for a tree-sitter in Colorado. She was found guilty of violating the Forest Service’s Special Closure Order […]
Posted inJanuary 19, 1998: After the gold rush
Wolf wars enter next round
As the fallout settles from federal Judge William Downes’ decision ordering that nearly 200 introduced wolves be removed from Yellowstone and Idaho, members of the environmental community who have been at each other’s throats are putting aside their differences and preparing to appeal the decision (HCN, 12/22/97: Judge says wolf reintroduction was illegal). Immediately following […]
Posted inDecember 22, 1997: Gold Rush: Mining seeks to tighten its grip on the 'last, best place'
Judge says wolf reintroduction was illegal
Several years ago, the Department of Interior sold its program to reintroduce wolves into Yellowstone and central Idaho by assuring ranchers they could shoot wolves that got into their herds without fear of penalty under the Endangered Species Act. Now, with introduced wolves thriving in both areas, a federal judge has ruled that the agency […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Salvage law haunts Utah
Salvage law haunts Utah When Forest Supervisor Janette Kaiser announced plans for a huge salvage timber sale on central Utah’s Manti-La Sal National Forest in August, environmentalists thought they’d seen a ghost. The sale was approved under a law they thought long dead: the salvage logging rider. Now, they hope a recent agency decision will […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
The greening of Mount St. Helens
Dick Ford didn’t think it possible. Weyerhaeuser Co.” s timber lands near Mount St. Helens, the volcano that erupted in Washington state 17 years ago, are turning green. “I remember thinking that it would never be a normal forest,” says Ford, who managed Weyerhaeuser’s replanting operations around the volcano through the 1980s. In the months […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Ancient cedars get a life
Environmentalists have always said that old-growth trees are worth more alive than logged. Recently, the Forest Service seconded that thought. In October, after five years of negotiations, the agency allowed Idaho sawmill owner Mark Brinkmeyer to swap his 530-acre grove of 1,200-year-old trees at the headwaters of Idaho’s Upper Priest Lake for 2,200 acres of […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Termite tenacity
Termites build their homes to last. The evidence is in New Mexico, where a team of University of Colorado scientists have identified termite mounds dating back to the Jurassic period, 155 million years ago. More than 100 sandstone pillars, some as high as 20 feet and six feet in diameter, were found over the last […]
Posted inDecember 8, 1997: Mono Lake: Victory over Los Angeles turns into local controversy
Completing a prairie ecosystem
Ranchers say the cost of recovery is exorbitant