The crowd of several hundred area residents who gathered in a school auditorium in Salmon, Idaho, recently was almost totally united in its opposition to the proposal. No one wanted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to introduce some 25 subadult grizzly bears into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the Idaho-Montana border over a several year […]
Wildlife
Posted inOctober 27, 1997: Deconstructing the age of dams
Salmon says no bears, no way
SALMON, Idaho – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s proposal to reintroduce grizzly bears to the Northern Rockies got a tense reception at a public hearing in Salmon, Idaho, Oct. 8. For more than four hours, speakers blasted the plan before an audience of 200, saying grizzlies have no place in Idaho. At issue is […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Least loved beasts
-A coyote danced. Perhaps not. Reason tells me that he was catching his breakfast. Voles, moles, meadow mice, ground squirrels, chipmunks, and other rodents abound in the Sierra meadows. But still, his dance was a study in grace and sinuous acrobatics: A leap to clear the grass, a pounce, a toss of the head and […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
A timber country memoir
It’s hard to make straight lines stick to the earth, writes Robert Leo Heilman in Overstory: Zero; Real Life in Timber Country, and even harder in hilly Douglas County, Ore. In his book of 32 essays, Heilman returns to this theme again and again; he likes the earth’s reluctance to bend to blueprints, whether he […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Flattened fauna need help
For decades, Route 93 between Missoula, Mont., and Glacier National Park has earned a reputation as a dangerous stretch of highway. A bumper sticker from the 1960s reads: “Pray for me, I drive 93.” Now it seems drivers aren’t the only ones in danger. Hundreds of western painted turtles that live in pothole wetlands are […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Rafters vs. fish
River outfitters and their supporters rallied in Stanley, Idaho, Sept. 23 to say that the Forest Service had gone too far. Led by owners of The River Company, some 50 central Idaho residents protested the agency’s shutting down of the Salmon River. The agency has been periodically closing off parts of the river to floaters […]
Posted inOctober 13, 1997: The land is still public, but it's no longer free
Big stink over northern pike
A battle over poisoning Lake Davis to rid it of non-native northern pike appears headed for a shoreline showdown. The courts have endorsed a California Department of Fish and Game plan to poison the lake 70 miles north of Lake Tahoe. A Plumas County ordinance is now one of the last obstacles, short of civil […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Trees refuse to croak
When Forest Service officials approved logging on 10,000 acres of Idaho’s Payette National Forest under the salvage logging rider in 1995, they said the trees had been killed by a 1994 wildfire or bark beetles. Now, they admit “dead” was an overstatement. “People may see what appear to be green, healthy trees removed from the […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
Just in time for the budget requests
Forest Service mismanagement is one thing many environmentalists, ranchers and loggers agree is a problem. Now the Government Accounting Office has chimed in with a July 31 report to Congress that says the Forest Service’s decision-making culture is one of “indifference toward accountability.” The agency’s inability to make timely decisions costs taxpayers millions of dollars […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
It’s a big bird
Eleven California condors are cruising the skies over Grand Canyon all the way to Moab, Utah, after being released this year in northern Arizona. Biologists with the California Condor Recovery Project suggest bird-watchers travel Highway 89A north of the Grand Canyon between Lee’s Ferry and House Rock Valley Road to see the carrion-eaters. Pull-out parking […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
We may be seeing the devolution of the environmental movement
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Undersecretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons is the presidential appointee to whom the chief of the Forest Service reports. Jim Lyons: “All these environmental groups have signed on against the Quincy Library Group bill because they object to legislating how the national forests are run. […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
The stress was very heavy
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Rose Comstock is president of California Women in Timber. She also manages Clover Logging, which has shrunk from about 60 employees to two. The Barkley sale she refers to was a salvage-logging-rider sale that the timber firms on the QLG refused to bid on […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
My experience with the Quincy group wasn’t positive
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Erin Noel grew up in a small town within the region the Quincy Library Group has staked out as its domain. She founded Forest Alert, which monitored the Lassen, El Dorado and Tahoe national forests. She now studies law at the University of California, […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
I was always welcomed there
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Terry Terhaar worked for the nonprofit Pacific Rivers Council in 1995. She spent 10 months attending Quincy Library Group meetings. Before that, she was a regional vice president for the Sierra Club in northern California and Nevada. She is now a graduate student at […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
We’re much stronger together
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. “Charismatic,” “feisty,” “a bulldog,” and “non-stop talker” are just a few of the adjectives used to describe environmental attorney Michael Jackson. He has lived and worked in Quincy, Calif., for 20 years. Michael Jackson: “I’ve taken part in listing almost every salmon on the […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
How a foe saved the Quincy Library Group’s bacon
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Politics has always made strange bedfellows, but this one was stranger than most. One day last July, George Miller took Don Young into one of those rooms near the House Chamber and did him a favor. Well, OK, it was only sort of a favor. But Miller is a liberal California Democrat, […]
Posted inSeptember 29, 1997: The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
The timber wars evolve into a divisive attempt at peace
QUINCY, Calif. – One requirement for belonging to the Quincy Library Group is a strong bladder. The group’s July 29 meeting – roughly its 50th since its 1993 founding – ran from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and while a few people came and a few people went, most of the 20 participants never left […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Wolves take heavy toll in Montana
In the Tobacco Valley of northwest Montana, wolves killed at least 30 sheep in six weeks. One rancher lost 28 animals on a single night in June, prompting the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife to shell out its largest-ever wolf-kill reimbursement – $4,000. This was one of the worst wolf attacks on livestock in the West, […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Maps may save lives
Participants in an Oregon mapping project want to keep history from repeating itself. When five people were killed by landslides that hit their homes or cars in 1996, many observers blamed logging of steep slopes above the houses and highways. They said the Oregon Department of Forestry should have prevented the situation (HCN, 12/23/96). Defending […]
Posted inSeptember 15, 1997: Yellowstone at 125: The park as a sovereign state
Rid-a-Bird works too well
Rid-a-Bird, a two-man company in Wilton, Iowa, has been killing unwanted birds for over 40 years with the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval. But two dead raptors in Washington have called into question the company’s method of pest control. Rid-a-Bird’s product lures birds to a perch containing fenthion, a fatal nerve poison which paralyzes them. The […]