TUCSON, Ariz. – Some human residents of the desert on the edge of this city grind their teeth when they hear the single-note call of a cactus ferruginous pygmy owl. The tiny owl, which lives in saguaro cacti and ironwood trees surrounding their houses, sounds a monotonous whistle that irritates people so they feel like […]
Wildlife
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Spotting lawless logging
Last year’s timber salvage rider made some people at the Alliance for the Wild Rockies see red. They channeled some of their anger into creating a map that pinpoints, with over 500 crimson spots, timber sales in the Northern Rockies. An accompanying eight-page report addresses the costs of such logging, its erosive effects on roads […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
The importance of prairie dogs
A report, Conserving Prairie Dog Ecosystems on the Northern Plains, defends one of nature’s best dinners. Published by the Predator Project in Bozeman, Mont., the 30-page booklet explains how prairie dogs create a unique environment that provides food and shelter to at least 158 other species, including the endangered black-footed ferret and the swift fox. […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Oregon governor says volunteers can save coho
Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, an avid fly fisherman, has landed $30 million to restore coho salmon populations and clean up the state’s degraded streams. In late February, leaders of the legislature and the timber industry announced they would each chip in $15 million for the programs. With that, the Democratic governor ended an intense period […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Will an elusive cat evade federal listing?
When a southern Arizona rancher recently cornered a black-spotted beast the likes of which he’d never seen before, he shot it with his camera. Turns out he’d found a jaguar – the largest cat in the Western Hemisphere and an animal that’s been seen north of the Mexican border only a handful of times in […]
Posted inMarch 17, 1997: Working the Watershed
Agency hopes fees will protect a crowded wilderness
Desolation Wilderness in eastern California is one of those places that doesn’t come close to living up to its name. Its beauty, some say, is only matched by its crowding. Thanks to its accessibility from San Francisco (three-and-a-half hours away), Sacramento (two hours away), and Lake Tahoe (just a few minutes away), the wilderness is […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Who shot the wolf?
A large gray wolf set free into the greater Yellowstone ecosystem was shot in January and dumped in the Madison River, 15 miles south of Three Forks, Mont. Authorities picked at the ice for an hour to free the wolf carcass, says U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent Commodore Mann. An X-ray of the animal indicates […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Idaho activists win one
A federal judge in Idaho recently overturned the 1995 convictions of 12 wilderness activists on the charge of violating a road closure in the Cove-Mallard area (HCN, 9/2/96). District Judge Edward Lodge ruled that when the Forest Service closed roads to the Jack Creek sale, it infringed on the First Amendment right to petition the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
No more cheap thrills
How much should we pay to play in the great outdoors? More than we do now, say government auditors. A report by the federal General Accounting Office finds that the Forest Service loses millions of dollars each year by not charging enough to private and commercial recreationists. Investigators say the outdated permit fees charged to […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Wanted alive
Bewildered by declining numbers of boreal toads, the Colorado Division of Wildlife is hoping the “help wanteds’ will yield some clues. The agency is displaying colorful posters at trailheads and outdoor equipment stores, describing the small toads and asking for the public’s help in finding them. Since the boreal toad is uniquely adapted to the […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Tarnished trophies
Safari hunters are bringing home exotic and endangered loot through a loophole in the Endangered Species Act, says a report by the Washington, D.C., group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Worse yet, PEER says, agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are greasing the process rather than policing it. By law, no permit can […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Outdoor writer aims to change his culture
The Insightful Sportsman: Thoughts on Fish, Wildlife and What Ails the Earth, by Ted Williams. Camden, Maine: Down East Books, 1996. 299 pages, $14.95 trade paper. “The hard thing about writing real conservation pieces is not finding material, but finding editors who dare to publish it consistently,” says Ted (Edward French) Williams in his preface […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
‘Good’ rancher goes berserk with an assault rifle
MEETEETSE, Wyo. – A rancher known here as a good steward of his land has been charged with illegally firing on a herd of elk with an assault rifle Jan. 16, leaving at least 10 animals either dead or crippled. Game wardens say they cannot recall another slaying of so many big game animals all […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
‘Un-logging’ the national forests? It might just happen
Should conservation groups be able to buy federal timber just so they can leave it standing? Three environmental organizations recently posed that question in a formal petition to the Secretary of Agriculture, whose department oversees the Forest Service. Currently, the Forest Service designates only logging outfits as “responsible bidders’ on tree sales. But with their […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Venison is not an option
Mule deer don’t just wander through the Boulder, Colo., neighborhood where I live. They drop fawns in our backyards. They browse on almost everything. In Table Mesa, surrounded by open space, it’s a love-it-or-leave-it situation. Don’t like Odocoileus hemionus eating your garden? The solution is simple: move. Venison is not an option. When I moved […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Hunters close ranks, and minds
In a few states it is still legal to attract bears with bait for the purpose of shooting them. I call it “garbaging for bears,” and, as an avid hunter, find it repulsive – basically assassination. But this is not an article about garbaging for bears. It is an article about the slow, painful maturation […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Tough love for hunters
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Before coming to Outdoor Life, Stephen Byers worked for Rolling Stone and Men’s Journal. Since his highly publicized resignation from Outdoor Life last summer, he’s been writing a novel and shopping “ever so selectively” for another top editorial slot. Byers talks about his days […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
The WLFA: ‘Who are these guys?’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. When Tony Jewett first heard that the late Mollie Beattie, at the time U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director, was trying to ban hunting in the nation’s wildlife refuges, he became alarmed and outraged. The news came in a 1993 “alert” from the Wildlife […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
What happens when two tree-huggers meet a tentful of hunters
Last November, I joined Nez Perce tribal biologist Timm Kaminski on one of his difficult “hunter education” trips into the southern Bitterroots on the Idaho-Montana border. His job: to walk into tents of heavily armed hunters and tell them about the possibility of wolves showing up in the woods. He has to ask hunters questions […]
Posted inMarch 3, 1997: Hunters close ranks, and minds
Wilderness has a new foe: snowmobiles
SEELEY LAKE, Mont.- The February drizzle has done little to dampen the spirits of the crowd here for the Snowmoblivious festival. Snowmobile aficionados from as far away as Washington and Colorado bounce along the shoulders of the main street and buzz through the woods on groomed trails. “We’re out with the whole family,” says one […]