Content removed at freelancer’s request. Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The innkeeper.
Wildlife
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
The activist
Content removed at freelancer’s request. Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The activist.
Posted inSeptember 2, 1996: Last line of defense: Civil disobedience and protest slow down 'lawless logging'
Big trees in Oregon continue to topple
Note: This article is a sidebar to a feature story. Though forest activists have stopped controversial timber sales offered under the salvage rider in some places, they have taken a drubbing in others. Ninety minutes by car north of Warner Creek in the Detroit Ranger District, hundreds of big trees have tumbled like tenpins all […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Crane hunt is contested
Idaho approved a sandhill crane hunt last month to appease farmers who are losing barley and potatoes to the birds. The state plans to distribute 20 permits to shoot the lanky, long-necked cranes this September, but it is not yet clear who will do the killing. State officials would like to use the permits to […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Endangered salmon leave rafters dry
In Idaho’s Sawtooth National Recreation Area, rafters are butting heads with the U.S. Forest Service over regulations meant to protect endangered chinook salmon. This summer, four rafting companies filed an appeal to a plan that would keep boats away from spawning grounds in the upper Salmon River after late August. They said the Forest Service […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Park Service preys on lake trout
At Yellowstone Lake, there’s a new fishing regulation: No matter how many lake trout you catch, you can keep them. In fact, you have to. The compulsory open season is part of a desperate attempt by the Park Service to curb lake trout, a species dumped illegally in the lake (HCN, 9/19/94). Lake trout are […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Searching for grass in a magic valley
In 1980 I was laboring in southern Idaho for the Bureau of Land Management, doing hot, dusty work that belied the local name for the Snake River bottomlands: the Magic Valley. My job was to look for grass, find how much was there and report to my superiors. Then they could determine whether or not […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Wallowing the flies away
Ouch! A fly bit me in the soft spot under the lobe of my ear. Gripped with insights about trees and rocks, I’d stopped moving for too long. While even the sheep slept that I’d come to herd, I walked back to stand in the opening of the tent. My brother mumbled inside and the […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Dead salmon do more than stink
Not so long ago, when great runs of wild salmon still ruled the Northwest, fish carcasses littered the banks of streams each spawning season. Scientists have long suspected that these rotting salmon helped fuel the food chain. But they didn’t know to what extent. Now, studies by Weyerhaeuser Co. fish biologist Bob Bilby have shown […]
Posted inAugust 19, 1996: Western voices
Of muskrats and mortality
When I am driving up the dugway toward Logan Canyon I think that if I get going fast enough I can fly upward to where my father will go when his cancer finds the kindness to release him. It seems to be a place over the mountains, in the air above the canyon; and I […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
If you’re looking for scarlet mormons
Tropical butterflies have landed in Colorado. The Butterfly Pavilion and Insect Center just outside of Denver features scarlet mormons, zebra longwings and more than 100 other varieties that fly through glass-enclosed buildings. While at least 30 butterfly centers have emerged in the past decade – most of them associated with zoos – the 7,800-square-foot pavilion […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Fear of flying: Local resistance keeps condors behind bars
A big bird gliding over a mostly empty Western landscape shouldn’t be a big deal, but if the bird is an endangered condor and the land is publicly owned, it can be just that. California condors will not be restored to northern Arizona’s rugged and remote Vermilion Cliffs on schedule because of local opposition. Although […]
Posted inAugust 5, 1996: Disappearing railroad blues
Logging starts – and stops again – in Southwest
A federal judge may soon lift the injunction that has halted most logging on the 11 national forests in Arizona and New Mexico this year. Then again, maybe he won’t. Last month the Forest Service tried to take the matter into its own hands. Southwest Regional Forester Chip Cartwright issued an ebullient press release July […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
How we did them in
Anyone interested in understanding the ongoing salmon debacle should read The Northwest Salmon Crisis: A Documentary History. Editors Joseph Cone and Sandy Ridlington have compiled over 80 documents from the last 140 years to lead us through the salmon’s decline. They remind us that this tragedy occurred even though red flags were waving every step […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Forgotten, but not gone – yet
Few people know that the American marten, a forest-dwelling weasel the size of a house cat, hunts small mammals in cavities under snow, and “is so exquisitely tuned to its surroundings that it can depress its body temperature … minimizing energy expenditures in the stressful winter months.” Or that the wolverine, the largest of the […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Drought ‘ heat = fire
Drought ‘ heat = fire This year’s fire season started fast and furiously. Across the parched states of Arizona and New Mexico, 3,600 fires have scorched some 324,000 acres. As a precautionary measure, 10 of 11 national forests in the region declared at least part of their acreage off-limits to recreationists in June. The most […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
The salvage rider – down, but not quite out
For environmentalists concerned about public forests, this was supposed to the summer of dread. Timber companies, shielded by a salvage logging law, were expected to have a free-for-all on thousands of acres of roadless land. But now, with summer half over, environmentalists have reason for optimism. They may even salvage a victory. Congress passed the […]
Posted inJuly 22, 1996: Glen Canyon: Using a dam to heal a river
Trapping initiative may snare Colorado ranchers
Carol Buchanan raises chickens on her small farm in rural western Colorado, and the mounted heads of deer, bear and elk hang from the walls of her house. But on her desk lie copies of a petition which aims to ban all trapping, snaring and poisoning of animals in the state. “I’m not against hunting,” […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Proposed hatchery breeds conflict
If the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has its way, a new steelhead hatchery will be built on the moss-covered ruins of an abandoned federal hatchery. But the agency’s plan for the $4 million Grandy Creek steelhead hatchery – the state’s 91st – faces stiff opposition. Many conservation and fishing groups, as well as […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Living with wildlife
As suburbia swells into wild country throughout the West, conflicts between humans and wildlife increase: Deer graze in gardens and dogs lope into the hills after packs of singing coyotes. Occasionally, a black bear wanders close to a subdivision or a mountain lion lunges for someone’s pet. To keep such inevitable encounters as positive as […]