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 […]
Wildlife
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 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
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
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
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 […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Still stealing trees
Since the U.S. Forest Service disbanded its special timber-theft task force nearly a year ago, investigations of large-scale timber theft have ground to a halt. That’s the conclusion of Unindicted Co-Conspirator, a report by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Governmental Accountability Project (GAP), a Washington, D.C.-based group that protects government […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Fire sweeps through the Southwest
The fire season started with a vengeance this year in the parched Southwest. As of June 16, firefighters had extinguished more than 2,400 fires in Arizona and New Mexico that charred some 230,000 acres. Fire crews from all over the West are camped on the airport lawn in Albuquerque, poised for assignments. “This has been […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Predator control: more pain than gain
A lot of cows die every year in Montana, most often in a slaughterhouse on their way to a hamburger bun. Others succumb to weather, disease and calving problems. Then there are predators – the lions and coyotes and bears so often scorned as the scourge of the range. The federal Animal Damage Control agency […]
Posted inJune 24, 1996: Catron County's politics heat up as its land goes bankrupt
Development plan breaks consensus on grizzlies
The pact worked out last year between Plum Creek Timber Co. in Montana’s Swan Valley and some federal and state agencies looked like a good deal for both bears and loggers. Then this May, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund served notice it will file suit to negate the agreement. What’s changed is Plum Creek’s […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Operation bullsling
The Forest Service really slung the bull this time – eight tons of it. To improve the vegetation and watershed of the Ishi Wilderness in northeastern California, agency officials strapped 13 tranquilized bulls into helicopter cargo nets and flew them out at the end of a 40-foot cable. The cattle were the last of a […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Salmon find a friend
Endangered Snake River salmon recently found a northern ally in their battle against Columbia River dams. Republican Gov. Tony Knowles of Alaska announced April 28 that his state had begun legal action to join a lawsuit brought by environmental and fishing groups against the National Marine Fisheries Service. The groups sued the agency this spring […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
A small fish takes a big hit
The Rio Grande silvery minnow is not a glamorous fish, but it does have a claim to fame: It’s the last minnow species to survive in New Mexico’s beleaguered stretch of the Rio Grande, where every native fish is extinct or threatened with extinction. But in April, an irrigation district diverted so much water from […]
Posted inJune 10, 1996: Outdoor Education
Salvage logging rider barrels into a shy seabird’s world
Even though the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated 3.9 million acres of land along the Oregon and Washington coast as “critical habitat” for the marbled murrelet in late April, nothing changed for the Citizens Murrelet Survey Project. The members of the Corvallis, Ore.-based group continue their routine of getting up at 4:30 a.m. and […]