The Utah wilderness bill is dead again, but not without a struggle. In mid-March, Alaska Republican Sen. Frank Murkowski sent the Utah delegation’s controversial plan opening 2 million acres of southern Utah to development on to the Senate as part of an omnibus parks bill. The bill linked wilderness designation of 1.2 million acres in […]
Wildlife
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Forest Service Economics 101
It seemed an offer the Forest Service couldn’t refuse: The government gets the best price for its timber, and the buyer never cuts down any trees. Yet on March 21, the agency rejected an environmental group’s high bid of $28,875 for 275 acres of fire-damaged trees in the eastern Cascades of Washington near the Canadian […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Malpractice as usual
Taxpayers are paying the price because Forest Service officials in California handed out timber contracts without adequate environmental reviews, according to a report from the Washington, D.C.-based Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Business As Usual: A Case Study of Environmental and Fiscal Malpractice on the Eldorado National Forest describes how top managers weren’t penalized […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Stephen Pyne
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Raising a ranch from the dead “As I read the record, there were grasses everywhere in the Southwest linking all its different environments. Even ponderosa pine was more of a savanna than a forest. The grass provided the interstitial medium, and that’s what carried […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
‘Two weeks of hell’ saves a stand of old-growth trees
Six years ago, Francis Eatherington fought to keep loggers out of a roadless area in western Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest. A seasonal employee for the Forest Service, she felt passionately about the area’s 1,000-year-old trees and the spotted owls and runs of salmon and steelhead they harbored. With the help of a lawsuit, she and […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Top dog loses patience
Top dog loses patience Biologists at Yellowstone National Park expected the wolf to knock the coyote out of the top dog position in the ecosystem, but not this quickly. Biologist Bob Crabtree of Yellowstone Ecological Studies has counted 12 coyotes killed by wolves this winter, and says the actual number could be three times higher. […]
Posted inApril 1, 1996: Gambling: A tribe hits the jackpot
Tribe fights salvage logging
Tribe fights salvage logging An Indian tribe has jumped into the legal fray surrounding the salvage-logging rider signed by President Clinton last summer. The Klamath Tribes of southern Oregon filed a lawsuit March 13 against the Forest Service, charging that the federal government has shirked its responsibility to preserve traditional hunting and fishing grounds. When […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Grizzlies forego their snooze
Braving sub-zero temperatures to go winter camping in Montana’s Glacier National Park used to have one big perk – no need to watch out for grizzly bears. The bears usually hibernate from late-November to April. But now, say biologists, two or three young grizzlies are on the prowl year-round in the park, pilfering the kills […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Brand new name, same old story
A new group has entered the fray over the Pacific Northwest’s salmon, but don’t be fooled by its name. The first, invitation-only meeting of Northwesterners for More Fish brought representatives from big electric companies, banks, timber companies, ports and aluminum plants to an exclusive club in Spokane last month, reports the Portland Oregonian. There, the […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
How I learned to love logging
For a long time I was a critic of the Thunderbolt timber sale on the Payette and Boise national forests in Idaho. Its real name was the “Thunderbolt Watershed Restoration Project” because its intent, the public was told, was to help salmon. But it seemed like a timber sale since it called for 3,300 acres […]
Posted inMarch 18, 1996: What does the West need to know?
Is it fix or nix for the salvage rider?
Campaign politics and the prospect of widespread summer protests in the national forests are pushing President Clinton toward dismantling the salvage-logging rider he signed into law last summer. Though the president has admitted before that he miscalculated the effects of the “logging without laws’ bill, his actions in recent weeks have many convinced that a […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Did the Forest Service burn New Mexico enviros?
Did the Forest Service burn New Mexico enviros? On the day President Clinton signed what’s become known as the “logging without laws’ rider last July, a nearly 10,000 foot-high peak in southwest New Mexico burst into flames. Now federal plans for salvage logging of this area – Eagle Peak near Reserve, N.M. – have led […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Permits not part of Rainbow values
Every July some 15,000 people converge on Forest Service land in a wave of buses, outdoor kitchens and non-stop music for a month-long gathering. Now, members of the Rainbow Family say a new permit requirement by the Forest Service threatens their annual get-together. “We are faced with overzealous bureaucrats who don’t know how to let […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
A lie this big
It’s hard to believe, but the director of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department was caught fishing without a license. Last June a game warden stopped for a routine license check at a stream near Rawlins, Wyo., and found director John Talbott didn’t have a $9 license with him. Talbott told the warden his license […]
Posted inMarch 4, 1996: Who owns these bones?
Sportsmen sue to remove prison
Two western Colorado sportsmen have notified the state of Colorado that they will bring a lawsuit against it for illegally building a prison in a state wildife area. Tom Huerkamp and Bob Morris say state prison officials built a 300-bed facility in the Escalante Wildlife Area, outside Delta, Colo., even though the land was purchased […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Bad hunters meet good old boys
In Montana, out-of-towners pay a higher price for their hunting and fishing violations, even though locals commit most of the wildlife crimes. Non-residents who illegally killed fish or other wildlife in 1994 spent three times as long in jail as Montanans, according to an Associated Press analysis. They also lost their licenses for an average […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Politics imperil Mexican wolf comeback
As public hearings on ranching issues go, the Socorro, N.M., session on the endangered Mexican wolf last fall was a rare breed. Hundreds of green-capped environmentalists easily outnumbered ranchers, who more often fill the crowd with a sea of black and white cowboy hats. Environmentalists came dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, the Big Bad […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Disease threatens bighorn restoration
For decades, wildlife officials from Idaho, Washington and Oregon have worked hard to restore bighorn sheep to the Hells Canyon area. But in December, they feverishly tried to remove them after a deadly outbreak of pneumonia-like pasteurella. Hoping to contain the disease, officials netted 72 sick sheep and transported them by helicopters and trucks to […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
A call to uproot roads
After torrential rains in northern Idaho triggered widespread landslides in national forests last November, some Idaho Fish and Game officials are urging the Forest Service not to repair damaged roads. They want the roads either re-engineered or obliterated. “We want them to fix the problem, so those roads aren’t just time bombs waiting to go […]
Posted inFebruary 19, 1996: Can a Colorado ski county say 'Enough is enough'?
Costly Yellowstone invasion
COSTLY YELLOWSTONE INVASION There’s little hope of ridding Yellowstone Lake of its invading lake trout, says a report by the National Park Service. The illegally introduced lake trout, discovered by anglers in 1994, could diminish the native cutthroat trout population by 70 percent or more within 100 years. And by disrupting the food chain, the […]