Saved by the hair of a bear This summer when Yellowstone grizzly bears enjoy a nice back-scratch, they could be saving their own hides. Researchers from the Yellowstone Grizzly Foundation will set up triangular corrals of barbed wire at various locations in hopes that the bears will rub against the wire and leave a little […]
Wildlife
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Wildflowers made easy
WILDFLOWERS MADE EASY If you’ve ever struggled to differentiate between pinnate and palmate vennation or corymb and cyme inflorescence, you’ll be happy to hear there’s a new wildflower guide for botanical novices. Written by G.K. Guennel, a spore and pollen expert, the two-volume Guide to Colorado Wildflowers is remarkably easy to use and includes some […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Beavers land on the hot seat in Idaho
Idaho farmers who suspect beavers are damming water that could be irrigating their fields can call on state officials to throw the beavers out – even when their dams are on private property. Idaho Gov. Phil Batt signed the bill in mid-March. The legislation grew out of a dispute between two groups of property owners […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
In the middle of the last century, thirsty pioneers traveling along the Humboldt Trail through Utah knew how to find potable water: If there were snakes and frogs in a spring or pool, it was safe to drink. This method never failed them. When Brigham Young and his plucky tribe of Mormon refugees from persecution […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Frogs: The ultimate indicator species
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion Native frog populations are plummeting all over the world. No one knows exactly why, but there are six prominent possibilities. Destruction of wetlands is one, contamination of water supplies by biocides, pollutants, and acid rain another. A third is […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
There’s plenty of money to study Utah’s game
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion Officials in Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources barely had time to note the news that Dick Carter was mothballing his Utah Wilderness Association before the perennial thorn in their sides was back demanding action on another issue. Carter spent […]
Posted inMay 27, 1996: Utah ushers its frogs toward oblivion
Salvage rider will destroy sacred sites
When Rip Lone Wolf felt it was time for his 14-year-old son’s vision quest, he did what Oregon’s Nez Perce have done for generations: He headed for the sacred land at Enola Hill. The 350-year-old Douglas fir trees that loom over this part of the Mount Hood National Forest, 45 miles east of Portland, shelter […]
Posted inMay 13, 1996: Howdy, neighbor!
A faint ray of hope for Northwest salmon
For centuries, Snake River salmon have followed the force of raging rivers on their 750-mile journey from Idaho’s mountains to the sea. Yet their migration hasn’t been natural since the mid-1970s, when the Snake and Columbia rivers were converted into a hydroelectric factory and a 350-mile-long navigation canal. Now the fish have a technical alternative, […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Locals sickened by bison slaughter
In tiny West Yellowstone, Mont., more than 350 bison have been gunned down after wandering out of Yellowstone National Park. The Montana Department of Livestock kills the bison because of fears they will transmit brucellosis, a disease that causes cattle to abort. But for residents such as Donna Lane, who watched state officials shoot 18 […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Back with a bang
Humans have killed five of the wolves restored to Yellowstone National Park last year, and a wolf pregnant with six pups died when she fell into a thermal pool; but biologists say at least 30 more pups are on the way. Mike Phillips, leader of the Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Team, is so impressed with the […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Burning down the house
Under a new federal policy, fire managers will be allowed to put protection of natural resources ahead of property when they battle blazes on public lands. That policy is the major contribution of a new report issued jointly by the departments of Interior and Agriculture. “In the past people expected their homes to take priority,” […]
Posted inApril 29, 1996: A park boss goes to bat for the land
Can cattle save the pygmy rabbit?
The idea is heresy to some and it sounds odd coming from a wildlife biologist, but Fred Dobler is insistent: Cattle grazing might save the pygmy rabbit. The shy, nocturnal cousin of the cottontail is an endangered species in Washington and exists on isolated chunks of sagebrush-shrub steppe in just one county. “Grazing might be […]
Posted inApril 15, 1996: Raising a ranch from the dead
Utah wilderness proposal rises and dies
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 […]
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 […]