Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. LANDER, Wyo. – The wolf head on the wall tucks its ears and bares its teeth at all who enter the living room of this 85-year-old retired sheep rancher. This aging trophy with broken teeth is perhaps the […]
Wildlife
Posted inFebruary 6, 1995: The wolves are back, big time
This mating is no game
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, The wolves are back, big time. Federal biologists are playing matchmaker. When six more gray wolves were trundled into Yellowstone Jan. 20, one male was introduced to a prospective new mate, and biologists hoped the two wouldn’t fight. They didn’t. Although the wolves postured, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Are grizzlies safe?
Grizzly bears in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem have “recovered” and no longer need protection under the Endangered Species Act. That’s the opinion of a federal team known as the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which decided in December to support the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s decision to petition for delisting the bear. “People should keep […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Option 9 survives
In a rare environmental victory for the Clinton administration, a federal judge upheld the president’s plan for protecting wildlife and allowing some timber cutting in the federal forests of the Pacific Northwest. Judge William Dwyer of Seattle, who said in 1991 that federal land managers had committed “deliberate, systematic” violations of environmental laws, ruled Dec. […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Wilderness trader cashes in
When the Forest Service agreed to give developer Tom Chapman 110 acres near the ski town of Telluride, Colo., in exchange for his wilderness inholding on the Gunnison National Forest, critics were outraged. They said taxpayers would lose valuable public land while Chapman stood to gain a huge profit. Apparently, the critics were right. Chapman, […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Imported wolves lope off into Idaho wilderness
Editor’s note: After being trapped, caged, tested for disease and analyzed by genotype by having blood and tissue taken, inoculated, ear-tagged, radio-collared and tranquilized, they were loaded up for a plane ride south. This was a trip more than a decade in the making – restoring wolves to the West. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, on […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
So far, wolf reintroduction survives legal challenge
Wolves arrived in central Idaho and Yellowstone last week after evading enemies in courtrooms and legislatures around the region. The frenzy of last-minute legal maneuvering preceding their return has fragmented opinion on both sides of the issue and bewildered onlookers. Five months ago, to block the wolves’ return, the American Farm Bureau and the Mountain […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Yellowstone bison guts pile up
On the day after Christmas, bison migrating downhill from Yellowstone National Park’s northern range once again met gunfire in Montana. Caught in a power struggle between the National Park Service, whose policy of “natural regulation” has allowed their numbers to grow to an estimated 4,300, and the livestock industry, which is worried about disease, more […]
Posted inJanuary 23, 1995: What a long strange trip it's been
Forest Service may finally evaluate grazing
As the Clinton administration backpedals in the nation’s capitol from grazing reforms, an environmental lawsuit is moving ahead in Montana. A federal judge will soon decide whether the Forest Service must do analyses for 150 allotments where ranchers run livestock on the Beaverhead National Forest. Last March, the National Wildlife Federation and its Montana affiliate […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Timber sale killed
A federal judge in Denver recently ordered the U.S. Forest Service to shelve a timber sale a decade in the making. Judge Lewis Babcock told the Forest Service on Nov. 17 to abandon a 240-acre timber sale at Long Draw in Colorado’s Arapahoe-Roosevelt National Forest. He said the Forest Service illegally favored clearcutting over less-intrusive […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
A penchant for pee
It’s Miller Time for mountain goats in Colorado’s San Juan National Forest when hikers and hunters head home. The goats come down from the high country to congregate at campsites where visitors have urinated. Driven by a craving for salt, the animals have torn up the tundra in the forest’s Weminuche Wilderness. “It’s a strange […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Grazing reformers banned from hunting
If you’re a member of the National or Montana Wildlife Federation, don’t even think about hunting on the Japanese-owned Selkirk Ranch. Zenchiku Land and Livestock banned federation members from hunting this fall after the groups sued Beaverhead National Forest to force reform of its grazing program, reports the Montana Standard. Zenchiku president John Morse placed […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Raising hell
Hells Canyon, the deepest gorge on earth and one of the most spectacular canyons in the country, may one day resemble Disneyland, warns one critic. “Envision this place,” says Ric Bailey, director of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council. “It’s a backcountry place with dusty unpaved roads. The Forest Service is going to turn it into […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
RX for forests
In response to last year’s devastating fire season, the Forest Service has proposed 330 projects over the next two years to reduce the threat of disease and fire while producing an estimated 1.5 to 2 billion board-feet of timber. Some 1 million acres would be affected, including as much as 150,000 acres on roadless areas. […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Grim reading
A consortium of six scientific groups reports that the Eastside forests of Washington and Oregon are in perilous ecological shape. According to the scientists, who did their work at the request of seven U.S. representatives, the forests are almost completely fragmented or debased, and streams are in such bad shape that “large numbers of fish […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Northwest council says salmon should float
Despite tremendous pressure to delay a decision, the Northwest Power Planning Council approved a plan Dec. 14 to save Columbia River salmon. It relies on drawing down reservoirs – rather than on barges – to speed migrating salmon to sea. “After 14 years of studying the problem, the council finally concluded that fish float,” says […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Home, home on the subdivisions
Yellowstone National Park’s bison have come a long way since 1901, when only 44 survivors of North America’s millions grazed inside its boundaries. Stu Coleman, chief of the park’s natural resources branch, estimates the current population at 4,300 – nearly a hundred times that number – and calls the place “a bison-generating machine.” In 1988-89, […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Agency condemns cabin as a teardown
Many visitors call a 63-year-old cabin in the Tonto National Forest, Ariz., a “half-acre garden of Eden.” The Grand Canyon Trust says it’s “a historical, aesthetical and botanical treasure.” Yet the Forest Service has decided to tear down the cabin within six months. The agency made the decision despite a spirited effort by the private, […]
Posted inDecember 26, 1994: Albuquerque learns it really is a desert town
Coming soon: A leaner, more ecological agency
A leaner, more environmentally conscious Forest Service is about to be born, says Forest Service Chief Jack Ward Thomas. In an 11-page memo sent to agency employees Dec. 6, Thomas unveiled a plan for “reinventing” the agency over the next two years. Regional offices would shrink from nine to seven and the agency’s 32,000-person workforce […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Stupid shooting
The large cactus on Arizona’s Tonto National Forest near Phoenix wasn’t menacing anyone, yet it now stands riddled with holes, the shooting target of vandals. The three arms of the approximately 250-year-old saguaro were shot until they fell to the ground. The Maricopa County attorney’s office will arraign five suspects, all under age 20, who […]