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 […]
Wildlife
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
Owl defenders awarded $1 million
The federal government must pay $1 million to lawyers who fought to protect the northern spotted owl during a six-year legal battle with the Bureau of Land Management. Federal District Court Judge Helen J. Frye awarded $966,317 in attorney fees to the Seattle-based Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, while the Western Environmental Law Center of […]
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 […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Foul hunting tactic under attack in the West
To many Westerners, luring an unsuspecting black bear with rotting meat and then shooting it is cruel and unsporting, not to mention messy. “It’s such an exceptional practice,” says Aaron Medlock, a former Fund for Animals attorney who now works for the Humane Society of the United States. “It’s so different from regular hunting.” Lawsuits […]
Posted inDecember 12, 1994: Shrink to fit
Judge hints that Clinton’s forest plan is dead
SEATTLE, Wash. – A federal judge in Seattle is considering sending President Clinton’s Northwest forest plan back to the government for more protection for owls and salmon. Jittery forest advocates admit that such a ruling could be a mixed blessing. It could put virtually all remaining old-growth forests off-limits to logging; it could also fuel […]
Posted inNovember 28, 1994: Beauty eludes the beast
Forest plan rapped
Forest plan rapped The first revision of a forest management plan in the nation is a flop, says a coalition of environmental groups that monitors activities on South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest. The draft plan emphasizes logging and fails to implement ecosystem management, says Brian Brademeyer, conservation chair of the Black Hills Sierra Club. […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Extinction was the message
In the heart of Boise, Idaho, close to 100 “salmon” recently tried to run a faux gantlet of four “dams,” mimicking the difficulties of real-life migration for salmon and smolts swimming the Snake River to the Pacific Ocean. Costumed volunteers played the salmon and the Snake River dams: Lower Granite, Little Goose, Lower Monumental and […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Wilderness becomes a career path
The Forest Service is about to give designated wilderness the bureaucratic attention it deserves, according to Jim Lyons, the nation’s front-line politician overseeing the agency. The Forest Service is creating a new Washington, D.C.-based job, national director of wilderness, which “will be on a par with other program managers, such as timber, range and minerals,” […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Caribou population still too small
Since the woodland caribou in Montana’s Selkirk Mountains were listed as an endangered species in 1983, the caribou population has more than doubled, from 23 animals to 50. But without intensive management by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Selkirk’s caribou are doomed, says David Tallmon, a biologist at the University of Montana. The […]
Posted inNovember 14, 1994: Land grant universities
Fall damps fires of ’94
The arrival of autumn rain and snow brought relief to the West’s firefighters. The summer of 1994 has been the most intense fire season in memory, according to the federal fire center in Boise, Idaho. Nationwide, 3.9 million acres burned this year, nearly twice the yearly average from 1989 to 1993. It was not the […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Maulings: More grizzlies feeling more stress
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. – When hunting guide Nate Vance left his tent in the early morning darkness he quickly realized that the figure moving heavy logs off the food cooler was not the cook. “I heard a “woof” and I smelled that awful breath,” Vance says. “I knew I had stepped into a bad situation. […]
Posted inOctober 31, 1994: Water for the taking
Utah vandalism includes spiked trees
In late September a nervous-sounding caller warned a secretary in the Fish Lake National Forest office in Richfield, Utah, that the Deep Creek timber sale had been spiked. The 66-acre sale northwest of Capitol Reef National Park hadn’t generated much controversy, but loggers who inspected after the phone call said they found many metal spikes. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Organizing citizens for the next 20 years
-Where do citizen activists go from here?” asks the 20th anniversary issue of The Workbook, published by the Albuquerque-based Southwest Research and Information Center. Varying answers come from 19 veteran activists whose essays appear in this special 47-page issue. In New Mexico, Maria Varela says empowering land-based communities to develop their economies is the answer […]