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 […]
Wildlife
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
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
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 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 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
When are trapped wolves “taken’?
The Bozeman-based Predator Project has asked the federal Animal Damage Control agency to stop trapping coyotes after a gray wolf was found dead in a trap on a Montana ranch. The wolf, which had wandered from a pack in Glacier National Park, died from overheating in late August. Wolves in Montana are protected under the […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Salmon win again (in court)
Although endangered Snake River salmon appear to be losing their battle with extinction, they continue to win in court. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 9 that the Northwest Power Planning Council’s plan for restoring Snake River salmon gives too much to industrial interests and too little to tribal and state biologists, reports […]
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 […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Timber industry takes a stand
Stung by the Sierra’s Club’s book, Clearcut, the timber industry has struck back with a glossy 28-page rebuttal. Closer Look: An On-the-Ground Investigation of the Sierra Club’s Book, Clearcut, makes the case that clearcutting can improve forest health. The Sierra Club’s 1993 book presented aerial photographs of nearly 100 denuded sites to represent the industry’s […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Wilderness Act at 30
Is there a difference between a wilderness in a national park and a wilderness in a national forest? Why are cows and sheep allowed to graze in wilderness? Are airports permitted? The Wilderness Act Handbook, reissued by The Wilderness Society, aims to answer these and other questions about this country’s 96 million acre National Wilderness […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Uncontrollable coyote
For Wayne Grady, it was on a cold, clear night in eastern Ontario, Canada, when he heard coyotes howling: “The sounds seemed to tremble on the verge of language, to be, almost literally, the voice of the wilderness.” This recollection introduces The World of the Coyote, a glossy book about the canine’s habits and history. […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Come into the forest
-Nature is not only more complex than we think; it is even more complex than we can think,” said biologist Frank Egler, whose observation is one of dozens of quotations gracing a new, permanent exhibit at the High Desert Museum in Bend, Ore. Called The Changing Forest, the exhibit features ceiling-high trees and indoor and […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Witness
-Each species is a masterpiece,” says biologist and writer E.O. Wilson in his introduction to Witness: Endangered Species of North America, a large-format book of 200 stunning black-and-white and color portraits. Photographers Susan Middleton and David Littschwager collaborated with the California Academy of Sciences and Chronicle Books to produce this collection, to try to focus […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Bambi takes a hunter safety course
Hey kids, remember when Bambi’s mother got blown away by the hunter? Tom Storm does, and because movies like Bambi have given hunters a bad name, he wants to teach people who don’t hunt all about the role hunters play caring for wildlife. In his book Stormy and The New West, Storm shows Stormy the […]