Early in 1993, some Oregon folks who shared little but a fierce love for their valley met to talk things over on Jack Shipley’s deck high above the Applegate River. Dwain Cross, owner of an Ashland logging company, wondered if there was a way the federal government could resume selling timber despite court injunctions blocking […]
Wildlife
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
Yellowstone fires produce new trees, not meadows
Crouched over a metal screen like a gold rush prospector and peering through its grid at the forest floor, Cindi Persichetty calls out what she sees through each square-inch opening: “Line four: moss, moss, litter, seedling, seedling, seedling.” Another Idaho State University graduate student, Mike O’Hara, sits on a log recording the findings on a […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
As salmon die, a traveler plants seeds of rage
McCALL, Idaho – Another 1,000 miles, another month gone by. As relentless as the wild salmon he hopes to save, Charles Ray climbs into his weathered brown truck and each month travels about the same distance the fish must navigate between the Pacific Ocean and their spawning grounds in central Idaho. Many of his work […]
Posted inOctober 17, 1994: As elections near, green hopes wilt
A creeping plague of crickets is hitched to everything in the world
There have been a few times when my love of nature has been put to the test: a July 4 snowstorm that trapped me in a tent for three days, a two-month bout with poison oak, a gnat attack in Utah. The Mormon cricket plague was no exception. The outbreak began in 1981 in Dinosaur […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Yellowstone makes bragging hazardous …
Poachers may want to avoid Yellowstone National Park this fall. Rangers have begun photographing the park’s most spectacular wildlife so that pictures are available if the animals are killed and their heads mounted as trophies. “This way, if we find that poachers have gotten one of these animals, we know exactly what to look for […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
… As park poacher holds on to trophies
A professional bowhunter who admitted poaching protected elk in Yellowstone National Park for nine years may get to keep his spoils. Federal prosecutors say they will not press Donald E. Lewis to hand over his illegal animal trophies to the government, as mandated by a plea bargain Lewis and his hunting partner, Arthur Sims, agreed […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Hikers can bear grizzlies
Restoring grizzly bears to Washington’s North Cascades and Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot ecosystems won’t interfere with hunters, hikers or horseback riders, says a conservation group in Bellingham, Wash. The group, Greater Ecosystem Alliance, examined closures of trails and campgrounds caused by grizzlies in 11 national forests and two national parks. All had little effect on recreation. Blocked […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
One down, three to go
Following the belief that conservation, like charity, begins at home, Ecotrust was founded three years ago in Oregon to save temperate rain forests in North America. The organization chose four rain forests to concentrate on. Now, thanks to a Canadian timber company, it can devote its resources to the three rain forests still at risk. […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
Forest Service accomplishes appeal-proof timber sales
The Forest Service says it has improved the procedure by which citizens can appeal timber sales, but in the agency’s Northern Region, citizens have reason to suspect the opposite. Since the Forest Service revised its procedures in January, 23 citizen appeals have been filed against timber sales in the region. Only one has been upheld. […]
Posted inOctober 3, 1994: Subdividing the desert: Should there be a vote?
An agency icon at 50
CAPITAN, N.M. – Dear Boys and Girls: I’m writing this letter in a beautiful forest where Smokey Bear was born. I came because I’d read that he turned 50 years old in August, and I wanted to see his old stomping grounds. You won’t believe what I found. First of all, everything is named after […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Return of Compound 1080?
One of the most lethal poisons ever used in the West’s war on predators may be staging a comeback. President Richard Nixon banned Compound 1080 in 1972 following its widespread misuse and the death of untold numbers of birds, animals and even humans. Now the Texas Department of Agriculture wants the EPA to allow its […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Hawk sees opportunity, snatches it
Taking a nap on the rocky banks of the Flathead River in Montana can be dangerous, especially if a snake has the same idea. When hiker Bill Gustafson, 17, of Columbia Falls took a break to snooze in the sun July 5, he fell asleep bare-chested. A non-poisonous garter snake then slithered onto his warm […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Plenty of room in Colorado
A report released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says Colorado can support at least 1,128 wolves. The agency studied seven national forests and their surrounding public and private lands, and determined that Colorado’s abundant elk and deer herds would not only sustain wolves but also discourage them from killing livestock. The report estimates […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Flame and blame in the Northwest
Loggers urge fire sales
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Ambitious ecosystem management advances east
WALLA WALLA, Wash. – The ground rules are posted in prominent view of everybody in the room: Be courteous. No verbal or personal attacks. It might sound like seventh grade, but this meeting is for grown-ups. The leaders of the nation’s most ambitious experiment in ecosystem management are taking questions from an audience of timber […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Shame and threats impel Eastside plan
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories, Ambitious ecosystem management advances east. A range of pressures – political scientific, and legal – shifted inland, over the crest of the Cascade Mountains, during the past year and a half, bringing leviathan ecosystem management with them. The two regions on opposite sides […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Wolf provokes inadvertent howlers
Never before have so many citizens had so much to say about a federal project: bringing wolves back to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho later this fall. By the time comment-taking ended this year on an environmental impact statement about the plan, 160,264 people had put their opinions on paper. Reactions were generally strident, […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Lawsuits may prey on wolf plans
Bringing wolves back to the West could hit a snag as both ranchers and environmentalists say they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Wilderness Society, Idaho Conservation League, Sierra Club and four other environmental groups notified Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt Sept. 7 that they will sue the agency within 60 days unless […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Around Glacier Park, it’s every predator for itself
On the edge of Glacier National Park, the North Fork of the Flathead River flows through the wildest ecosystem in the continental United States. It’s the only place in the continental U.S. where mountain lions, gray wolves and grizzly bears share habitat – along with black bears, coyotes, lynx, wolverines, whitetail and mule deer, elk, […]
Posted inSeptember 19, 1994: Flame and blame in the Northwest
Eco-vandalism: Alien trout play havoc in Yellowstone
The ecological balance of the continent’s largest high-elevation lake – the pristine jewel of Yellowstone National Park – is threatened by an invasion of alien trout. And it seems to be no accident – the alien trout were likely slipped into Yellowstone Lake by anglers seeking to start a stock of catchable trophy fish. “An […]