In an odd twist on modern economics, conservationists want to use the savings and loan debacle to protect the largest privately owned old-growth redwood grove in the world. The 3,000-acre Headwaters Forest of northern California is owned by Pacific Lumber, which was a family business until it was taken over in 1985 by junk bond […]
Wildlife
Posted inJune 27, 1994: Home, home on the range ... where neo-Nazis and skinheads roam
A life to fry for: hot on the trail of bighorn
Night slides down the mountainside, and the temperature in the Tule Desert sinks to 108 in the shade. A bighorn sheep 50 yards away gawks at me while I nervously work down a steep stone slope. I can see amusement in her big, dumb eyes. Suddenly, my backpack nicks a boulder. I hear a horrible […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
The Chapman saga continues
The U.S. Forest Service, with approval from Secretary of Agriculture Jim Lyons, has signed a deed of trust with Colorado developer Tom Chapman. The deal gives Chapman 105 acres of federal land near the Telluride Ski Area in return for Chapman’s 240 acre inholding in the West Elk Wilderness near Paonia. Chapman must also remove […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Oil, feathers and EPA
Thousands of birds flying across the Western plains each year fatally mistake oil pits for bodies of water. Once the birds land, their feathers become coated and they die. In its first attempt to address the problem, the Environmental Protection Agency recently fined Texaco Refining and Marketing Inc. and four other companies $300,000 and ordered […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Agency takes out a cabin
Jerry Holliday wasn’t pleased when he found out that Forest Service workers blasted down the walls of his cinderblock cabin in southern Utah’s Manti-La Sal National Forest. “Hell, you just don’t blow somebody’s property up and walk away,” Holliday told the Salt Lake Tribune. Holliday and co-owners Gene and Kenny Shumway had built the cabin […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Wolves in the schools
The superintendent of Wyoming’s Fremont County School District recently canceled wolf presentations at three elementary schools in Lander. Wild Sentry, a Montana-based wolf education program, has successfully taught thousands of kids in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho about the controversy and stereotypes surrounding the animal. But when area ranchers learned the program was coming to town, […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Trail volunteers rewarded
The Adopt-a-Trail program, a national effort to recruit volunteers to help maintain thousands of miles of public trails, has taken off in southeastern Idaho. Participation has increased by 200 percent since 1992, in large part because of Michael Bargelski, an artist who lives in Idaho Falls. Each person who “adopts’ three miles of trail in […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Guide for green loggers
The Forest Trust, a non-profit group in Santa Fe, says logging doesn’t have to flatten forests. In a new publication, the group describes the work of more than 30 groups that both provide jobs and conserve resources in rural communities. Forest-Based Rural Development Practitioners features mainly non-profit groups in California, New Mexico and eastern states, […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
A doomed species?
Spotted owl may be losing its long fight for survival
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Northwest forests hit by new lawsuits
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story, A doomed species? The fate of Northwest forests has been tied up in the courts since 1987, when the Portland Audubon Society sued the government for failing to address the possible extinction of the northern spotted owl. Although the suit was later thrown out of […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Old guard may beat new chief
JACKSON, Wyo. – A retired U.S. Forest Service supervisor urged agency personnel to move swiftly to transform an organization that has historically resisted change. Tom Kovalicky, who began his Forest Service career in Wyoming, said that Jack Ward Thomas, the controversial new Forest Service chief, “wants to change bad practices,” but may already be in […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Yellowstone gets new superintendent
In a shuffle of top national park managers, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Bob Barbee in late May found himself reassigned to the job of director in the agency’s Alaska region. Barbee, who had presided over Yellowstone for 11 years, had just finished building a house near Bozeman, Mont. As superintendent of one of the most […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Vandals destroy desert tortoise dens
As a vacation and retirement destination, southwestern Utah boasts a mild year-round climate and the world-famous Zion National Park. It’s also home to the most viable population of the Mojave desert tortoise, a creature threatened with extinction. For years biologists and environmentalists have been studying ways to keep the prehistoric reptile from succumbing to new […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Suit halts coyote killings
Suit halts coyote killings When the federal government refused to shoot coyotes from the air last year, ranchers in Idaho appealed to the state Department of Agriculture for help. The agency responded by issuing seven aerial permits to gunners, who killed 193 coyotes. This year was different: Idaho’s attorney general recently shut down the state’s […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Mushrooming business is curbed
The Forest Service has developed new rules to get a handle on the Northwest’s booming mushroom industry. During the last three years agency officials in Oregon and Washington have seen violent conflicts break out among pickers, as well as damage to forest lands (HCN, 6/28/93). Mike Rassbach, special forest products coordinator for the region, says […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
ADC must go
In the summer of 1992, Ruth Shea, an Idaho Fish and Game Department employee, was riding in the Caribou National Forest when she looked down and saw steel-jawed traps buried in the trail. Then she came upon the trapped and decayed bodies of two coyotes and a badger. “These traps appeared to have been set […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Saving the remnants
Of the 17 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Wyoming, 16 million acres have been developed and a “paltry 240,000 acres recommended for wilderness,” says Liz Howell, staffer in the Sierra Club’s Northern Plains office. Because these wild lands are being lost to dirt biking, oil and gas development and mining, […]
Posted inMay 30, 1994: Can mining come clean?
Dams spill water, salmon in Northwest
Faced with the lowest return of Snake River spring-summer chinook salmon in history, the National Marine Fisheries Service ordered water and salmon spilled over eight Columbia and Snake river dams May 10. The emergency measure, which was implemented immediately and will continue through June 20, drew praise from salmon advocates and criticism from industry groups […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
It ain’t Antioch
Male grizzly bears basically have two courting styles: find a female and guard her from other males; or, find one that is mating, chase the male away and take over. Those are the conclusions of “Do Big Mean Studs Get All the Action?” and “Why Are Deadbeat Dads Often Abusive?” two chapter titles Lance Craighead […]
Posted inMay 16, 1994: Babbitt is trying to nationalize the BLM
Woodlot owners at risk
-I know I’ll have to sue him,” says Ken Hopkins of Greenbluff, Wash., who is unhappy with a private logger who harvested trees on Hopkins’ woodlot. The dispute centers around the price for trees and environmental damages from improper logging, according to the Spokane Spokesman-Review. State officials in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Utah say […]