Supporters hope to try out a revolutionary design on I-70.
Wildlife
Posted inGoat
Sexy wildflower photos remind us to take in life’s details
Tim Crawford – an all-around maverick and High Country News subscriber in Bozeman, Mont. – has been doing photography for conservation groups, magazines, books and other purposes for more than 50 years. Now he’s debuting a series of close-ups of “Wild & Feral Flowers,” including this Mexican hat (also called the prairie coneflower) and musk […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Gnawing away at invasives
Only 3.2 percent of the 50 million federally owned acres overrun with invasive weeds were treated in 2009. That puts infested land on track to double by 2019. Meanwhile, some conservationists suggest a more palatable strategy: Eat the invaders that are devouring our ecosystems. Unfortunately, some of the West’s most insidious aliens, like tamarisk, may […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
New study questions how Greater Yellowstone bears are counted
Uncertainty over the health of grizzly population arises as officials consider removing it from the Endangered Species list.
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
The Latest: Fish & Wildlife to shoot thousands of barred owls
BackstoryAfter the northern spotted owl hit the endangered species list in 1990, recovery plans focused on curtailing logging in its old-growth habitat. But when the population failed to bounce back, biologists began to consider removing barred owls, a similar Eastern species that’s been invading the spotted owl’s Pacific Northwestern territory. A 2008 recovery plan, later […]
Posted inWotr
When young falcons take their cliff jump
People who study peregrine falcons wake up early. It’s hard to roll out of the sack at 4 a.m., well before the summer sun comes up, but over the years I’ve done so gladly, privileged to join several early-bird researchers in western Colorado’s Black Canyon National Park. In July, the eggs have long since hatched […]
Posted inArticles
Identifying ‘killer trees’ in Sequoia National Park
In the middle of August, I visit a backcountry campground in California’s Sequoia National Park to survey trees. Two teenage boys nap while their fathers roam the nearby woods, looking for firewood. I introduce myself as a forestry technician and mention that a dying white fir is leaning over one of their tents. Dropping my […]
Posted inArticles
The Latest: battles in the West’s bitter wild horse wars
BackstoryThe 37,000 wild horses roaming the West’s public lands strain ecosystems, ranches and taxpayers alike. Despite fertility drugs designed to lessen their numbers, today, more mustangs live in captivity than in the wild, costing the Bureau of Land Management about $76 million annually. Slaughter and hunting may be the clearest solutions, but public outrage makes […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
Can we save Mojave desert tortoises by moving them out of harm’s way?
Feds aim to save threatened tortoises by relocating them away from development
Posted inGoat
Bear hair study in Banff proves animal highway crossings work
For three years, researchers from Montana State University spent their summers collecting bear hair. The samples, collected on both sides of the 50 mile stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway that cuts through Banff National Park, prove what the researchers had suspected: wildlife underpasses and bridges were helping enough bears move back and forth across the […]
Posted inWotr
Wolves still need our protection
As a society, how far are we willing to go and what are we willing to sacrifice to preserve the wild?
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A timeline of the desert tortoise’s slow and steady decline
Because the desert tortoise’s Mojave range is largely on federal land, conservationists believe the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) should have better managed the animal’s recovery once it was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1989. Instead, the species has steadily declined. 1976 Bureau of Land Management establishes 40-square-mile Desert Tortoise Natural Area in […]
Posted inAugust 5, 2013: Mojave Squeeze
A review of Animal Crackers
Animal Crackers The Brothers Kraynak 48 pages, softcover: $19.95. The Brothers Kraynak, 2013. animalcrackersbook.wix.com/animal-crackers With its colorful illustrations and hand-lettered look, Animal Crackers resembles a children’s book — until you look more closely and realize it’s far from a soothing bedtime read. The Brothers Kraynak, Scott, a visual artist and park ranger, and his brother, […]
Posted inGoat
Can feeding bears in the backcountry reduce bear-human conflict?
It’s been a hairy summer in New Mexico. In late June, a black bear attracted by birdfeeders tore into a tent at a campsite near Raton. The two women inside managed to escape and scare the bear off with their car alarm. Earlier that month, north of Cimarron, a 400-lb bear clawed its way into […]
Posted inGoat
Wildfire and sedimentation could help Gila trout make a comeback
After the nearly 300,000-acre Whitewater-Baldy fire tore through the Gila Wilderness last summer, biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service geared up for a trek into the freshly burnt mountains. The team traveled to remote tributaries of the Gila River to collect any Gila trout, one of New Mexico’s […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Book review: A Natural History of the Santa Catalinas, Arizona
A Natural History of the Santa Catalinas, Arizona. Richard C. Brusca and Wendy Moore, 232 pages, softcover: $24.95. Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Press, 2013. The Santa Catalina Mountains in southeast Arizona “easily become a good friend,” writes philosopher Bill Broyles in the introduction to this new book by two Southwest naturalists. A Natural History explores the […]
Posted inJune 24, 2013: Water Rights
Saving Alaska from itself
When will it end (“Trouble in the valley of the eagles,” HCN, 5/27/13)? Always more mines, more development, more human impact, less habitat. For every new mine, and new gas or oil well, how about a new protected reserve to mitigate all the “take,” so we humans do not impact every place? Alaska is called […]
Posted inWotr
Wild, free and out of control
“In my world, everyone’s a pony, and they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies.” So proclaims cat-like creature Katie in the movie version of Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who. Sharing Katie’s world are feral-horse support groups — whose members number in the millions — and NBC, which regularly recycles their fantasies. For example, on May […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
An exterminator in land manager’s clothing
As an outdoorsman, environmentalist and hunter I personally find Neil LaRubbio’s notion that Ryan Counts deserves to hunt apex predators because he’s an experienced hunter a stretch (“When predator is prey,” HCN, 5/13/13). I sport fish, but I don’t feel I “deserve” to hunt and kill sharks, and I don’t fish for them. If folks […]