The gigantic Wallow fire now searing Arizona and New Mexico has burned a lot of things, including several thousand acres of habitat for the threatened Mexican spotted owl (not to be confused with its more notorious cousin, the Northern spotted owl, once blamed for the demise of logging in the Northwest). Now, the U.S. Fish […]
Wildlife
Posted inRange
How Bark-Beetle Infestations Could Intensify Spring Runoff
By Matthew H. Davis As the spring runoff leaves behind a trail of destruction in parts of the the northern Rockies, a new University of Colorado study points to how beetle-infested trees—which have affected more than 4 million acres in Colorado and southern Wyoming alone—could lead to deeper snowpack and speed up snowmelt in the […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
Not just wolf whiplash
I, a former advocate for wolf re-introduction, am suffering a severe case of wolf whiplash (HCN, 5/30/11). It’s sad, considering how much time, money and effort I have invested in wildlife and habitat conservation. I have lost all trust in those who live by the courts, and have no tolerance for groups who know lawyers […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
Thank the lawyers, Part I
Hal Herring’s wolf article is most welcome (HCN, 5/30/11). Western land-use reform was only a remote hope before lawsuits leveled the playing field. Those of you thinking nice collaborations are the way to go now have militant lawyers to thank if you succeed. You had better hope they continue, albeit with a bit more prudence. […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
Thank the lawyers, Part II
In Hal Herring’s reconstruction, the lawsuits environmental groups filed are the prime cause of anti-wolf sentiments (HCN, 5/30/11). I’m skeptical. Herring implies that if the “hard-line” groups had gone along with the Obama administration, Old West folks would have accepted the wolf. I count as friends many Old West farmers, ranchers and loggers. Their visceral […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
A long and studied road
By focusing on the controversy of the Clinton, Bush and Obama years, Hal Herring allows us to forget that Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in ’73 (HCN, 5/30/11). The Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery Team worked through Jimmy Carter’s term. Ronald Reagan was in office when the Recovery Plan was signed. George H.W. […]
Posted inJune 27, 2011: Hydrofracked?
‘Armchair naysayers’
HCN has once again provided Hal Herring with a forum to promote his personal views on conservation (HCN, 5/30/11). Though little emphasized by Herring, the complete lack of cooperation by Wyoming to support recovery, along with the embryonic wolf populations in Oregon and Washington, has created a difficult situation for legal and balanced application of […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Lucy the Desert Cat
Among my most sulfurous and vitriolic Rants–those far too profane to grace this page–are those inspired by my family’s housecat, Lucy. Those of you who follow these Rants know that I live in wild country, at high elevation, with terrible weather, and surrounded by a spate of voracious predators of every stripe. This is hardly […]
Posted inGoat
Antelope as indicators
When the first winter storms buried northeast Montana last November, the thousands of pronghorn antelope that spent the summer around the state’s border with Alberta and Saskatchewan started making their way south. Normally, they move into the north side of the state’s Milk River valley and find enough sagebrush sticking out of the snow to […]
Posted inWotr
Ordinary wild
The cougar looks thin, his narrow belly dragging close to the ground as he slinks along. Paws as big as saucers on the oil-spotted concrete. Mouth agape in a terrified pant below wild, shifting eyes. Shifting at cars that whoosh by, shifting at men who flicker at the edge of his vision – some pursuing, […]
Posted inGoat
Fire and ice
Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice. Those opening lines of the old Robert Frost poem seem to apply to the West’s public lands this spring. As out-of-control wildfires scorch the Southwest, more northerly regions are still waiting for the snow to finish melting; both problems are shutting down forest access. […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
God bless the “dickybird fellows”
I guess I’m really naive: I thought the only way environmentalists had ever gained any substantial ground in protecting places or species was by starting at the far-left extreme (HCN, 5/30/11). Unfortunately, if it wasn’t for “dickybird fellows” — as Professor Emeritus Valerius Geist from the University of Calgary called environmentalists in Hal Herring’s story […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
More Wolf side effects
One group that was not discussed in Hal Herring’s recent article on the delisting of wolves in the Northern Rockies were the non-ranching farmers, those who raise alfalfa, corn or other crops (HCN, 5/30/11). Elk damage to crops has been a serious issue in the West since elk numbers began recovering from overharvest years ago. […]
Posted inJune 13, 2011: Under the Flight Path
Whither the ESA?
Thank you to HCN and Hal Herring for the outstanding article on wolves (HCN, 5/30/11)! I saw my first bald eagle in the wild in 1982, my first black-footed ferret in 1983, my first lynx in 1978, and my first wolf in 1980. Due to increased public awareness of the importance of these species and […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
How the gray wolf lost its endangered status — and how enviros helped
Augusta, MontanaIn September of 1995, I worked on a trail-building crew along the edge of Little Blackfoot Meadows, in the Helena National Forest near Elliston, Mont. It was a big piece of roadless country, mostly lodgepole pines over a lush carpet of whortleberry bushes. The meadows were a sunburnt dun color, and the willows along […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
The One-Eyed Squirrel of Ooh-Aah Point
It was a mid-July morning during my fifth summer on Grand Canyon National Park’s trail crew, and I arrived at the worksite on the South Kaibab Trail to find an old woman — memory casts her with doughy white skin and frumpy teal-colored clothes — perched on a rock on the side of the trail. […]
Posted inGoat
Ordinary wild
The cougar looks thin, his narrow belly dragging close to the ground as he slinks along. Paws as big as saucers on the oil-spotted concrete. Mouth agape in a terrified pant below wild, shifting eyes. Shifting at cars that whoosh by, shifting at men who flicker at the edge of his vision — they’re clearly […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Richard Reynolds, raptor man
The main cabin at Big Springs Field Station in northern Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest isn’t the prettiest; there’s paint chipping from the floors and mouse poop in the corners. But the decorations cost about $9 million and took 20 years to collect. Oversized graphs, tables, maps and aerial photos crowd each other for wall space. […]
Posted inMay 30, 2011: Wolf Whiplash
Wolverines in unexpected places
On April 17, biologist Audrey Magoun and husband Pat Valkenburg discovered intriguing tracks in Oregon’s snowy Wallowa Mountains. Five days later, Magoun downloaded photos from a remote camera and realized the creature had company: Two hungry wolverines stared back from her screen, gnashing hunks of bait meat. It’s the first confirmed evidence of Oregon wolverines […]