Consumers and scholars alike find themselves adrift in a sea of contested claims about the state of oceans, fisheries, and fish. It is a symptom of an era in which we are overwhelmed by the pace and scope of change. We are utterly reliant on complex systems to supply both the commodities that sustain our […]
Wildlife
Posted inGoat
Wolverines in the Wallowas
After almost two decades of silence, the North American wolverine (Gulo gulo) is confirmed to be back on the prowl in the mountains of Oregon. Two of the feisty carnivores, dubbed “Iceman” and “Stormy,” were caught on remote camera feasting on hunks of bait meat in the Wallowa Mountains — the first verified wolverine sightings […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Today’s garden plants can be tomorrow’s invasives
On a misty summer morning, ecologist Christy Brigham sinks down to the sand at Point Mugu State Park, part of the patchwork of federal, state and private lands in Los Angeles County’s Santa Monica Mountains. She watches a darkling beetle forage among rare dune plants — lacy, lavender sand verbenas and beach primroses, which resemble […]
Posted inGoat
More desert tortoises found at Mojave solar project
On Friday, April 15, the Bureau of Land Management issued a notice ordering the “immediate temporary suspension of activities” for part of the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station construction site in the Mojave Desert (see HCN story “High Noon,” May 9, 2009). The reason: More desert tortoises, a federally threatened species, have been found in […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
A textbook recovery
This letter is in response to an online-only piece from our community blog, the Range, entitled: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? You’d be hard-pressed to find a biologist who would characterize the Northern Rockies wolf population as anything other than recovered. This is a textbook case of how recovery is supposed to work. […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Gone wolf-crazy
This letter is in response to an online-only piece from our community blog, the Range, entitled: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? As an ecologist, it’s frustrating to see so many folks so wolf-crazy. Don’t get me wrong: I like wolves. I remember all the times I’ve seen wolves fondly. But, as Smith says, […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
Quit yer whinin’
This letter is in response to an online-only piece from our community blog, the Range, entitled: Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? In all the years that this hysteria against wolves has gone on and escalated, it’s impossible not to conclude that it comes from some really scary (and scared) pathology, an atavistic enmity […]
Posted inMay 2, 2011: The Westerner in D.C
The “ribbit” heard ’round the world
Your piece on the Pacific chorus frog was a nice tribute to this amphibian survivor and its champions (HCN, 3/21/2011). Mention of its “ribbits” — only males call — deserves amplification. In 1951, Stanford University professor George Myers published an article in which he noted how the movie industry had spread the call of this […]
Posted inGoat
Western pine beetles munch eastward
Now that the mountain pine beetle has chewed through some 70,000 square miles of forest in the western States and Canada, it seems the voracious pest is expanding its palate. Beetles in Canada were recently discovered attacking jack pines (Pinus banksiana) for the first time, a break from their usual diet of lodgepole (Pinus contorta), […]
Posted inRange
Colorado may extend bear season
Colorado’s official state mammal is the bighorn sheep, but if you go by which wild critter gets the most attention from state government lately, it would be the black bear. In 1992, state voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative which eliminated the spring bear-hunting season by outlawing bear hunting between March 1 and Sept. 1. The […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Critter contraceptives
In the 1960s, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service researchers used hormone-laced bait to prevent New Mexico coyotes, the “little bad guys of the Western Plains,” from reproducing so effectively. It worked pretty well: Up to 80 percent of treated females didn’t get pregnant. But those females had to consume meds repeatedly throughout the breeding cycle, […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Don’t plant a pest
Some of the worst invasive ornamental plants, where they’re found in California and their ecological damage rating Giant reed, ArundoFound in: Riparian areas; central west, great valley, northwest, Sierra Nevada, southwest, Sonoran and Mojave deserts.Ecological damage rating: High Fountain grassFound in: Coastal dunes and scrub, chaparral, grasslands; central west, great valley, southwest, Mojave and Sonoran […]
Posted inApril 18, 2011: Muddy Waters
Scapegoating Sarah
Folks like to bash Sarah Palin because she is well-known and an easy target, but predator control was going on in Alaska way before Sarah became governor (HCN, 2/21/11). As the chairman of the Alaska Board of Game, I would like people to realize that predator control in Alaska is driven by state statutes that […]
Posted inRange
Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf?
By Heather Hansen, Red Lodge Clearing House As darkness blanketed the land, two cunning predators made their move. Their thirst for blood was intense and, when the opportunity presented itself, they sunk their canines into the soft underbelly of their prey. This eager hunting pair–Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID)–have doggedly pursued […]
Posted inGoat
Sea lions to the slaughter?
Every spring, hungry California sea lions rendezvous in the Columbia River at the base of the Bonneville Dam for an endangered salmon smorgasbord. After swimming 140 miles up river to the dam, some 100 sea lions munched over 6,000 salmon at the dam last year, about 2 percent of salmon and steelhead runs going through […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Bear opens bear-proof locker
CALIFORNIA The black bears that call Yosemite National Park home are legendary for their smarts. They’ve honed efficient methods of ripping the doors off minivans, and they can skillfully yank open refrigerators. That’s why campers at the park must remove all food and other bear attractants and put them in “bear-proof” lockers that are so […]
Posted inRange
Dam removal and salmon science
Pacific salmon face grim times. The plight of Canada’s Fraser River sockeye has fixated fishers, scientists, and the state for decades. Concern has grown since the 1990s as annual runs went from bad to frightening, but then last summer’s run was bafflingly great. The Canadian government federal government in Ottawa formed the Cohen Commission in […]
Posted inGoat
Foal control
Nevada hosts more than half — about 17,700 — of the 33,700 wild horses that roam around federal lands. But Bureau of Land Management rangeland scientists estimate the state can support only 12,700 horses and burros. And if left alone, wild horse herds typically grow 20 percent annually, doubling in size every four years. “We […]
Posted inWotr
Botanical barbarians are waging the real “war on the West”
If the phrase “war on weeds” seems over the top, consider this: Noxious weeds infest over 100 million acres of North America — an area roughly the size of Montana. Like it or not, we’re engaged in a battle to win back the Western landscape. Weeds now conquer more than 3 million acres each year, […]
Posted inMarch 21, 2011: Big Beef
Pacific chorus frogs make urban comeback
As dusk fell one spring evening in 2003, a small group of volunteers crawled along a creek bank, searching among tall grasses, under piles of decaying garbage and in stagnant puddles for gelatinous clutches of eggs. The Port of San Francisco was about to build a new bridge over Islais Creek Channel on the city’s […]