Regarding the commercialization of Arundo donax (giant reed) in Oregon: This is not an ideal approach to biomass production (HCN, 11/8/10). This huge invasive “grass” causes millions of dollars in damage to river systems here in California and elsewhere. Many conservationists and resource managers are extremely cautious about promoting the expansion of something that is […]
Wildlife
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – Desert cathedral
From HCN Flickr group contributor John Mumaw of Cortez, Colo., who writes: “The only cottonwood tree for miles around is nurtured and protected from a harsh environment by the cool, moist soil found in this unique, teardrop shaped sandstone alcove on the Utah/Arizona border. The hours I spent in here waiting for the light were […]
Posted inWotr
The healthiest landscapes are hidden
The healthiest wild lands in the nation cannot be found on recreation maps. The bushes in these secret spots aren’t littered with old toilet paper or empty beer cans; there are no crowds, no loud music and no admission fees. No motels, camp sites, toilets, souvenirs or asphalt paths. No gas stations, no boat ramps, […]
Posted inRange
HCN reader photo – Elk in Yellowstone
This week’s reader photo is of a bull elk in Yellowstone. Enjoy! This week’s reader photo comes from HCN Flickr community member Daryl L. Hunter, who shoots beautiful wildlife photos. Submit your own photos to our Flickr group!
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Forest Service tackles Idaho bighorn problem
Efforts to protect wild sheep from disease gain momentum
Posted inNovember 22, 2010: Hardrock Showdown
Not quite so SAD
Since at least 2004, sudden aspen decline, or SAD for short, has killed trees in five Western states in sweeping fashion. By 2008, in Colorado alone, more than a half million acres were afflicted. But after a few wet, cool years, the fatal phenomenon is finally relenting. “We’re pretty sure that the drought in 2002 […]
Posted inRange
Leave it to beaver?
By John Abbotts As we’ve noted before, scientists say that climate change could create quite a water supply problem east of the Cascades. Warmer winters are already melting mountain snows earlier in the spring, leaving streams and rivers short on water in mid-summer—just when the salmon, farms, and homes really need it. And many scientists […]
Posted inNovember 8, 2010: Dr. No
The windhover
Wildlife biologist Travis Booms tracks remote Alaska gyrfalcons
Posted inRange
Wolverine: Chasing the phantom
Rebecca Watters researches wolverines (gulos) and other large carnivores for the Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative. She recently lent her expertise and tracking skills to the new PBS documentary Wolverine, Chasing the Phantom. Here, she presents a review and overview of the film, which airs on PBS November 14, 2010. When PBS Nature called Gianna Savoie […]
Posted inRange
Counting Fish
Bruce Barcott’s essay last week in the online magazine Yale e360 reveals an interesting environmental paradox, one in which Pacific salmon might be both endangered and, simultaneously, too populous. As Barcott writes, “How can numerous Pacific salmon runs be on the verge of extinction while total salmon numbers are straining the limits of the ocean’s […]
Posted inGoat
Sharing the (reduced) bounty
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hasn’t made a secret of its preference for catch shares as a management tool for the nation’s fisheries. And Friday, the agency, which is headed by marine biologist and fishing quota proponent Jane Lubchenco, released a formal policy that pushes catch shares as the primary management tool for America’s […]
Posted inRange
A bear’s gotta eat
For the six months or so of the year that grizzly bears are active, they have one thing on their mind: food. And they need lots of it. To survive the long winter months of hibernation, a four- to six-hundred-pound adult grizzly bear must be constantly eating whenever it has the chance, a process known […]
Posted inGoat
Oh deer
For the last 10 years, Western Ecosystems Technology, Inc. — an environmental and statistical consulting group — has been studying the mule deer that winter on the Pinedale Anticline. Over the first four years of the study, But the latest data, just released in a new report [pdf], makes those increases look like a temporary […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Once I caught a fish thi-i-i-i-i-s big
UTAH There he was, an eight-point buck, stranded on a narrow ledge five feet above Lake Powell. What could two law enforcement officers — one from Utah, the other from the Glen Canyon National Monument — do? They didn’t want to tranquilize the mule deer, so after making it leap into the water, the two […]
Posted inRange
Rants from the Hill: Them! and Us
“Rants from the Hill” are Michael Branch’s monthly musings on life in the high country of Nevada’s western Great Basin desert. Some of you may be fortunate—or perhaps unfortunate—enough to recall the 1954 science fiction film Them!, which, much like Earth First!, had the audacity to include the exclamation point in its title. A classic […]
Posted inOctober 1, 2010: Dancing with Climate Change
The birds and the bee(tle)s
The end of a controversial tamarisk biocontrol program may be good news for habitat
Posted inRange
Feline justice
Life is full of many painful decisions, but ending a beloved pet’s life has got to be right up there among the worst. Last Saturday morning saw us staring at x-rays on a monitor in our vet’s office, dutifully listening to her description of the effects of fluid on the lungs and dreading where all […]
Posted inGoat
The woodpecker and the owl
How is a black-backed woodpecker like a spotted owl? Well, if an environmental group has its way, the woodpecker will join the owl as a species whose protection changes forest management on a broad scale. The spotted owl, which depends on old-growth forests, was federally listed as threatened in 1990. Subsequently, logging across the Northwest […]
Posted inGoat
A Wyoming wonder
In 1999, we published a feature story that followed biologist Jonathan Proctor around the northern Great Plains as he tried to convince ranchers that prairie dogs are beneficial for their land. Proctor’s a tall guy, but his task was undoubtedly taller, if not colossally unrealistic. Affectionately termed “range rats” by some, prairie dogs are one […]