In New Mexico, a natural gas boom pits industrial-grade noise against birds
Wildlife
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Welcome back, otter
Kitchi, a male river otter, escaped from Colorado Springs’ Cheyenne Mountain Zoo this past May when he deftly pulled apart the mesh wire on his outdoor enclosure. Zookeepers pursued him through a culvert with a robotic camera, but failed to catch him. He is still on the loose, perhaps living in nearby Fountain Creek. Kitchi’s […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Ready … or not
Until that Monday, I’d never caused a death. Maybe I still haven’t, but I don’t know for sure, and the vision of it keeps rearing up in my mind. I was bathing tired feet in snowmelt waters after hours of walking in the wildflower havens of the Elk Mountains. The alpine meadows teemed with columbines […]
Posted inGoat
Insect to Injury?
With plenty of doomsday hysteria circulating about the destruction of western forests from the mountain pine beetle epidemic, the U.S. Forest Service is attempting to allay fears about another beetle on the rise – a 2mm-long twig beetle, Pityogenes plagiatus knechteli, that’s killing younger trees in mountain pine beetle-affected areas throughout Colorado and Wyoming. First […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2010: The Fiery Touch
The Latest
StoryA biologist finds what she believes to be wolf scat and tracks on a ranch in northwestern Colorado (HCN, 2/15/10) Followup Cristina Eisenberg, an Oregon State University doctoral student employed by the High Lonesome Ranch, collected 18 scat samples for DNA analysis. Now, the results are in: 11 samples were from coyotes, or had preliminary […]
Posted inAugust 2, 2010: The Fiery Touch
The drift dweller
Colorado scientists track the ubiquitous mountain snow mold
Posted inGoat
One tough trout
Here’s the bad news: No fish has ever made it off the endangered species list without going extinct. And the good news: the Apache trout, an Arizona native, may soon become the first. Soon, in this case, is a relative term. The trout’s imminent delisting has been reported since at least 2007, but before it […]
Posted inRange
The meaning of marmot whistles
How about replacing Groundhog Day with a Feb. 2 Marmot Day?
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Seeing the triceratops for the trees
Kirk Johnson combines science and art to create an ancient landscape
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Dust takes a toll
Soil in the West’s air disrupts health, snow cover, even rainfall
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
It’s the science, not the numbers
Hal Herring’s recent article on wolf hunts mischaracterizes Defenders of Wildlife’s position as supporting a population goal of 450 wolves per state, when we do not in fact seek such a target (HCN, 5/10/10). It’s tempting to try to come up with a number of wolves that all stakeholders can agree on, in hopes of […]
Posted inJuly 19, 2010: The Ute Paradox
Native fish vs. native Americans
In reading the issue of June 7, I was rather shocked by the disparity of funding for programs covered. In particular, $120 million for razorback suckers and $1.4 million to help Native Americans integrate into the modern school system. Leon JonesOgden, Utah This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline […]
Posted inGoat
Shutting down the batcave
Like some nightmarish scene from a horror film, bats have been dying by the millions from a pervasive, infectious fungus that causes white-nose syndrome. As Madeline Bodin relates in her recent HCN story “Bracing for White-Nose Syndrome” the fungus looks like powder on the faces and wings of bats and kills them by driving them […]
Posted inRange
The Mojave National Preserve Conservancy
Chris Clarke could see the entire northern part of the Mojave National Preserve from the summit of Kessler Peak. Light from that magical hour around sunset highlighted distant mountains and ridgelines. The view was spectacular. But as the sun dipped below the horizon he realized the path he’d taken to climb to the top was […]
Posted inGoat
Jumping (to) the gun
There may be no verified wolves, yet, in Colorado, but you bet there are in the Beaver State. In the arid northeast corner of Oregon, two packs totaling 14 wolves have appeared and, of late, they’ve been worrying the locals. “You’ve got essentially a social experiment here,” Wallowa County Sheriff Fred Steen told the Oregonian […]
Posted inArticles
Shadowing fishermen’s nets with a robot sub
New research sheds light on life at 90 fathoms
Posted inJune 21, 2010: Immersed in the Wild
An infestation of the imagination, in a bark beetle lab
Trucker trades the open road for beetle research
Posted inGoat
Wile E. wins again
In February, I reported for High Country News on the possible evidence of wolves at the High Lonesome Ranch, an enormous ranch in northwestern Colorado owned by Texas attorney Paul Vahldiek, Jr. During visits over a seven-month period, biologist Cristina Eisenberg, an Oregon State University doctoral student employed by the ranch, had collected scat and seen […]
Posted inRange
Wolf case highlights need for collaboration
Sometimes no news is good news, so I’ll count last week’s relatively uneventful oral arguments as a boon for continued wolf recovery efforts in the northern Rockies. But the mood both inside and outside the U.S. district courthouse in Missoula shows there’s still much work to be done to ensure sustainable wolf management in the […]