Chip Ward, who used to write for High Country News, has just published an informative piece on wolf recovery in Yellowstone — essentially calling it a success story that nobody appears to want to take credit for. One interesting angle: Wolves improve the water supply. How? When there are no wolves to worry about, elk […]
Wildlife
Posted inRange
Native discovery could save important fish
The scientific discovery of an ancient stress hormone by a tribal member could lead to the survival of the most ancient of the native fish in the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific lamprey, an eel like fish that evolved more than 500 million years ago. David Close, Ph.D. is a Cayuse and a member of the […]
Posted inWotr
Some neighbors behave like boors
Every year, they break into hundreds of homes on the northwest shores of Lake Tahoe in California, and once inside, they leave destruction in their wake — not to mention piles of poop. Homeowners, frantic to protect their castles, employ elaborate schemes to thwart these powerful animals. They buy mechanical dogs that bark at anything […]
Posted inSeptember 3, 2010: Migration
Beyond beefalo
By the end of the 19th century, North America’s many millions of bison were reduced to just a few hundred. They’ve since recovered to around a half million, most raised as livestock and crossbred with cattle. Now conservationists manage over 60 herds, such as the one at the American Prairie Reserve in Montana, to restore […]
Posted inRange
Mystery Salmon
Pull up to any fish buying station in the Salish Sea and you will likely spy many stupid grins. The reason, as Mary Ellen Walling crowed last week, is that “The Sockeye are back!” The news is as good as it gets in this long suffering fishery. In the last few decades sockeye runs have […]
Posted inBlog
Adopt-a-gelding?
I’ve been thinking about horses lately. Actually, I think about horses a lot, often when I should be thinking about something else, like work. Usually my thoughts involve my eccentric gelding, Rex, and other horses that I know. However, some recent coverage of the wild horse roundups in Nevada and California has reminded me of […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2010: A Hell of an Anniversary
Up fur debate
Steel-jaws, conibears, snares: Endangered species and pets in the West have been injured and killed by these “body-gripping” traps, triggering a wave of recent public concern. After six Mexican wolves were hurt in New Mexico, leaving two with leg amputations (including AM871, alpha male of the Middle Fork Pack, captured by a trail cam at […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2010: A Hell of an Anniversary
Kind words for a much-maligned mammal
The Wolverine WayDouglas Chadwick278 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Patagonia Books, 2010. Wolverines do not have a romantic history. Early trappers and pioneers loathed these carnivores for their elusive, gnarly behavior. Tall tales were told about vicious, crotchety beasts hunting humans in the woods, and by the early part of the 20th century, traps and poisons had ravaged […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2010: A Hell of an Anniversary
Righteous gluttony
In the produce section of the grocery store the other day, I saw apricots on sale for 99 cents a pound. They sat in a bin between grapes from Chile and cherries from the Flathead Valley of Montana. I don’t know where the apricots came from. I selected six and put them in the shopping […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Murmuration intimidation
WASHINGTON A bank officer who has earned the title “Duck Man” did it again for the third year in a row in Spokane: He saved the day by helping ducks fly away. Joel Armstrong watched a nest outside his office window until he realized that the ducklings were itching to take off. But the little […]
Posted inRange
Spread of Bighorn Sheep Pneumonia Continues
By Jule Banville, NewWest.net guest blogger 8-23-10 The deadly spread of pneumonia in Montana’s bighorn sheep population picked up momentum west of Anaconda, where a hunter alerted Fish, Wildlife & Parks of possible disease in the Lost Creek population. Biologists killed four sheep and confirmed through lab work they were infected. FWP announced the latest […]
Posted inRange
From payment to prevention
Restoring wolves to their native habitat in the West hasn’t been easy. Some were opposed to the idea from the start, including ranchers who already viewed wild predators as a threat to their livelihoods. That’s why compensating ranchers for losses to wolves was an integral part of promoting tolerance, even before wolves were reintroduced. Wolves […]
Posted inAugust 16, 2010: Young, All-American, Illegal
Sound science
In New Mexico, a natural gas boom pits industrial-grade noise against birds
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?