Michelle Childers, 20, was driving along the Lochsa River near Kamiah, Idaho, with her husband, Daniel, 22, when a spruce tree crashed through the passenger-side window. When Daniel saw where the tree had gone, he started to panic, reports The Associated Press. “I asked him ‘What? Where is it?’ ” Childers said. Her husband answered, […]
Wildlife
Posted inWotr
Confessions of an off-road outlaw
By God, it was my right. No one could tell me I couldn’t chop new roads through national forest land with my off-road vehicle and my chainsaw. I paid my taxes. This land belonged to me. If a few trees had to be cut and some makeshift roads had to be opened, well, too bad. […]
Posted inGoat
Mules aren’t burros
Lately I’ve encountered two novels which annoyed me because they treated burro and mule as synonyms, which they are not. The most recent was Abandon, by Blake Crouch; the title of the other one does not leap to mind. Mules and burros are related, but they’re not the same animals. Start with the […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Shocking steps
“Wildlife officials are counting down the days” until black bears head for the high country to den up for the winter, reports the Aspen Times. It’s been an exasperating year, admits the state’s Division of Wildlife. The bears have grown ever smarter about breaking into Aspen homes, forcing open refrigerators and even — three times […]
Posted inRange
All Science is Political
Earlier this month, I was privileged to be part of a keynote panel at the 10th Biennial Conference for research on the Colorado Plateau. I chose, in part, to talk about the relationship of science and public policy making, because I had just finished writing an essay on that topic for the soon-to-be-published science assessment […]
Posted inGoat
Poisoned plains
When Kaput-D enters a rodent’s bloodstream, it causes the animal to bleed through several orifices. In a matter of weeks, the rodent might bleed through its skin, becoming weaker and more susceptible to predators. Last week, the Center for Biological Diversity submitted official comments to the Environmental Protection Agency against the pending approval of the […]
Posted inOctober 26, 2009: The newest Westerners
When cows are outlawed …
In a letter to the editor, rancher John Marble writes, “I doubt many items in the organic produce aisle are grown with as little environmental impact as our beef” (HCN, 9/14 & 9/28/09). A while back, I discovered a remarkable statistic: Making a pound of beef creates 36 times the greenhouse gas emissions that creating […]
Posted inGoat
The high risk of leaving home
Last week, federal agents shot a sheep-killing wolf in Wyoming. That male (266M), from a Montana litter born in 2007, was the sibling of a female wolf (341F) that wandered across Wyoming, Idaho and Utah last fall. This past March, she was found dead near the northern Colorado town of Rifle. Sadly, the littermates’ fates […]
Posted inGoat
Can salmon save themselves?
The Northwest’s Columbia River Basin stocks of iconic salmon have been the subject of a heated and expensive court battle for the past decade. Thirteen out of 16 stocks are listed as threatened or endangered thanks to a combination of factors including mining, farming, urban development and most significantly, lots of hydropower dams along the […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Foxy golfer
Why would a red fox collect golf balls? Nobody knows, but then again, nobody really knows why grown men walk around with sticks trying to wallop them. The fox in question lives in Steamboat Springs where it has become obsessed by Tom Houk’s backyard putting green. Houk, who likes to practice a few putts every […]
Posted inOctober 12, 2009: Silenced Springs?
Empty nest
Making a case for the California condor’s return to the Northwest
Posted inRange
HCN Reader Photo: A Still Moment at Navajo Arch
Fall, for me at least, is the time of still moments, of stepping back and watching silently as the light shifts and the colors change. This photo, by Flickr user juliaahbell, while black and white, seemed to capture that feeling perfectly. High Country News picks a reader photo each week (approximately) – join our Flickr […]
Posted inRange
Wolf victory still elusive
A recent opinion piece by Mike Medberry wisely suggested that there needs to be a reasonable middle ground in the deeply polemical attitudes toward managing wolves in the West. Unfortunately, this encouraging argument was followed by much of the same tired, politicized and oversimplified rhetoric, pitting environmental groups against the government and mischaracterizing the premise […]
Posted inGoat
Claws out for big cat protection
Macho B’s death, contentious and untimely, could also be criminal. The capture, collaring and euthanization of America’s last known wild jaguar in March was illegal, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, who brought a lawsuit against Arizona Game and Fish Department yesterday. The Center asserts that AZ Game and Fish did not have the […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
UnBEARable
An adventurous bear in Snowmass, Colo., didn’t need surgery, just a ladder. Apparently hoping to do some rad riding, he dropped into the town skate park’s bowl. Unable to skate vert, he was then busted down there, with no way out. One can imagine young onlookers confusing him with some shaggy old-school skater, before realizing […]
Posted inWotr
An ecological dilemma
It took the power of two flashlights to discover the source of the metallic screech that had been keeping us up nights. There, on the top of a telephone pole, sat a chunky juvenile great horned owl, plaintively calling for its parents to come feed it. But then my attention turned to the ground below […]
Posted inHeard Around the West
Serpentine Siamese Split
The cow that belonged to the aforementioned tongue didn’t fare very well except, perhaps, as carne asada. But a rather unusual pair of rattlesnakes is doing just fine after a 45-minute surgery at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum outside of Tucson. The two snakes were found as one – conjoined just below the head – […]
Posted inWotr
Conservationists wrong to oppose wolf hunt
Wolves have recovered, and it’s time for more rational management
Posted inHeard Around the West
Animal Farm Gone Crazy
At first glance, it seemed like just another mundane story about horse massacres and the role they will play in starting the next American Revolution. Then we dug deeper and learned the details about the ex-CIA agent and his hog-tied co-worker, not to mention the duck-killing dog. Ultimately, we confronted the dark truth of the […]