At the risk of sounding like I’m a bubble or two off plumb, I’d like to ask our natural resource decision-makers to try something new as we start 2013. I’d like them to decide things based on what they don’t know, rather than on what they do. If it seems counter-intuitive to plan the future […]
Writers on the Range
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Dead whales do tell tales
Just as 2012 was ending, a dead fin whale washed up on a beach in Malibu, Calif. A rare emissary from the ocean as well as an endangered species, it gave people in the area several things to consider. The first was the sheer wonder of whales. Fin whales are the second-largest animal on Earth, […]
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There are too many unwanted backyard horses
I was sitting in a comfortable chair one evening, reading a vintage book about the Old West, when I happened to glance out the window to see a horse cropping the grass along my driveway. I don’t own a horse. I don’t want a horse. Too many of my neighbors own horses, only to let […]
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Let’s hear it for a bipartisan-minded Republican
Imagine a Republican leader who racked up the following achievements: He fought smog by regulating vehicle emissions, kept dams from choking free-flowing rivers, set aside big chunks of wild backcountry for permanent protection, and supported a strong treaty to prevent harmful gases from mucking up the atmosphere. Democratic operatives might just invite this candidate to […]
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A no-nonsense kitchen for Christmas
Based on the variety of ice cream scoops on the market –1,529 available from Amazon alone — you might conclude that the world faces a crisis of improperly excavated ice cream. I think it’s more a symptom of our love affair with cooking gadgetry combined with our ever-larger kitchens. We now easily accommodate toys like […]
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Recreation calls the shots in Moab
Last August, I read that construction would soon begin on a proposed $9 million “Moab Transit Hub and Elevated River Bikeway.” I’d caught only a snippet of the plan a couple years ago. The news story called for a three-mile “bikeway” partially suspended over the Colorado River. There were references to piers and girders and cantilevers. […]
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How, 150 years ago, the Homestead Act transformed the West
All across forests of the West, 10-by-12-foot cabins stand forlorn and forgotten, many with tumbledown roofs and gaping doors. Yet these modest homesteads represent a revolution in public-land policy: They were the culmination of an American dream born of Thomas Jefferson’s belief that at our best, we would become a nation of independent farmers. This […]
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Here come the Super Storms
Once again, we were all New Yorkers. Watching the heartbreak that continues in Staten Island, parts of Queens and along the pummeled Jersey Shore, our sympathies turned eastward toward the victims of this unusual “Super Storm.” But just how unusual was it? Sandy’s devastation gives us the opportunity to remember another giant storm that barreled […]
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If we don’t get our energy here, where will we get it?
A few weeks ago, a Texas oilman cornered me at a brewery in the high-mountain town of Ouray, in western Colorado. Some young women from Moab had just taken the table next to my friend and myself, when the fellow wandered over to buy us a round. Eventually, he revealed that he worked for ConocoPhillips. […]
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Salmon must have water in the Klamath and Trinity rivers
Though it happened a decade ago, no one living near the Klamath River will ever forget the massive fish kill that wiped out at least 60,000 salmon trying to swim up the river to spawn. What happened that summer was the largest known fish kill in the West, caused by disease resulting from a combination of shallow […]
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Utah’s SkiLink closes off public land
Some 80 groups and companies that want public land to remain open to the public have signed a petition to stop a Canadian developer from building a gondola to hook together two ski resorts near Salt Lake City. Traversing about 30 acres of what is now Wasatch National Forest, the gondola would benefit the Talisker […]
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A rancher must sell out after losing a court case against a gas company
It was a hot day in the summer of 2009, and Dow Rippy was out on his four-wheeler in western Colorado, checking on his cows. As he drove, tracing the southern edge of his property, Rippy followed the route of a gas pipeline that the Houston-based gas company, SG Interests, was building across the ranch. […]
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Point Reyes National Seashore, embattled at 50
We’re supposed to be celebrating here at Point Reyes, a foggy enclave along the Northern California coast about an hour’s drive and a world away from San Francisco. Fifty years ago, President Kennedy signed the Point Reyes National Seashore into existence. For years, a national seashore had been little more than a pipe dream until […]
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Washington wipes out a wolf pack
A wildlife tragedy began in Washington state on Aug. 7, when the state Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that a wolf in the Wedge Pack had killed a calf on a ranch close to Canada. Afterward, the rancher said that wolves were continuing to kill or maim his cattle. Wildlife staffers examined his claim […]
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Planting the millionth tree
The Arbor Day Foundation sent me a Tree Survey a few months ago. At least it called itself a survey, but it turned out to be more of a pitch for donations in the form of a questionnaire. Still, I decided to finish reading the thing before I tossed it in the wood burner with […]
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Remembering George McGovern as the elections pass
As the 2012 election recedes into the background, it’s still time to play the post-election game called “What did it really mean?” or, in the case of this election, “What did we get for $2.6 billion?” Pundits on the yak-yak circuit got the jump on the game when the election was quickly called for President […]
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We’ve been picking up what you throw away
Since March 2010, I’ve become intimately acquainted with many of the things that people in our society no longer want to live with: empty liquor bottles, deflated soccer balls, the guts of deer, aluminum siding. My team and I have picked up this stuff on roadsides from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. It’s […]
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Shoot it yourself
People hunt animals for a lot of reasons, from filling a freezer to festooning a wall with antlers. As a meat hunter, I’m looking for a year’s worth of protein, with or without antlers attached. Even though I don’t hunt for the post-kill posing or big racks, as a hunter I’m lumped together with everyone […]
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A trip back in time
Despite all those scary stories I’ve been reading and seeing in the American media about how dangerous and violent Mexico has become, I’m always eager to head south of the border. It’s because rural Mexico reminds me of a simpler time. Like the recent trip I took to the town of Ortiz, a journey that […]
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Nevada, face down and flailing
Suddenly, this election season, state politicians in Nevada are refusing to sign the pledge – the one anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist has been foisting upon conservative candidates and lawmakers for years. It requires the faithful to swear that they will never, ever raise taxes. Many signers surely believe in it; others sign for fear of […]