It’s been about three months since wolves in the Northern Rockies were removed from the protection of the Endangered Species Act. To date, at least 20 wolves have been reported killed in Wyoming, where they may legally be shot on sight. That’s an average of one wolf killed every four and half days. Five of […]
Writers on the Range
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An ancient place to wonder about our survival
I’ll never forget losing two clients somewhere in the 164,000-acre Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in southern Colorado. On a glorious May morning, the two friends walked too fast ahead of the group I was leading for the Smithsonian Associates Program. The couple disappeared, and the other members of the tour were worried. Anxiously, […]
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PRO: The Tejon agreement is a true conservation victory
Anyone reading about the Tejon Ranch — California’s largest contiguous private property — has probably heard about the three controversial development projects: Tejon Industrial Park, the Tejon Mountain Village and the Centennial Planned Community. But have you heard about the Tejon Golf and Hunting Resort, or maybe the Whitewolf Village and Shopping Center? People haven’t […]
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CON: A housing development that’s a tragedy for condors
In recent weeks, several high-profile environmental organizations have been celebrating a deal they call “perhaps the greatest victory for conservation that many of us will see in our lifetime.” If only this were true. Sadly, it is not; the deal in question represents a major setback for conservation. The “deal” does result in permanent preservation […]
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When choosing a house, think past a lifetime
We’ve had some minor flooding lately in the Gallatin Valley in southwestern Montana, the consequence of a good mountain snowpack and a two-day heat wave, followed by a big rain. It reminded everyone of the way things used to work. Some local landowners, however, were “shocked,” I read in the paper. “I’ve lived here 12 […]
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Don’t trash Joshua Tree National Park
Which word doesn’t belong with “national park?” Wildflowers, wildlife, hiking, night sky, garbage dump? No doubt you answered “garbage dump,” yet the biggest landfill in the United States may be developed right next to California’s Joshua Tree National Park. Fortunately, a lawsuit filed by the National Parks Conservation Association and others is trying to halt […]
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A little regulation can be a very good thing
The gas industry won the battle of the stickers that festooned people’s ball caps, chests and arms. Some 2,000 folks had gathered in Grand Junction to tell the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission their feelings about proposed new rules for oil and gas drilling in Colorado. It was easy to see that “Please don’t […]
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Who you calling terrorist?
The Cold War was hot when I was growing up in the 1950s and ‘60s. It affected our domestic discourse because politicians so often sought to discredit their opponents as “Communist sympathizers” or “comsymps,” people “soft on Communism,” “just a little bit pink” or outright “pinkos.” Something as basic as the integration of public facilities […]
Posted inWotr
Native Americans walk the talk across America
Native Americans began their 3,600-mile walk across America at Alcatraz Island Feb. 11, and soon they’ll conclude in Washington, D.C. I’ve accompanied them on the Northern Route, co-hosting a Web radio program as they crossed the freezing Sierra Nevada Range, plodded through a hailstorm in western Utah and walked over the cold Rocky Mountains of […]
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My love affair with dandelions
It’s spring, and after a long, cold, dreary winter in New Mexico, I’m ready for it. And even though we’ve had a couple of late snowstorms and the trees are only just now beginning to get leaves, dandelions are already growing in the cracks of the rock wall next to my sidewalk. I call them […]
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Too many elk and not enough tough love
I took my first sleigh ride around the National Elk Refuge recently, and after observing the artificial-feed buffet for elk, the calf hoof-rot and all the willows nibbled to the nubs, all I could think was: “I have a feeling we’re not in Wyoming anymore.” Isn’t Wyoming supposed to be the state where the federal […]
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Democrats could play the donkey card in Denver
It’s been said that burros, beans and brawn won the West. Now, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are weighing whether iconic images of the Old West should be used to market the event in Denver this summer. The debate is not without significance. Democrats, who have been unable to gain a foothold in Southern […]
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When you’re rich, you can dream
The last great boom that lit up Wyoming’s economy happened 25 years ago. The predictable bust followed, and it was the mid-1980s when oil prices crashed, nationwide demand for energy plummeted, interest rates soared and, overall, many get-rich dreams that had been hatched during the heady days turned to nightmares. Now, we are in the […]
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A beekeeper hopes for the best in spring
They all survived. My honeybee hives somehow managed to survive another winter. With all of the gloom and doom in the press about colony-collapse disorder, I had expected that at least one of my six hives would be pitifully empty or dead. Thankfully, I was wrong. Each of the hives has a different story, similar […]
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How not to save salmon
For centuries, killing predators was to fish and wildlife management what leeches were to medicine. By the mid-20th century, even the dullest minds in government had figured this out. But duller minds were yet to come. Enter the administration of George W. Bush. In 2008, it is hawking control of salmon-eating birds, fish and mammals […]
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All Westerners are stalwart (and other tall tales)
Western humor is all about adversity, braving the elements, surviving the landscape and stretching the truth. Call it polished prevarication. Not lies, exactly; more like embellishments. Stories that should be true, even if they’re not. Pioneers came West, and over time each group told its own jokes — cowboys, loggers, Lycra-clad bicyclists – and everyone […]
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Predator control looks a lot different on the ground
The extremists who are on a mission to eliminate the Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services would do well to spend time with ranchers who live and work on our Western landscape. There, they might gain an on-the-ground perspective other than their narrowly defined agenda. As the old Greek shepherds — echoing the ancient Greek philosophers […]
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The ugly economy of killing wildlife
Most Americans have never heard of the federal agency euphemistically known as Wildlife Services. Yet it was a major force in eliminating wolf and grizzly bear populations in the early 20th century, and today spends over $100 million each year using mostly taxpayer dollars to kill more than a million animals — primarily birds — […]
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Coffee with the ladies
This morning, I saddled a dependable horse and headed for morning rounds at the calving meadow. I want to finish checking on the cows a little early so I can drive up the road to my neighbor’s house for the Shell Ladies’ Coffee. (Shell itself may boast a population of only 50, but we’ve had […]
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How to adopt a garden
The pioneer archetype looms large in the West. Strong and largely fictional, this heroic frontiersman delivered a calf at midnight in the blowing snow, mended fence all day and still had time to ride home into the sunset. Yet while one pioneer tended the herd, you can bet another was tending the garden, making applesauce, […]