Name Scott RashidAge 45Day Job Chef at Eagle Rock High School in Estes Park, Colo. Time spent doing bird stuff “How many hours are in a week?” First date with his wife Going up to Rocky Mountain National Park’s tundra to look for ptarmigans.Other hobbies Aikido ESTES PARK, COLORADO Scott Rashid stands in front of […]
Michelle Blank
Posted inDecember 10, 2007: Rebels with a Lost Cause
Jim Detterline to the rescue
NAME Jim Detterline OCCUPATION Rocky Mountain National Park ranger NUMBER OF TIMES STRUCK BY LIGHTNING Three MOST TURTLES EVER OWNED AT ONE TIME 80 (When Detterline was a kid) DEGREES Master’s in vertebrate zoology, Ph.D. in invertebrate zoology HOBBIES Plays the trumpet Jim Detterline is a man of average size, lean, but not small. Still, […]
Posted inMay 28, 2007: Problems In Paradise
Fightin’ against the feds
Name: Mike Noel Vocation: Utah state representative (R-Utah District 73) Day Job: Executive director of the Kane County Water Conservancy District Favorite Foods: “I actually got introduced to sushi with a buddy of mine up at the Legislature. I really like that. I kind of go with all the cooked stuff. I don’t like baby […]
Posted inMay 14, 2007: Two Views of the Verde
Cow power
Entrepreneurs hope to cash in on Idaho dairy country’s stinky problem
Posted inArticles
Battle line on the northern border
In Montana’s Flathead Basin, another industry–versus-environment conflict is brewing. But this time, the battle lines follow the U.S. – Canada border. Montana senators, federal agencies, and even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are trying to stop a planned mine just north of the border. Cline Mining Corporation is seeking British Columbia’s approval for a mountaintop […]
Posted inArticles
Getting the salt out
For 14 years, a huge desalination plant has sat quietly, out of operation, on the banks of the Colorado River just north of the Arizona border. And just south of the border, the Cienega de Santa Clara, a manmade wetland of over 14,000 acres, has provided critical habitat for migrating birds. The wetland and the […]
Posted inApril 16, 2007: Phoenix Falling?
Bay bags his way to the top
NAME: Brian Bay AGE: 23 VOCATION: Front-end grocery store manager and full-time student WORLD CHAMPION: of grocery bagging HOBBIES: Coin collecting. Goes to work with a pocketful of change and trades it out for interesting coins. FAVORITE MOVIES TO QUOTE FROM: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Princess Bride, Three Amigos and Dumb and Dumber One […]
Posted inArticles
“Prez on the Rez” brings candidates to Indian Country
In recent years, American Indian voters have helped decide close elections in five Western states: Washington, Montana, South Dakota, Arizona and New Mexico. And the tribes may well play an important role in swing-state elections in 2008. That’s one reason why the Indigenous Democratic Network recently announced “Prez on the Rez,” a forum designed to […]
Posted inArticles
Bunny project breeds success
Cameras were clicking in central Washington March 13, when state Fish and Wildlife officials released 20 endangered Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits. Onlookers, enamored with the creatures’ fuzzy ears and dark eyes, were “just like paparazzi,” says Madonna Luers, department spokeswoman, “bunny paparazzi.” The reintroduction was the culmination of a captive breeding program designed to save […]
Posted inArticles
Elwha River dams move closer to destruction
Last week, the long-anticipated removal of two dams on Washington’s Elwha River took a giant step closer to reality when the state Department of Ecology gave the project the go-ahead. The dams’ removal will help floundering salmon populations. Prior to their construction in the early 1900s, all five Pacific salmon species had spawned prolifically in […]
Posted inArticles
Public lands “crown jewels” languish for lack of funding
On a balmy spring day in Ironwood Forest National Monument, volunteers work up a sweat as they plant native bushes and sweep away the vehicle tracks that cut across the Sonoran Desert landscape. Arizona’s Ironwood Forest is one of 15 national monuments in the Bureau of Land Management’s National Landscape Conservation System. The monument already […]
Posted inArticles
Utah county tries to rein in off-roaders
“There was a time I could go out and ride a motorcycle cross-country,” says Ray Peterson, director of the Emery County Public Lands Council. “And the next day I could go back out and there wouldn’t be another track except mine.” That’s no longer the case: Off-road vehicle use in Utah has exploded during the […]
Posted inFebruary 5, 2007: The Efficiency Paradox
Energy illusions
A new report seems to show that more land is off-limits to energy exploration, but appearances can be deceiving
Posted inFebruary 5, 2007: The Efficiency Paradox
The West’s public lands are open for business
The 2003 EPCA report considered five Western regions. The 2006 report looked at 11, including Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and southern Florida. The difference in scope skews comparison of the reports, especially considering that ANWR’s 19 million acres are (still) off-limits to drilling. But a look at the five Western regions included in both […]
Posted inJanuary 22, 2007: Salmon Justice
Dear Friends
FOUR MONTHS OF INDENTURED SERVITUDE This winter, Erin Halcomb is trading in her chain saw for an HCN intern’s computer. Erin, a Colorado native, spent the past five winters in Oregon, thinning trees and teaching environmental education. During the summers, she worked as a fire lookout. Erin first came to Oregon in 2001, when she […]