This month, HCN goes bird-watching, checking up on the health of two fascinating birds. Can the Wilson’s phalarope help save Utah’s Great Salt Lake? And will the long-billed curlew find refuge on New Mexico’s ranchlands? In Idaho, the Nez Perce turn to solar power to replace hydroelectric dams and help salmon recover. The Yakama Nation supports renewable energy, but not if it’s going to destroy the tribe’s sacred sites. Who should pay when utilities are responsible for wildfire damage? Pollution is easy to create but hard to get rid of: Thousands of abandoned mines are contaminating Western rivers, and Canadian mine waste is flowing downriver into Montana and Idaho. Louis Carlos Bernal, the father of Chicano art photography, lives on through his work. California artists celebrate the beauty of the Pacific’s endangered kelp forests, while the short film Mirasol: Looking at the Sun examines how water scarcity is affecting a small Colorado farming community. In Wyoming, Nina McConigley discovers what a difference a good dog makes.
Wilson’s phalarope to the rescue
A new Endangered Species Act petition could trigger major conservation actions to save the West’s saline lakes.
In search of the continent’s largest shorebird
The elusive long-billed curlew finds refuge in fragmented grasslands.
The father of Chicano art photography
Louis Carlos Bernal saw his role as creating art of and for the people.
La retrospectiva de Louis Carlos Bernal
El primer gran estudio de la vida y el trabajo del “padre de la fotografía artística chicana”
How the Nez Perce are using an energy transition to save salmon
The tribe is working to replace the generating capacity of the Lower Snake River dams with solar power.
When a utility sparks a wildfire, who pays?
How Western utility companies are trying to shield themselves from wildfire costs and liabilities.
Abandoned mines cover the West
Their legacy is destruction and pollution of lands and waters.
Pollution knows no borders
A long-awaited agreement will address Canadian mine waste flowing downriver into Montana and Idaho.
A new documentary confronts water scarcity in the West
In Mirasol: Looking at the Sun, Colorado farmers fight to save their communities.
Not a dog person
How our adopted pet taught me to love simply.
The California artists illuminating kelp
How art and science can build hope for a threatened underwater species.
‘I’m a staple here’
#iamthewest: Giving voice to the people that make up communities in the region.
from Underworlds: An Elegy
A poem by Kimberly Johnson.
Photorealistic fencing, far-traveling felines and some very weird-looking fish
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
One for the birds
What we lose when we lose feathered friends.
A foodie award for HCN
Another James Beard Award and another goodbye.
Letters to the editor, July 2024
Comments from readers.
In green energy boom, one federal agency made the Yakama Nation an offer they had to refuse
Federal rules and a lack of protection for sacred places left the Indigenous nation with an impossible choice.