Cottonwoods support the banks of New Mexico’s Gila River, and sycamores shade endangered Southwestern willow flycatchers and threatened loach minnows. For those who live near it, the Gila – the state’s last free-flowing river – is both a source of water and a font of contention. In 2004, the Arizona Water Settlements Act re-distributed some […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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Help is on the way for the nation’s forest workers
Working in the woods: It’s never been easy or steady. Ethical contractors say they can’t compete because the Forest Service awards contracts to the lowest bidder. And as the low bidders race to the bottom with offers below the true cost of the work, they’re leaving behind a trail of injured workers, labor violations, and […]