My Page: Dennis Higman

New West Feature

The first sign of spring on our ranch high in the Pioneer Mountains of Southwest Idaho (elevation 7,300 feet) is not green grass or flowers, but rather the arrival of the first bird. 

In the past, this has always been the hardy mountain bluebird, Idaho’s state bird, but this year it was a Cassin’s finch.  With the temperature hovering around 10 degrees, the sparrow-sized bird with a spectacular raspberry-red head flew out of a driving early April snowstorm and straight into our front window, and collapsed in a feathery heap. 

We’ll never know if he was a scout for the main flock still in winter quarters to the south, or had simply been blown off course, but in any event, it was a tragic sight.  I didn’t give him much of a chance but my wife reminded me that many times a crash like this only stuns rather than kills, so I went out, put a winter horse turnout blanket around him to ward off the freezing wind, and left him in God’s hands. We’ve learned that manhandling injured birds, no matter how gently, is usually a mistake.  And just for the record, it was a him, because unlike people, with the possible exception of British royalty, the male bird is invariably the more spectacular dresser.

Since moving up into this remote, unforgiving high mountain desert where the survival rate for living creatures, except man and his domestic animals, is not good, we look forward every spring to what seems like the miraculous arrival of hundreds if not thousands of birds of all shapes and colors.  Except for horses, dogs and an occasional visitor, they are our only companions through the short summer and into the late fall.

New West Essay

My wife and I met Greg Mortenson sometime in the early 90s, long before he was famous or the Bozeman-based Central Asia Institute had any financial legs.  He had come to Ketchum, Idaho, to tell his story and raise funds for girls’ schools in Pakistan. As I recall, his presentation at the Community Center consisted of a modest slide show about how he tried to climb K2, was befriended by local villagers after his failure, saw the crying need for education there and decided to launch a school building effort. At the conclusion of the meeting, Jean Hoerni, the wealthy Silicon Valley transistor pioneer and Greg’s early financial backer, made a brief appeal for support.

Having just returned from an extensive trek in remote areas of Nepal, my wife and I needed no convincing that education, particularly education of young girls regularly sold off into virtual slavery and worse, was a crying need in that part of the world.  Along with others at the meeting, we wrote Greg a modest check on the spot, all of $40.

What impressed us was what Greg said he could do with that check—employ a full-time teacher for a month.  And although we had no way to check out the veracity of his claim, we were hardly betting the farm.

New West Essay

The industrious beaver as a symbol is still popular enough. It’s on the crest of the Canadian Pacific Railway and remains the mascot of Oregon State University and Cal Tech, among other institutions. But somehow, as one of the most important foundation species affecting the conservation of our most precious resource in the arid West—water—the beaver gets decidedly mixed reviews from those of us who live with them in our backyard.

My wife and I viewed the beaver as nothing but good, however, when they showed up unannounced and started building dams across the creek that runs the length of our lower pasture. After decades of unrestricted cattle grazing, the creek was an environmental disaster when we moved in, a roaring muddy torrent in the spring that slowed to a trickle and looked like a lifeless ditch by late summer.

New West Column

Late last spring I had the rare privilege of seeing a wolverine in the wild while out riding on our ranch in the high mountain desert of southwest Idaho. It was one of an estimated 250-300 that still survive in the lower 48 states according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, mostly in the North Cascades of Washington State and Northern Rockies.  Of course, I didn’t know any of this at the time.  In fact, the only wolverine I’d ever heard of was the mascot for the University of Michigan.

What I did know was that my steady old Paint, Keith Richards, got very tense when he saw a large, brown furry animal cross our path about 25 yards away at the edge of a steep avalanche chute.  It was like nothing I’d ever seen in 15 years up here at 7,200 feet. It was about the size of a small bear (or a big cub) but it didn’t move like a bear—more like a raccoon or badger but a lot faster.  And move it did, with all deliberate speed, so I only got one quick look at its long bushy tail, short legs, narrow face and funny little ears before it disappeared.

I didn’t have a camera, but the image stayed with me until I got back to the house and looked it up.  He wasn’t hard to find or identify. “Gulo gulo luscus”, the North American wolverine, largest member of the weasel family. I had no idea these magnificent creatures lived in Idaho but I’m no native son, so I asked a couple of friends and neighbors who are.

New West Column

Some environmentalists view CIEDRA as a selling-out of land that belongs to all Americans. These include Carole King, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, who has for years pushed for a compromise-free wilderness bill involving millions of acres in five Western states, including Idaho. Equally opposed to CIEDRA, but for other reasons, are anti-wilderness forces, Idaho’s Republican Gov. Butch Otter, powerful off-road vehicle lobbies and, it appears, Idaho’s newly elected U.S. Representative, Raul Labrador (R), who opposed new wilderness in his campaign. And now, even Idaho Sen. Jim Risch (R), a former governor and originally a supporter of the bill, is withholding his endorsement pending additional accommodation of off-road interests.

None of this deters Johnson, however. He sees this glass as half-full because the bill has been greatly improved over the years and has more public support. He points out that CIEDRA is a Republican bill, originally brought forward only after consultation with the key interest groups involved—wilderness advocates, the county commissioners, ranchers and motorized recreation people. Also, he notes, Simpson is now in a leadership position to better see it through as Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees budgets for the Department of Interior, U.S. Forest Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.

New West Essay

Brent Glover has taken in abandoned, neglected and abused horses for 36 years. This past year, he says, was the worst he’s seen. 

Glover, a graying, lean, enthusiastic man who has taken in over 3,000 horses and adopted out some 2,500 to new homes over the years, had to turn down over 200 requests for sanctuary in 2010 because he was out of room and resources at his ranch in Viola, Idaho. He runs Orphan Acres, the oldest and largest nonprofit rescue facility in Idaho.

“We rely entirely on donations, grants, and volunteer labor,” says Glover, who has had as many as 138 horses in residence at one time.  “These days, because we are so crowded and strapped for cash, I can take only real emergencies, but those still include all comers.  Even with our severe limitations, we take the young and old, injured and sick, as well as healthy, trained horses.”

Among the horses in permanent residence at Orphan Acres are the white mount Graham Greene rode in Kevin Costner’s “Dances with Wolves”, almost starved to death by his subsequent owner who bought him as a trophy; the 10-year-old grandson of the famous race horse, Seattle Slew, originally purchased for $10,000 but abandoned by his owner with crippling bone chips in both knees; and countless other grade horses from miniatures to draft horses who, one way or the other, were given to or taken in by Glover because their owners didn’t want to care for them—or simply couldn’t.

New West Essay

Like a lot of people, I don’t sleep very well. It certainly isn’t traffic noise, low-flying airplanes or police sirens. Our nearest neighbor on this high mountain ranch is 20 miles away. The only lights are the moon and a spectacular cover of stars, occasionally interrupted by a lonely satellite blinking its way across the night sky. “Can you hear me, Major Tom?”

There are coyotes, of course, that set the dogs to barking, and when they don’t howl that’s even more worrisome because there might be a wolf in the neighborhood. Or nothing howls or yowls and I just ache from old football injuries and broken ribs sustained when a cow knocked me silly. Or it’s a black train of doubts and fears chugging its way through the night.

Whatever it is, after drifting off to sleep reading something stimulating like “The Reluctant Mr. Darwin,” something wakes me. And, after staring at the ceiling for a period of time, I get up (so I don’t disturb my soundly sleeping wife), bundle up, take the dogs and go out to take a look around.

NEW WEST ESSAY

Lynne Stone, my favorite wolf advocate, hasn’t changed much. She’s still the same ruddy-faced, formidable, outspoken blonde I met years ago.

“Can you believe this guy?” she says in an outraged voice, reading me a statement by Idaho Gov. “Butch” Otter about the recent federal court decision putting wolves back on the endangered species list and, in the process, cancelling what was to be Idaho’s second wolf hunting season. 

New West Profile

There are two topics you don’t want to bring up with most Idaho ranchers: wolves and Jon Marvel, the white-haired, 63-year-old founder and executive director of the Western Watersheds Project.

Exactly what is it about this guy who looks more like a college professor than an environmental activist worthy of nstant, visceral, angry reactions from ranchers, that include “he’s an asshole” to “I hate that bastard” to “he’s an abusive guy” and other not-suitable-for-work quotations?

As it turns out, Marvel, a history graduate from the University of Chicago who founded WWP in 1993, is not at all mild-mannered unless it serves his purpose. In reality, he’s is an intense, combative man who does not believe in compromise. “You don’t influence change without directly taking on the people who oppose that change,” he says in a recent interview. “Collaboration simply gets you marginalized.”

He’s also a man who harbors a long-standing grudge with roots in an incident many, many years ago at his family cabin in Stanley, Idaho. “One day I found this rancher cutting across my land without permission, taking salt blocks to his stock. I told him to go around, go back the same way he came in and you know what he said? ‘Where did you come from?’ It was like he felt he was somehow entitled to use my private property as he saw fit.”