New West Network

My Page: Todd Wilkinson

Guest Column

There is a time to be sanguine about the past and let it go, and a time to take stock of reality.

Nearly eight years ago, David Orr, a distinguished professor of environmental studies at Oberlin College, joined a group of leading natural resource experts who sought a meeting with newly elected president George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to discuss green issues they believed were pressing for the nation.

The concerns were packaged in a white paper. Among them: addressing climate change and the need for a sound American energy policy that would emphasize renewable fuels as a way of reducing CO2 emissions, achieving a healthier environment, and enhancing our strategic defense against hostile Middle Eastern nations with huge oil supplies. [more]

NEWWESTERNERS: INTERVIEW WITH BOB 'ACTION' JACKSON, THE FINALE

Do you know where your meat comes from? Was the animal raised and killed with "compassion?" Do its survivors grieve? Bob Jackson says it all sounds so New Age, so Left of center, so radically alternative, so touchy feely, and yet many Americans are making a conscious shift in their diets and attitudes toward more healthful, natural foods. As the movement gains both cultural and economic momentum, consumers also are facing questions they never pondered before.

One of the native edibles appearing increasingly on family dinner menus is bison. Over the last several days, NewWest.Net has carried on a conversation with "Action" Jackson, the bison rancher who first made headlines as an outspoken backcountry ranger who battled big game poachers in the wilds of Yellowstone. But every autumn when he went home to Iowa for the winter, Jackson's lesser-known parallel life took shape as he steadily grew his own bison herd.

In this, the conclusion to our interview with Jackson, he takes readers metaphorically and physically into his own backyard where he has enlisted bison to become a better land steward and to tweak the sensibilities of our consumer, fast-food society. [more]

NEWWESTERNERS: INTERVIEW WITH BOB 'ACTION' JACKSON, PART V

As NewWest.Net's conversation with Bob 'Action' Jackson continues, the former Yellowstone Park backcountry ranger-turned-bison-rancher ignites rhetorical fireworks by offering a blunt assessment of public land management agencies overseeing bison populations across the West. He also takes aim at academics conducting research and teaching students in land grant universities. Jackson's scathing critique reminds many why he was such a divisive figure while working for the National Park Service. But does challenging the status quo make him wrong? [more]

NEWWESTERNERS: INTERVIEW WITH BOB 'ACTION' JACKSON, PART IV

In autumn 2006, the Wildlife Conservation Society held a landmark conference in Denver on the future of North American bison. Among the questions being pondered was this: Should bison be listed as a federally-protected species in the U.S. and moreover, do they warrant placement on the IUCN's Red List as an imperiled animal in need of global focus?

While no one in attendance disagreed with the fact that bison, when numbering in the tens of millions, were once keystone species on the Great Plains, shaping the health and structure of plant, animal, and human communities, there is a divergence of opinion about whether buffalo can ever be restored to such large numbers that they again fulfill their historic role.

In part four of NewWest.Net's ongoing conversation with bison rancher Bob "Action" Jackson, the former Yellowstone Park ranger says bison recovery is less about numbers, pure genetics or legal classification and more about examining their functional role on the landscape which stems from understanding the nature of the beast. [more]

NEWWESTERNERS: INTERVIEW with BOB 'ACTION' JACKSON, PART III

In the big picture of earthly existence, are the lives of bison and other animals equal in value to humans? Bob Jackson doesn't think of himself as an animal rights activist, nor as a philosopher nor an intellectual who is immune to personal hypocrisy. In fact, he admits in plainspoken, opinionated, homespun English that at times his command of proper grammar is sorely lacking. But he is no Neanderthal. As a consumer and capitalist, he raises bison for sale to provide meat on the dinner table for hundreds of human families who are his customers.

Nonetheless, he relates to bison as sentient creatures that possess their own range of emotions and sense of belonging to one another. Is there a contradiction here? This kind of paradox in Jackson has not only attracted responses of incredulity from members of the scientific community, who have pegged him with a "Dr. Doolittle" label, but it has left Jackson staking out contentious terrain, for it challenges our own value system. In this, the third part of NewWest.Net's continuing conversation with 'Action' Jackson, the topic moves from a discussion of Bison Culture to the relationship humans have with bison and other species. [more]

NewWesterners: INTERVIEW 'ACTION' JACKSON, Part II

Do wild animal populations have their own "culture"? In the first part of NewWest.Net's interview with Bob Jackson, the former Yellowstone ranger turned private bison rancher said there is far more to an animal's relationship with the landscape than meets the human eye. Look closer at bison, he suggests, and one not only sees culture, but matriarchal and patriarchal roles, not unlike those which existed among native American tribes on the western plains.

In the second part of a continuing conversation with Jackson, the blunt-talking former civil servant suggests that wildlife biologists, including those working in Yellowstone, need to broaden their perspective and let go of biases, instilled in their thinking by academics, about how wildlife herds actually live. When Jackson suggests that among bison family groups there are grandpa and grandmas, parents and subadults, mentors and students, all carrying out specific functions, is he guilty of anthropomorphising? [more]

NEWWesterners: INTERVIEW with Bob 'ACTION' JACKSON

Bob Jackson knows that viewed from any angle, he is a living, breathing enigma. During his three decades of civil service as a seasonal backcountry ranger in Yellowstone National Park, Jackson cultivated a mystique—and generated controversy—for his maverick approach to confronting big game poachers in the remote Thorofare section of the park and for allegedly treating his living quarters there as a personal fiefdom. His vigilant stewardship earned him rousing praise from regional conservation groups. His outspoken opinions netted him scorn from superiors in the National Park Service, which imposed a gag order on him, preventing him from talking with the press.

No matter what one thinks of Jackson, any Westerner who has ever met him quickly realizes they are staring into the eyes of an American original. [more]

SHOULD LAWS BE BASED ON FACTS?

As with many of his contemporaries heading off this winter to various "citizen" legislatures in the West, there's a lot of Jefferson Smith infused in the idealism of freshman State Representative Mike Phillips of Montana. Like the fictional U.S. senator played by Jimmy Stewart in the Frank Capra film, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, Phillips confesses that he went to Helena with an elevated sense of purpose about how government is supposed to work.

He honestly believed that big ideas are debated openly, objectively, forthrightly and blindly to the interference of crass partisan politics, no matter whether the wind blows from the Left or the Right. What he has witnessed, however, is a current session that, in the eyes of many observers, has degenerated into one of the most divisive and mean-spirited episodes in decades. Baffling to Phillips is how little some legislators seem to know about issues they are voting on and crafting laws around. Should lawmakers be required to take a competency test to show they have at least a baseline understanding of facts before they make decisions that affect the lives of citizens for years to come? [more]

ECHOES OF ANTI-GOVERNMENT FREEMEN HEARD IN HELENA

"Let's just keep America alive and well in Montana. Let's not listen to organized law enforcement tell us why we must have our rights infringed."
—Three Forks, Montana resident Franklin Shook testifying in support of a controversial concealed gun bill before the Montana legislature.

With a sense of deja vu from the 1990s all over again, in the form of anti-government rhetoric previously espoused by the "Freemen" and radical "Posse Comitatus" spilling back into Montana politics, a proposed gun rights bill in the state legislature has law enforcement officials worried. House Bill 340, drafted by Republican Representative Jack Wells of Bozeman, is aimed at doing two things: Allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons inside city limits without needing a permit and it makes it harder for authorities to prosecute gun-carriers for crimes if they kill or wound another person in the name of self defense.

The bill has been met with near universal condemnation from police and sheriff's departments across the state. Laws that enable people to defend themselves with guns already exist on the books, they say. What the bill by Wells, widely known for his anti-government views, does is invite the presence of guns into public places where they shouldn't be and heightens the potential for Old West-style gun violence and accidental shootings, critics say. [more]

FORMER NHL, OLYMPIC STARS TO SHINE ON ICE

For years, the corn snow days of late winter have been magnets for skiers pouring into Jackson Hole for their last hurrah on the slopes. But March also brings another kind of migration. This one involves a flocking of famous retired professional hockey players and former Olympians from both the U.S. and Canada. What's been great for fans driving long distances to the annual "Jackson Hole On Ice Weekend" is not only that their kids can get autographs from some of the biggest names in the game but the celebrity all-star hockey team does it to benefit local charity by playing against the bruising hometown ruffians, the Jackson Hole Moose.

In 2007, Neal Broten [who played for the U.S. and coach Herb Brooks on the Miracle On Ice team], Bill Ranford, Reed Larson, Dana Murzyn, Bernie Nicholls, Ron Duguay, Greg Adams, Shawn Chambers, Jamie Huscroft, and Benoit Hogue among others hit the ice with actor Dave Coulier on Friday, March 9 at Snow King Arena. Tickets for the game, which begins at 7 p.m., are only $10. The following evening features a country-western jam session featuring famed Nashville singer-songwriters Dillon Dixon, Michael Peterson, Randy Houser, James Dean Hicks, and Chuck Cannon at Spring Creek Ranch. Tickets for that event are $125. All proceeds from the events benefit the Teton Free Clinic. For more information, call 307-732-8102 or view this PDF file.