ESA News
Fish and Wildlife Won’t List Threatened Whitebark Pine as Endangered
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Department this week announced its conclusions from a 12-month study prompted by a petition to list the whitebark pine as endangered: The tree is threatened and deserves protection, but it won’t get that this time around.
The department’s announcement explained that “after review of all available scientific and commercial information, we find that listing P. albicaulis as threatened or endangered is warranted. However, currently listing [whitebark pine] is precluded by higher priority actions to amend the Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants.”
Instead, the tree will be added as a candidate to the species list, with a “proposed rule” to revisit listing it as endangered “as our priorities and funding will allow.”
[more]Hunting and Fishing
In Defense of the Traditional Bow Hunter
I shot a traditional bow and, for many years, I could not tell you why. It is a bent hunk of wood with a string and some straight lengths of cedar for arrows. I would love to extol the virtues of the longbow and tell you why it is a better killing weapon than a compound bow but I can’t in good conscious do that. It took me a long time to realize why I shot a longbow and not some fancy new compound. Then the answer just hit me – I want to escape from the modern; I wanted some perspective.
This escape comes from not having the fastest, deadliest, quietest bow. It comes from not worrying about my 40 yard pin. And from this escape - I am certain of one thing – I am a lot less deadly with my longbow than a fellow hunter with a compound bow. That brings me to the reason I write this: Shooting a traditional bow is not like shooting a compound bow and should be classified as a different weapon and, perhaps, even have its own hunting season.
I have only put a single arrow in a big game animal with my longbow. The reason for that is mostly distance. I cannot and will not shoot an arrow out of my bow at anything past 25 yards. In contrast, when I was shooting my compound, a 30-yard shot was a “gimme.” With today’s compounds, hunters can take shots in the 60- to 70-yard range with relative ease. I would have to aim about 3 feet over the back of an animal just to shoot that far with my longbow.
[more]Wyofile and New West Feature
Deadly Workplaces: Montana, Wyoming Among Least Safe in Nation
The Rocky Mountain states remain among the most dangerous in the nation for workers, according to the AFL-CIO, which tracks job-related deaths.
Wyoming’s workplace fatality rate improved from worst-in-the nation — 17 fatalities per 100,000 workers in 2007 — to fourth-worst in 2009, according to an AFL-CIO report, passing the “worst” distinction to Montana, followed by Louisiana and North Dakota, where many drilling rigs migrated during the same period.
But before Wyoming leaders and employers claim victory over such a poor past performance, safety officials are warning that workplace fatalities could spike again when drilling and construction activity returns to Wyoming.
“More than half of the 16,000-plus jobs lost in Wyoming were in natural resource development and construction, and these bear the most dangerous occupational risks,” Wyoming state occupational epidemiologist Timothy Ryan told WyoFile in a recent interview.
“My concern is that people are going to look at this and say ‘problem solved,’” Ryan continued. “Well, no. When the economy picks back up in construction and mining, and oil and gas picks up, so goes the fatality rate.”
[more]Guest Column
The Case for Making ATV and Other Outdoor Recreation Vehicle Riders Accountable
Idaho is a sportsman’s paradise and a huge draw for outdoor recreation, including ORVs, or Outdoor Recreation Vehicles. More and more ORV riders are taking to the trails of Idaho’s popular destinations.
My concern is the disregard that a growing number of ORV riders have for rules and posted signs. Unfortunately, their irresponsible riding has led to a dramatic deterioration in the quality of the outdoor experience on both private and public forest lands.
Two years ago, I took along my 11-year-old son on an opening-day hunt on “Access Yes” forestland in Idaho’s panhandle. These lands were owned by a timber company that allowed public access, but restricted motorized use to mainline roads. After hiking three hours up a road closed to motorized use, we encountered two riders on ATVs. My son was discouraged after the long hike and I was upset, knowing his first hunt was cut short.
Mouthful of Feathers Feature
Review: A Chukar Hunter’s Companion
There are few books written about hunting chukar, and even fewer that are really well-written by someone who has dedicated a significant portion of his life to chasing and learning about them. Maybe this is a result of the fact that the group of people who really go off the deep end of chukar obsession is pretty small to begin with.
Maybe it’s because many dedicated chukar hunters, much like those who really get into chasing carp with a fly rod or mountain goats with a bow, tend to be a bit different; a hermetic lot, who feel their experience has been hard won (and rightly so) and are content to let others figure it out on their own, as they did.
New West Feature
‘Wacky’ New Mexico Town Still Waiting to Offer Space Flights to Tourists. But They’re Coming.
Two women chatted recently—yoga mats tucked under their arms—outside Rhonda Brittan’s Black Cat Books & Coffee in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.
This town along the muddy Rio Grande, long known for its therapeutic mineral springs, revels in its image as an anachronistic byway where new age now melds with the old. And befitting a town which rolled the dice in 1950 and changed its name from Hot Springs to Truth or Consequences—fulfilling a challenge from the TV quiz show of the same name—the dice are now being rolled here again. At stake are the future economic successes of the town and state.
Spaceport America, a $209 million taxpayer-funded project enthusiastically backed by former Gov. Bill Richardson’s administration, is expected to launch spaceships in 2013 for private citizens to take sub-orbital trips, with a ticket to ride going for $200,000 per passenger.
“I think it’s a great fit for Truth or Consequences. It’s wacky. What a weird thing it is, like having Disneyland all of a sudden crop up in your neighborhood, so we will see what happens,” said Brittan, as she poured coffee and chatted with customers.
[more]Mouthful of Feathers Feature
Homestead Rhubarb: A Memory of Those Who Came Before
In the autumn, you dream of Huns bursting from the rubble that was the old milk house, and you carry your shotgun cradled ready. You follow the dogs, and they follow their noses.
But now the land is sharp green from rains that don’t seem to quit and when you go, you don’t follow the dogs, they follow you, and they don’t pick up scent, they pick up the bothersome beggars’ ticks burs from last years dried stalks of houndstongue. You go where you want and sometimes, you walk among the old buildings and think about a different time, a different era.
There’s a hand-dug well and 15 feet down, water. It is rock-lined and covered with rotting timbers. Peering down into those depths gives a tremor in your soul. A dark, wet, fearsome cavern. You think about being down in there, digging the damned thing by hand, and placing each one of those rocks. You think about the darkness, but then you look up and above, is freedom. Above, sky. Lots of sky.
[more]AP Investigation
Libby, Montana’s Effort to Shake ‘Stigma’ Takes a Hit
On May 8, 2009, a U.S. District Court jury acquitted W.R. Grace and Co. along with three former executives on charges of knowingly poisoning residents in the asbestos-tainted Northwest Montana town of Libby.
Immediately following the verdict, there was talk throughout Libby of ushering in a new era, one not defined by death and suffering. Hundreds of people have died from asbestos-related complications there and perhaps thousands more have been sickened.
This new era, the hopeful residents said, would be in the spirit of healing and economic development. Libby would be a safer, healthier and happier place to live.
“We’ve got to get on with life,” Dean Herreid, a Libby resident suffering from painful asbestosis, said shortly after the verdict. “Justice was attempted.”
[more]Exploring
Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes: A True Wonder of the West
South of Denver by about four hours, the Sangre de Cristo mountain range looms over the dusty sagebrush of the San Luis Valley. Named for the dark shades of crimson and lavender that radiate from its west-facing rock each evening, this range is stunning – and worthy of a healthy respect. It’s home to Little Bear Peak, widely considered one of Colorado’s most dangerous 14ers, among myriad other mountains.
These two opposing ecosystems – desert and alpine – are stitched together by the Great Sand Dunes. I visited them recently, somewhat against my will; a few out-of-state friends badgered me into going with them, saying that, as a Colorado native, I had no excuse to miss one of my state’s great monuments. At the time, I only sniffed snobbily: regardless of the fact that they’re made of sand, they’re really only hills. But in retrospect, they were exactly right, and I’m incredibly glad I gave in to them.
The evening the four of us arrived, we raced up the dunes barefoot (inasmuch as it’s possible to race up slipping sand).
[more]New West Series
Companies Cash In on the Mountain West’s Potential for Energy Development
The days of oil and gas men crisscrossing the country, digging wells in hope of striking it rich, has become a far more high-tech, but still lucrative, business.
Although much of the money to be made is in oil and gas exploration, even when it comes to renewables, companies are betting fortunes hoping to lock up the key to energy development – the right plots of land.
One of those companies is Energy Investments, Inc. (EII), a Denver-based operation that currently controls more than 1 million acres in the Mountain West.
Founded in 1992 by former landman and Mobil Oil employee Stephen P. Chamberlain, the company leases acreage for oil and gas exploration across the United States with a distinct focus in the Rocky Mountain Region. The company also leases land for solar and wind energy development.
EII has competition. The Bringham Exploration Company is an independent exploration, development and production company working in the Williston Basin of eastern Montana and western North Dakota.
[more]