About 10 years, ago a grizzly sow and her three cubs were seen by Paul Bruin as he was fishing the Snake just above Deadman's Bar in Grand Teton National Park. The following day these bears were tranquilized on South Park Loop at the Bob Lucas’s Ranch. She either skirted Jackson or walked straight down the river through the property of many unsuspecting homeowner. In November, 2003 a 2-year-old female grizzly had been sleeping on people's porches and in garages for nearly a week in Driggs Idaho. 06-2004 JHMR ski patroller Kirk Speckhals was mountain biking on Togwotee Pass, north of Jackson Hole, when a grizzly attacked him, it was driven off with pepper spray [more]

Elk Viewing in Rocky Mtn. Nat. Park

After camping at the Moraine Park campground, in Rocky Mountain National Park, on Saturday night, we hiked the next day about a quarter-mile on the Cub Lake Trail to where a large bedrock outcrop juts out into the vast flat meadow of the Moraine Park valley. Along with my son and a few of his first-grade friends I clambered up on the boulders and walked out to the furthest overlook. Scattered before us was a wildlife tableau unequalled anywhere outside the Serengeti: a huge elk herd, hanging out down on the flatlands for the annual fall rut.

The mating season in RMNP has become a hugely popular show, and the final weekend in September, blessed with gorgeous fall weather (and the Broncos' bye weekend), may have been the busiest ever for the park, according to public information officer Kyle Patterson. [more]

The West Out There

While U.S sports fans are gearing up for football and the World Series, the Europeans have their attention squarely focused on the town of Aachen, Germany, which is where I am this week. No, there's no soccer here. It's the World Equestrian Games--an Olympic-level competition of horse sports that takes place every two years. And today, the Europeans got a little bit country with the reining team competition. [more]

News from the Bird Nerds

The falcon is coming back New Mexico. And he's following other nearly extinct or extinct from New Mexico birds to Ted Turner's ranch.

The northern aplomado falcon will be reintroduced to New Mexico on Thursday, according to the Albuquerque Journal. Eleven birds will be released at the 300,000-acre Armenderis Ranch east of Truth or Consequences, and owned by Ted Turner. [more]

Dog Days of Summer

As I write this I'm watching a big, steely thunder cloud move over the farm, and I'm trying to keep my Golden Retriever from nosing my hand off the keyboard.

While the rest of the Rockies is baking, New Mexico is getting just about all the rain it missed from October to June. Forget fire season. It lasted for a month or two in February. We're in flood season, complete with people getting swept away in arroyos and flash floods and the dreaded "small stream advisory," whatever that means (and as if there was anything besides a "small stream" in this part of New Mexico).

Golden Retrievers are natural water dogs, drawn to any kind of liquid, whether the skanky mid-summer Rio Grande or the puddle I made when I dumped and scrubbed the water trough. Oly (the Golden in question) is more water-oriented than most. Point him to a stream and he's in it. We have to take him on leash when we run the irrigation ditches, otherwise he's leaping and swimming.
[more]

New Westerner

By Ben Ikenson
Last year, Darby raked in a cool five grand in audience contributions— no small feat for an umbrella cockatoo. The comical Darby is but one of more than 20 remarkable birds that star in the Albuquerque Zoological Park’s most popular attraction, a 25-minute affair called World Wildlife Encounters. Last year, the show reached an audience of more than 60,000 zoo visitors. The bills Darby procures from the hands of audience members go to bird conservation groups such as The Peregrine Fund, the Raptor Center, and the World Parrot Trust.

“Kids line up to have Darby take a dollar from their hands,” says the show’s head trainer, Tom Smylie. “They love it.” [more]

"Man free to kill gophers at will."

Who knew Bill Murray and organic farmers had so much in common? According to an AP article in the Rocky Mountain News today ("Explosives eyed to exterminate gophers, others"), the state Wildlife Commission is meeting today to discuss whether to allow the use of explosive gases to eliminate rodents including "prairie dogs, ground squirrels, gophers, marmots and other burrowing creatures." Currently, it's illegal to use explosives to kill wildlife in the state of Colorado. Why do organic farmers seek to use such violent, Caddyshack-inspired means to eliminate problem rodents in their fields? The article quotes Colorado Division of Wildlife spokesman Tim Holeman, who said, "This is a way for them to avoid using toxic substances to help them remain certified as organic. It's a new tool for them."
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Farm Livin'

My husband has been on his usual June jaunt, when he gets in his 6-cylinder Honda sport coupe and hits the highways of the Southwest. I plan to go with him one of these years, but this wasn't it. I had several huge projects and deadlines to meet, so I sat in this very spot looking at my computer screen and looking out on my small farm and caring for my herd of animals.

Scot said on the phone a few nights before he came home that he better get home fast or we'll have more animals. He knows me, and knows that without his voice of reason I could become a hoarder, a collector, one of those little old ladies in a purple hat with 15 dogs (all well cared for). Little did he know that during the time he was away our population increased from 14 to 19. [more]

Here's the beef

Where’s the beef? Not sure how to translate that catchphrase into Japanese, but undoubtedly it has been said a lot. Idaho cows have relished the joke since 2003, when Japan imposed a ban on U.S. beef amid the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad-cow disease.

Now the ban is expected to be lifted this summer – around July 21. The U.S. Government and the Japanese Government have both inspected meat processing plants in America and they found nothing more than a bunch of dead cows, so away with the ban.

This is good news for international commerce, and good news for Idaho’s ranchers. [more]

SPECIAL PHOTO ESSAY

Sheep ranching, like many traditional agrarian ways, is not a growth industry. Americans are wearing less wool in recent years -- their tastes running to hi-tech synthetics for outdoor winter wear -- and lamb has never been among the more popular meats. Yet sheep ranchers hang on, year by year, hoping for market conditions that will at least allow them to keep their lifestyle -- ancient as Adam and then some -- alive.

This week's featured photographer, Michael Edminster, has had a good bite of the sheep ranching life. [more]