October 2006

  • Wild Bill writes about "Thinking Grizzly" and says "Hunters should do more of it.

    Ralph Maughan

    Wild Bill’s column in New West. I should add that so far this year, grizzly encounters of all kinds seem to be way down although their population is not. Much of the credit may go to the good whitebark pine nut crop that appeared in many places.

  • Disappearce of cougars in Zion NP has led to a general ecological decline

    Ralph Maughan

    I always wondered why the Virgin River looked so oddly entrenched and actively eroding in Zion NP. It may be an indirect effect of the loss of the cougar. As any visitor will attest, the deer are everywhere. Cougar predation key to ecosystem health

  • Yellowstone, still noisy after all these years

    Ralph Maughan

    Brodie Farquhar is writing in New West about the snowmobiles in Yellowstone, which are supposed to be much quieter now with their 4-stroke engines. I didn’t realize this, but the Park is going to have yet another comment period on snowmobiles. This time it is on a draft environmental impact statement that will be released…

  • Drilling the heart out of the West

    Ralph Maughan

    In the past five years, the Bush administration has leased 35 million acres of federal land for oil and gas drilling — the equivalent of 15 Yellowstone National Parks. It’s wrecking the West. It’s violating the law — courts have held the government ignored the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement to weigh environmental consequences of…

  • Hunters blast away at decoy elk at Union Pass (WY)

    Ralph Maughan

    “A young bull elk decoy in a closed hunting area off Union Pass Road looked too good to resist for a number of hunters whom Wyoming Game and Fish cited Oct. 1. Of 29 people who slowed down their vehicles to look at the decoy, nine, or 31 percent, fired weapons at it, resulting in…

  • Proposition 2 on Idaho ballot opposed

    Ralph Maughan

    There are many copycat measures in other states. I have heard of almost no non-paid support for prop 2, which would by trick not only take away the protection you get from zoning but defeat efforts to conserve open space all over the West. The features in Prop 2 on “takings” have no historical basis…

  • Earthquake swarm under Old Faithful.

    Ralph Maughan

    The quakes were numerous but small.  Story in the Billings Gazette.

  • Latest wolf news on YNP northern range. Slough/Druid encounter?

    Ralph Maughan

    I talked with Rick McIntye, and he had a lot of news I hadn’t heard. Here it is in no particular order: 1. The Leopold Pack split-off, formerly called the “536 group,” has been named the Oxbow Creek Pack. Some folks may remember the Geode Creek Pack, eventually scattered by the Leopolds. Oxbow Creek is…

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‎”At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour.”

Edward Abbey

“The continued existence of wildlife and wilderness is important to the quality of life of humans.”

Jim Fowler

“Our forests offer much more than just beautiful landscapes and wildlife. Each one has a different story to tell.”

Raveena Tandon

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