National Parks
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This is a good column (published in New West). It doesn’t give any side of the issue a free pass, and is one of the first I have seen that looks carefully at Governor Freudenthal’s contradictory statements about wolves and big game. Freudenthal’s fundamental view of wolves: “This raises the interesting question of whether any…
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Various pine beetles are attacking pines all over North America with an extraordinary vengeance. In Yellowstone the high valued whitebark pine, which grows, and grows but slowly, at high elevations continues under attack. This pine is especially valuable to grizzly bears who eat its fat rich nuts in the fall to fatten up. In years…
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Wyoming group argues to keep Sylvan Pass open. By Mike Stark. Billings Gazette. Once you get east of Jackson, Wyoming, they don’t just disagree with policies, they compete in hyperbole to describe how much they disagree. “Closing Sylvan Pass in the winter, they said, would be a devastating blow and one they vowed to fight.…
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The annual count of elk on Yellowstone’s northern range is in. It remains low compared to years past, but is about the same as a year ago — 6,738 elk compared to about 6600 in the last count, 9 months ago. The Northern Range herd has always been controversial with its numbers called wildly excessive…
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There are too many bison in Jackson Hole, and the rate of infection with brucellosis is far higher than the much persecuted (by Montana) bison of Yellowstone Park. The problem is the winter feeding of the bison at the National Elk Refuge. The presence of the bison only complicates the already grave problem of feeding…
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Idaho is generally thought to be safe from the onslaught of the natural gas drillers, but in fact a portion of Eastern Idaho has the same geological structure as part of gas-rich Wyoming. The “Overthrust Belt” ranges of the Rocky Mountains run along the Idaho/Wyoming border. This intensely folded and even overturned area of thrust-faulting…
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For years noisy and dirty snowmobiles dominated winter tourism in Yellowstone, but now they are beginning to be displaced by a new generation of clean, quieter, and warm snowcoaches. The coaches also feature numerous options for stopping, and dropping off skier and snowshoers, stripping away one of the arguments in favor of snowmobiles — the…
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Recently I posted an article about the Park Service’s latest winter plan, and its proposal to stop maintaining snowmobile access through the high elevation East Entrance to the Park. The East Entrance road crossess 20 avalanche paths, and the Park Service keeps it open by firing artillery shells to trigger the avalanches. Unexploded ordinace is…