Ecological finds in fire-scarred forests
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. – A scientist who spoke about forest fires recently in Mammoth Lakes shared an insight that must have surprised many of his listeners. Chad Hanson explained that leaving forests charred by fire actually produces greater biological diversity.
Hanson, who directs the Earth Island Institute John Muir Project, said areas where high-intensity fire has killed 75 to 100 percent of trees “are comparable to old growth forests” in terms of their biodiversity.
What he doesn’t like seeing is the post-fire logging to remove the standing but dead trees called snags. Some species benefit greatly from these snags. One of them is the black-backed woodpecker, which flake away sections of loose bark looking for insects and larvae.
Fires tend to be described as “catastrophic” or “devastating.” He sees them differently. “(Snag forests) are ecological treasures,” he said.
Ban on plastic bags accepted at Tahoe
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – South Lake Tahoe now bans the sale of plastic bags and requires that stores charge for paper bags. Judging from the turnout at a recent meeting, the public seems to be OK with the change.
The Lake Tahoe News talked with the four major grocery stores in South Lake Tahoe. They tell the News that the ban was unpopular at first, but people have gotten accustomed to it.
“It’s working. People are slowly remembering their bags,” said Victor Guerrero, of Raley’s, which sells sundries, groceries, clothes and other miscellanea.)
Bookstore struggles to stay in business
KETCHUM, Idaho – Iconoclast Books is in trouble, and the owner of what the Idaho Mountain Express calls an “iconic” bookstore says she owes $85,00 in back rent plus late fees. Owner Sarah Hedrick had pledged to answer questions about her troubles at a public meeting even as she seeks public support.
On the Idaho Mountain Express website, bloggers offered no encouragement. “A lot of bookstores are not doing well even in large cities, and Sarah thinks she can thrive in this tiny community?” said one writer.
“That is just downright denial. The future is here and it’s e-books and online purchases of books if you really want a hard copy… Frankly, it’s not the community’s responsibility to keep a private business owner in business either because she’s a bad business owner and/or her store is no longer relevant.”
Said another: “I can download a book to my Kindle for less money and do it at any hour of the day in a process that takes seconds. Then when I’m done, I don’t have to store the book in a box in my garage for 20 years on the off chance I may want to look at it again someday.”
Bear bites the dust after biting woman
PAGOSA SPRINGS – Ouch! A woman was bitten by a bear over the weekend while camping on private property south of Pagosa Springs. She told authorities that the bear bit her on the arm through the tent at about 6 a.m. The woman fought the bear and scared it off – but not far enough. State wildlife authorities later found the bear and killed it.
“Anytime a bear exhibits that sort of aggressive behavior, we have to put that bear down. That bear doesn’t get a second chance,” said Joe Lewandowski, spokesman for the Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
More water in river, less in spud fields
TAOS, N.M. – During spring runoff, not much water flows down the Rio Grande past Taos.
“Long sections of the Rio Grande in New Mexico have dried up entirely, and the state’s pecan and chile industries have suffered badly,” reports the Taos News. During late spring and summer, there’s little left of the river.
So the newspaper traveled upstream to Colorado’s San Luis Valley. The river there emerges from the San Juan Mountains, almost entirely in the form of melting snow, but it rapidly disappears as farmers divert it for potatoes and other crops.
The newspaper discovered that Colorado is doing this within the bounds of the law. Colorado, New Mexico and Texas struck a compact governing the Rio Grande in 1938, and in general, Colorado must deliver about a quarter of the river’s annual flow at the New Mexico state line.
It’s doing that, and just a little more.
But Colorado can meet its compact requirements by allowing the river to flow unimpeded during winter. Chile growers would like to see more water during growing season. River rafters have similar sentiments.
WildEarth Guardians, an environmental group based in Santa Fe, served notice this past winter of planning to file a lawsuit against Colorado for leaving too little water for the beleaguered silvery minnow to spawn.
A representative of the group told the Taos News in February that the notice was meant to bring state officials and irrigators to the table. But in Colorado, irrigation representatives say the effect is just the opposite. “Nobody likes to be threatened,” said Travis Smith, superintendent of the San Luis Valley Irrigation District. “There is no room for compromise or conversation when you’re threatened with litigation.”
Canmore urged to embrace bicycling
CANMORE, Alberta – Can more bike trails bring more tourists to Canmore? That intriguing idea was tossed into the municipal conversation by a consultant who recently spoke in town.
April Economides told a recent gathering that both the private and public sectors can make Canmore more bike friendly and thus increase tourism. Bicycle tourists, she said, “tend to spend more money than car tourists, particularly in small towns. Canmore is an ideal bike tourist destination because of its location in the beautiful Rockies and near Banff, near an international airport, and on the Legacy Trail.”
The Legacy Trail is a 26-kilometer paved bicycle trail at the eastern gate of Banff National Park.
Economides said that making and marketing Canmore as the most bike-friendly town in Canada “wouldn’t be outrageously difficult or expensive, and would bring big health and economic benefits to the community.”
She said that bicycling, if incorporated into local transportation habits, is less expensive on the public treasury, as bicycle paths cost much less than roads to build and maintain.
Wolves take quickly to new underpasses
RADIUM HOT SPRINGS, B.C. – Last fall, three new underpasses were installed under Highway 93 between the Continental Divide and the town of Radium Hot Springs in Kootenay National Park.
Wolves, it turns out, have quickly learned to use the structures.
“Wolves elsewhere in the past have been wary of these structures, and this group appears to have quickly grown to utilize them,” said Rick Kubian, resource conservation manager for Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay.
Remote cameras recorded the wolves – sometimes a lone wolf, sometimes groups of up to seven – using the underpasses.
More than 5,000 vehicles travel that segment of Highway 93 on a typical summer day. In recent years, an average of 50 large animals have been killed on the highway every year. White-tailed deer compose more than 70 percent of the roadkill, but wolves, grizzly bears, wolverines and many other species have been killed.
In addition, roads create barriers to wildlife searching for food, shelter and mates.
Parks Canada built the three underpasses at a cost of $4 million after consulting with the Western Transportation Institute of Bozeman, Mont. The institute also recommended 60 percent of the highways inside park boundaries be fenced to keep wildlife off the road, among other measures.
More cannabis shops opening in Colorado
EDWARDS – The Vail Bud Brewery has been licensed to sell recreational marijuana, but despite its name, it won’t be located in Vail. Instead, it will be in unincorporated Eagle County.
The Vail Daily reports the business is licensed to Jim and Kristin Comerford, who already have a Subway sandwich shop, Qdoba Mexican Grill, and a real-estate development company.
“We believe it’s the new frontier,” Kristin Comerford told the Daily.
Vail, the town, doesn’t want to be part of that new frontier. It said no to medical marijuana, and so far it has said no to recreational marijuana. Ditto for Avon.
Two valleys away, just two towns still don’t allow sales of marijuana, and the Aspen Times says they’re likely headed in opposition directions: Basalt in favor of sales and Snowmass Village keeping the door closed.
Aspen debates whether to reopen lifts
ASPEN – Weather in Colorado of late has been fickle, both hot and cold. In Aspen, ski company officials on Monday weren’t sure whether they would reopen portions of the ski area or keep the place shuttered.
The Aspen Times explains that the ski company has often reopened the ski area at the top of the mountain during Memorial Day on good snow years. This year, the valley’s snowpack was 152 percent of the median average.
But after snows in early May, it turned hot last week. “It’s one thing to have soft snow; it’s another to have moving water on the hill,” said Rich Burkley, the Aspen Skiing Co.’s vice president for mountain operations.
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