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Watching wildlife with a whiskey sour

JACKSON, Wyo. – Kirk Davenport, a 55-year-old securities lawyer from New York City, built a 6,200-square-foot vacation home near Jackson, and it has some features you’re unlikely to find elsewhere.

An elevated bridge connects the main house to the guest wing, which has a 30-foot viewing tower modeled after an old fire tower.

“You feel like you are in the wilderness, and the animals feel that way, too,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

However, in this wilderness, you can prop up your feet, with a cocktail in hand and listen to Stravinsky.

The newspaper asked local real estate experts in Jackson Hole how much the unusual features would add to the value of the home. “It’s a little eccentric,” said Tom Evans, an associate broker at Jackson Hole Sotheby’s International Realty. “A wine cellar or a media room is more traditional in a home in Jackson,” he added.

But Julie Faupel, an owner of Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, sees them as a selling point, should Davenport want to sell. “What people really want is a very sophisticated home, but they want to feel like they’re outdoors,” she said.

Steve Kilpatrick, executive director of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said that animal lovers  should remember they’re not living in a petting zoo.

“They’re cute and loveable, but boy, they can cause some harm,” he told the Journal. “And if you have a moose that’s malnourished or not healthy, be ready for a mountain lion or a grizzly bear to take it down – and don’t be alarmed that it might happen in your back yard – because that’s where they’re living.”

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Must wolves die for caribou to survive?

BANFF, Alberta – A new study recommends killing wolves to help save endangered populations of woodland caribou in Alberta. The study also recommends habitat protection.

About 100 wolves have been killed per year in Alberta since 2005 by shooting them from helicopters or poisoning them with bait laced with strychnine. The goal was to protect the dwindling herd of caribou called Little Smoky. Only 100 of the caribou in that herd remain.

Mark Hebblewhite, an associate professor in the University of Montana’s Wildlife Biology department, a co-author of the study, said that 11 of the woodland caribou herds in Alberta are declining very rapidly. Even with the killing of wolves, the herds did not grow, although they did stabilize.

The Rocky Mountain Outlook also talked with Paul Paquet, whom it identifies as one of the world’s leading wolf experts. He strongly dissented with the study’s conclusions.

“This is a true case of scapegoating wolves for something that we’re all responsible for,” he said. “There’s no effort to address the ultimate causes of caribou endangerment: industrial development over numerous years.”

The study, which was published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology, identifies loss of habitat due to roads and pipelines as the greatest long-term threat to caribou herds. But even if oil and gas development ceased, says the study, habitat restoration favoring caribou over moose and wolves would take 30 years.

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Mountains feel like it’s March or April

CHAMA, N.M. – Across much of the West last week it was a wonderful week ... for April.

In Southwest Colorado, lawns in Telluride were bare. How often does that happen? “About once or twice a decade,” said Art Goodtimes, a resident since 1981.

West of Durango, the unpaved parking lot at Hesperus ski looked like it was made to order for a Tough Mudder race.

At Beaver Creek, temperatures that hit 40 degrees seemed to favor World Alpine Ski racers who went first, before the snow turned slushy and grabby.

Weather records compiled by the Colorado Climate Center show that the recent thaw has been among the warmest on record in a variety of locations. For Steamboat Springs, it’s No. 1 after 105 years of record-keeping, while Crested Butte is No. 5 after 100 years.

In Crested Butte, the lean snow is causing the annual Ally Loop ski race to alter starts and finishes. But, added the Crested Butte News, what won’t change the “clangers, pot beaters and screamers” spurring on racers or the outrageous costumes of “colored plumage, crinoline, spandex, wigs, hats and contraptions that dangle and rattle.”

In the Cascade Range, dump trucks have been called upon in years past to haul up to 55 loads of snow from Mount Bachelor to a ski and snowboard event held each mid-February in Bend, Ore. This year, snow is too scarce and temperatures so balmy that a motocross stunt team was scheduled to replace the snow sports, reports the Bend Bulletin.

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Land grant activist dies at the age of 88

TIERRA AMARILLA, N.M. – In 1967, the U.S. spotlight was focused briefly on a remote part of northern New Mexico, northwest of Taos, when activists seized control of the Rio Arriba County Courthouse. A jailer was shot and others held at gunpoint before the activists fled into the nearby Carson National Forest.

In late January, Reies Lopez Tijerina, the activist who led that raid, died at the age of 88. In northern New Mexico communities, he was remembered with fondness by some, but not others.

“While admired by some students, his activism was steeped in violence and his legacy remained controversial,” noted the Santa Fe New Mexican. “He also drew criticism for his treatment of women and comments largely viewed as anti-Semitic.”

A native of Texas, he had worked as a migrant farm worker, dropping out of school after third grade. He later became a Pentecostal minister. Then, in 1963, he founded an organization that sought to reclaim Spanish and Mexican land grants held by Mexicans and American Indians in the Southwest before the U.S.-Mexican War of 1848.

The New Mexican talked with Nick Salazar, now a state representative but then a county commissioner, who was held captive for several hours in the courthouse raid.

“He was trying to do the right thing for the people who were cheated out of their land. I don’t think he went about it the right way, but I’ve never felt any animosity toward him,” Salazar said.

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Telluride patrollers voting about a union

TELLURIDE – Telluride Ski Patrol members, plus dispatchers and snowmobilers, will be voting on whether to unionize under the auspices of the Communications Workers of America. The union already represents ski patrollers in Steamboat, Crested Butte and The Canyons, in Utah.

A union representative tells the Telluride Daily Planet that about 55 people employed by the Telluride Ski and Golf Co. are eligible to vote. The ballots will be collected by the National Labor Relations Board and counted Feb. 27.

Pepper Raper, the ski company’s communications manager, told the newspaper that “we are just trying to work with them to understand their concerns and the drive behind this. We don’t necessarily think we need a third party to tell us or tell them what’s best.”

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Can a ski town be too connected?

PARK CITY, Utah – Park City enjoys access unrivaled among ski resorts of the West. It’s just a half-hour to Salt Lake City, if you dawdle along the way, and just 10 minutes more to the airport. Even Jackson Hole, Vail and Aspen, with all their direct flights to distant cities, don’t come close.

But could the transportation links be improved? And should Park City want to keep at least a small bit of distance?

Those questions were being discussed in Park City after a group called Mountain Accord sponsored a discussion about transportation alternatives. Some of the ideas involve small increments, such as how to improve transportation flows on nearby I-80. But there was also talk of connecting Park City via tunnels to Alta and other resorts on the east side, reports the Park Record.

Not everybody is impressed. “We have no money for schools but we have money to blast through mountains to build trains?” asked local activist Rich Wyman.

– Allen Best  For more of Mountain Town News, see mountaintownnews.net