Pay for Prey Inside Oregon’S Troubled Wolf Payouts by Gloria Dickie CONTENTS

SEARCH FOR THE MISSING | CRUCIAL CONGRESSIONAL RACE | OREGON STANDOFF AFTERMATH

High Country ForN people whoews care about the West July 23, 2018 | $5 | Vol. 50 No. 12 | www.hcn.org 12 50 No. | $5 Vol. 23, 2018 July

Pay for Prey Inside Oregon’s troubled wolf payouts By Gloria Dickie CONTENTS

Editor’s note The political power of the cowboy Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued pardons for two Oregon ranchers who were serving time for arson on public lands. The plight of the ranchers, Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son, Steven, underpinned the demonstrations in Burns, Oregon, that ultimately sparked the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. That occupation was, of course, related to the 2014 standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, between supporters of rancher (and melon farmer) Cliven Bundy and federal agents. Readers will recall from HCN’s coverage that few substantial convictions resulted from the Nevada standoff or the Oregon occupation. These facts demonstrate the political power of one of the West’s most romanticized icons: the cowboy. That power influences conservation policies across the region, especially where ranchers’ livelihoods Rancher Dennis Sheehy at his Diamond Prairie Ranch in Enterprise, Oregon. Sheehy helped draft the plan the are concerned. No issue had proven itself more state later adopted for predation compensation in Oregon. Tony Schick/OPB and EarthFix stubborn than the reintroduction of wolves into lands where they have long been hated, hunted and extirpated. The reintroduction of gray wolves into FEATURES the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem was hard-won by conservationists and deeply opposed by ranchers — On the cover 16 Pay for Prey until the idea of predation compensation was finally accepted. The idea was to pay ranchers for livestock Wallowa County Inside Oregon’s troubled wolf payouts rancher Todd Nash By Gloria Dickie lost to wolves. But as writer Gloria Dickie reports in this moving his cattle issue’s cover story, a compensation program in Oregon in northeastern 12 The Search for Olivia Lone Bear may be breaking down, potentially undermining the Oregon, where more Native families grapple with scant support to locate missing loved ones idea. Only the most dedicated idealist would think than 100 wolves By Jacqueline Keeler that wolves will come out better off than ranchers in live, according to whatever follows. the latest figures Our society has deep sympathy for and allegiance from the Oregon CURRENTS Department of Fish to the cowboy. (Picture Ronald Reagan in a cowboy and Wildlife. 5 hat, presenting himself as an indelible expression Intersection Photos / Owl sighting reopens review Federal wildlife managers will reassess of American can-do-ism.) But we haven’t learned to Alamy Stock Photo a southern Arizona mine’s impact on Mexican spotted owls extend such sympathies to other groups. Also in this 6 In a California race, a confluence of tricky issues The rural-urban issue you’ll find reporting from writer Jacqueline Keeler, divide is blurring, and a U.S. House race is tightening who describes the lack of sympathy in our system for 7 The latest: California Maidu get their land back Native women who go missing or are murdered. Given a broken, antagonistic system, neither federal nor 8 The aftereffects of the Oregon standoff tribal authorities seem equipped to deal with a major In Harney County, collaboration around public land grows issue in Indian Country. Keeler describes the ordeal of 9 The latest: Mountain goats in Olympic National Park trying to find a woman named Olivia Lone Bear, who went missing in the fall of 2017 from the Fort Berthold Reservation, in North Dakota. Lone Bear became one DEPARTMENTS of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Indigenous women 3 FROM OUR WEBSITE: HCN.ORG who have disappeared and remain unaccounted for. The lack of effort to find such women underscores Complete access 4 LETTERS a dark reality in American politics: the power of the to subscriber-only 10 THE HCN COMMUNITY Research Fund, Dear Friends winners over “losers.” Suffice it to say that Trump has content never touched down in Indian Country. The White HCN’s website 20 MARKETPLACE House statement announcing the pardon of the hcn.org 25 ESSAY Oregon ranchers tells us what we need to know about Digital edition A baby born to fires: The menace of a snow-free winter our current values: “The Hammonds are devoted family hcne.ws/digi-5012 turns into the fear of flames By Krista Langlois men, respected contributors to their local community, 26 Perspective and have widespread support from their neighbors, Follow us local law enforcement, and farmers and ranchers across Solar’s low-income hopes: California brings renewable energy the West.” Without those things, in other words, good  to more residents By Ruxandra Guidi luck out there. @highcountrynews 28 HEARD AROUND THE WEST By Betsy Marston —Brian Calvert, editor-in-chief

2 High Country News July 23, 2018 From our website: HCN.ORG

How Scott Pruitt repressed science Trending stice u

Scott Pruitt, the former administrator of the scientific consensus that human activities are J f Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, resigned the primary cause of climate change and even bailout in early July amid numerous scandals and renamed an EPA program — the Climate and ent o lawsuits. Pruitt leaves a legacy of suppressing Energy Resources for State, Local, and Tribal m

rt for coal

the role of science at the agency. In March, Governments — “Energy Resources for State, pa In June, a leaked

he proposed that policies must be based Local, and Tribal Governments.” Pruitt’s hostility . De S memo from the on public data, but scientists say that could toward science has also fueled a brain drain U. Trump administra- exclude important findings. Pruitt removed at the EPA: Out of 700 employees who left the tion claimed that the 21 members of the agency’s advisory board, agency in 2017, more than 200 were scientists. United States faces Dwight and Steven Hammond, originally mostly academics, and largely replaced them Elizabeth Shogren/Reveal a “grid emergency” arrested in August 1994. with experts with ties to industries regulated by Read more online: hcne.ws/pruitt-ousted because so many coal the agency. Pruitt repeatedly cast doubt on the and nuclear power A pardon for the Hammonds, plants have shut symbols of anti-federalism down. The memo attempts to justify In July, President Donald Trump pardoned keeping plants open, Oregon father-and-son ranchers, Dwight and despite clear informa- Steven Hammond, whose case set off the tion that contradicts Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupation. The the claims. In a recent Hammonds pled guilty to setting fires that opinion column, Tom spread to public land. Local Rep. Greg Walden, Ribe argues that the R, has been championing the Hammonds’ memo ignores the cause and pitched a pardon to the president. abundance of alterna- Public-lands advocates and the National tive energy sources in Wildlife Refuge Association said the pardons the mix. “One might set a dangerous standard of impunity for those think that free-market who threaten federal employees. The pardon conservatives would was the latest in a series of high-profile wins be delighted to see for the anti-federal government Sagebrush competitive markets Rebellion. “Pardoning the Hammonds sends a providing abundant, dangerous message to America’s park rangers, low-cost electricity wildland firefighters, law enforcement officers from diverse sources and public lands managers,” wrote Jennifer to American consum- Rokala, the executive director of the Center ers,” Ribe wrote, “but for Western Priorities, a public-lands advocacy apparently this case is group. “President Trump ... has once again different.” sided with lawless extremists who believe that public land does not belong to all Americans.” A giant puppet depicting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is You say carried by demonstrators during a People’s Climate March in April 2017 in Washington, D.C., Carl Segerstrom Read more online: to protest President Donald Trump’s stance on the environment. Mike Theiler/REUTERS hcne.ws/hammonds-pardoned Tom Kuekes: “The reason we haven’t suffered widespread blackouts for many Perhaps the biggest problem for (Justice Anthony) Kennedy’s consent theory years now in California is because of tre- is that it’s nonsensical and not grounded in either the Constitution or reality. mendous investment “ in solar plants and —Matthew Fletcher, in his Perspective, “Justice Anthony Kennedy wasn’t good for Indian Country.” rooftop solar.” Read more online: hcne.ws/justice-indiancountry” Paul Marshall: “Countries worldwide are making effective Trump’s border moves toward renew- percent of ochre starfish crisis debunked able energy: Sweden, on the West Coast80 that fell victim to what scientsts Despite President Donald for example, sits atop, called “one of the largest marine mass mortality events Trump’s demand for a border hovering around 50 on record.” wall, net undocumented percent of generated migration to the U.S. has energy coming from increase by which juvenile been zero or negative for renewables. America’s 74-ochres survived,fold following the peak of the epidemic, in a decade. Administration place on the Climate what scientists believe could be evolution in action. officials have made much of Council’s list may not recent border apprehensions, survive our populist Five years after a mysterious virus wiped out millions of even though they have temper tantrum.” starfish off the West Coast, scientists have announced a trended steadily downward. Jerry Nolan: remarkable reversal. Ochre stars appear to have evolved Undocumented migration “Without subsidies, genetic resistance to a virus decimating the species. A from Mexico has waned, wind and solar would study concluded that the recovery is a result of rapid and irregular movements quickly die. That evolution: After the peak of the epidemic, there was a from Central America Luna Anna Archey/High Country News Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection wouldn’t be all bad, 74-fold increase in the number of juveniles surviving are small by historical since they industrialize among ochre stars, one of the species hardest-hit standards. In terms of natural landscapes.” by the sea star wasting disease. But “if we have too numbers, there is no “crisis” many extreme events in a row,” lead author, Lauren at the border. Misconceptions surround the adrift and jobless without legal status — was a Read more online: Schiebelhut, said, “that becomes more challenging for reality of violence as well. The creation of the direct result of U.S. intervention. Analysis by hcne.ws/political- species to respond to.” Tay Wiles infamous MS-13 gang — first formed in Los Douglas Massey/The Conversation Read driver and facebook. Read more online: hcne.ws/evolve-or-die Angeles among young Salvadorans who were more online: hcne.ws/border-misinformation com/highcountrynews

Never miss a story. Sign up for the HCN newsletter at hcn.org/enewsletter. www.hcn.org High Country News 3 Letters Send letters to [email protected] or Editor, HCN, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428.

High Country News A double-edged sword Nothing new m Executive director/Publisher

I always appreciate Jonathan Since the acquittal of the ns.co

Paul Larmer a Ed itor-in-Chief Thompson’s excellent journalism, Malheur National Wildlife tiz Brian Calvert but I didn’t quite get the point of Refuge occupiers in October

Art director t/Ar

Cindy Wehling his recent essay on air travel. I just 2016, HCN Associate Editor Tay ld Deputy editor, digital returned from a multi-week cross- Wiles has suggested that extrem- Kate Schimel country trip myself, which is why I ists on the radical right — bent hris Wi Associate EDITORs C Tristan Ahtone only now got around to reading it. on privatizing federal lands in Maya L. Kapoor Certainly air travel is uncomfortable the American West — have made Tay Wiles Associate PHOTO EDITOR and at times dehumanizing, but far great headway in rallying rural Luna Anna Archey from placeless or homogenous. The Westerners to their cause. “A Assistant EDITORS view of the Cascades is far different Separatist State of Mind” (HCN, Emily Benson Paige Blankenbuehler from the quiltwork of the farm belt. 1/22/18) argues that right-wing Anna V. Smith Instead of isolating us, air travel troubadours in “Northstate’s” 23 WRITERS ON THE RANGE offers an opportunity for humaniza- counties were actively moving to editor Betsy Marston Copy editOR tion and connection. On this trip I form a separate state, while mak- Diane Sylvain met people from Haiti, Gambia and ing only passing reference to the Contributing editorS Kansas City, to name but a few. I region’s sizable Indian and Latino Graham Brewer, Cally Carswell, Sarah Gilman, would think it to be a journalist’s populations and many others who Ruxandra Guidi, jackpot for stories. view such a move as absurd. Michelle Nijhuis, Jodi Peterson, The dark side of air travel isn’t In the same issue, Wiles Jonathan Thompson the discomfort or the anonymity, reported the U. S. District Court’s CorrespondentS but the waste. Not just the massive decision in Clark County, Nevada, Krista Langlois, Sarah Tory, Joshua Zaffos amounts of fossil fuel used for both the along the eastern rift zone of Kilauea. If to dismiss all charges against Cliven Editorial FELLOWS planes and the trip to get to the airport HCN simply wants to advertise Charlie Bundy and his armed militia follow- Carl Segerstrom Jessica Kutz (passengers and employees). It is also Crisafulli’s recent book about ecological ers for preventing federal agents from Editorial intern the waste of human consumption: I saw responses at Mount St. Helens since the rounding up Bundy’s cattle. (Bundy Elena Saavedra Buckley bins full of packaging and uneaten food, 1980 eruption, why not just run an ad? had refused to pay grazing fees for 20 Development Director Laurie Milford half-finished drinks, plastic cups used The currently active east rift zone of years.) The judge cited willful prosecuto- Philanthropy Advisor for minutes and then thrown away. Kilauea has bounced back ecologically rial misconduct. Wiles’ assessments in Alyssa Pinkerton Air travel is indeed one of the many times during the past century, the Northstate and Bundy commentar- Development Assistant Christine List double-edged swords of our modern and will do so again when the current ies imply that radical cadres in the rural Digital Marketer world. It expands our opportunities and eruption stops. There will be lots of rain- West are knocking at federal and county Chris King our horizons (literally and figuratively), fall, a tropical climate and even some gates to introduce the sweeping privati- Events & Business Partner Coordinator Laura Dixon but few opportunities come without cost. new soil. zation of public lands. Web Application Developer A more measured and rational Chris Wayne Wendell Duffield Eric Strebel judgment, however, suggests that the IT Manager Chiloquin, Oregon Greenbank, Washington Alan Wells extremists’ histrionics have limited ap- IT Support Technician peal in these regions. The “Wild West” Misleading comparisons Hidden costs Josh McIntire confrontation at Malheur National Wild- DIRECTOR OF ENGAGEMENT Gretchen King I find the update on the Kilauea Volcano While the serious potential economic life Refuge was very unpopular among Accountant (HCN, 6/11/18) puzzling in the ex- (and other) costs of genetically engi- the county’s conservative people. After Erica Howard treme. First of all, it describes the 1980 neered/genetically modified plants the arrest of the occupants, a small Accounts Assistant Mary Zachman eruption of Mount St. Helens as the escaping into natural and agricultural group of local sympathizers filed a recall Customer Service Manager backstory to Kilauea’s current eruption, landscapes (“Little Weed, Big Problem,” petition against principal County Com- Christie Cantrell claiming that “Lessons from Mount St. HCN, 6/25/18) are only beginning to be missioner Steve Grasty for refusing to Customer Service Kathy Martinez (Circ. Helens are proving useful in under- realized, they as yet pale in comparison let the occupiers hold a public meeting Systems Administrator), standing Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano.” The to the massive and well-documented at the county fairgrounds. That June, Rebecca Hemer, Debra two volcanoes are entirely different with costs of the myriad non-genetically engi- 73.3 percent of Harney citizens voted to Muzikar, Pam Peters, Doris Teel, Tammy York regard to the type of magma they erupt neered/genetically modified plants that retain Grasty in office. GrantWriter Janet Reasoner and the character of their eruptions. have escaped to invade managed and While the Bundy clan and their [email protected] Even if a pertinent volcano backstory wildland ecosystems, with estimates compatriots are not to be trifled with, [email protected] [email protected] were possible, it would be derived from running into the hundreds of billions neither do they deserve the media’s [email protected] Kilauea, which has erupted under the of dollars. The West has been particu- suggestion that they pose a dire threat [email protected] eyes of trained volcanologists many, larly hard hit, a topic HCN has covered to public land in the West. These anti- FOUNDER Tom Bell many times since Thomas Jaggar es- repeatedly. Yet efforts to prevent new federal eruptions have occurred in the B oard of Directors John Belkin, Colo. tablished the Hawaiian Volcano Obser- arrivals are still few and far between. region since federal lands were with- Beth Conover, Colo. vatory in 1912. During the same time, I am reminded of the couple who fly drawn from settlement in the 1890s. Jay Dean, Calif. Mount St. Helens has erupted once, in separate commercial airplanes to avoid Bill Robbins Bob Fulkerson, Nev. 1980. orphaning their children in a plane Anastasia Greene, Wash. Corvallis, Oregon Wayne Hare, Colo. Then there is the ecological angle, crash, yet drive together in their car, a Laura Helmuth, Md. which seems to be the real reason for vastly more risky behavior. John Heyneman, Wyo. this piece. The climate and charac- Osvel Hinojosa, Mexico Truman P. Young, professor teristic flora of the Mount St. Helens Samaria Jaffe, Calif. and restoration ecologist Nicole Lampe, Ore. region are totally different from those Marla Painter, N.M. Davis, California Bryan Pollard, Ark. Raynelle Rino, Calif. Estee Rivera Murdock, Colo. High Country News is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) independent 81428. Periodicals, postage paid at Paonia, CO, and other post Dan Stonington, Wash. media organization that covers the issues that define the offices. OSTP MASTER: Send address changes to High Country News, Rick Tallman, Colo. High American West. Its mission is to inform and inspire people Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428. All rights to publication of articles Luis Torres, N.M. to act on behalf of the region’s diverse natural and human in this issue are reserved. See hcn.org for submission guidelines. Andy Wiessner, Colo. Country communities. (ISSN/0191/5657) is published bi-weekly, 22 Subscriptions to HCN are $37 a year, $47 for institutions: Florence Williams, D.C. News times a year, by High Country News, 119 Grand Ave., Paonia, CO 800-905-1155 | hcn.org Printed on recycled paper. 4 High Country News July 23, 2018 Chris Wildt/Artizans.com T port fromtheminelistshalf adozenen- minerals for50years. A 2016technical re- as itworksa deposit projected to produce company willbearesponsible neighbor Arizona Mining’s, has insisted that the that draws visitors. newed miningmightaffectthewildlife of townpromptedconcernabouthowre- Mining Inc. operationseightmilessouth based economy,” shesays. So Arizona a mining-basedeconomytonature- since theminesshutdown. enues and reports a 450 percent increase Resource Alliance checked towntaxrev- Carolyn ShaferwiththePatagonia Area the area’s biodiversitytolure tourists. 1950s and’60s, ittransitionedtousing mining, butafterminesshutteredinthe shares therange’s namewas sparkedby array ofspecies. The 900-persontownthat est, crossing habitat for an equally varied hiking canclimb fromdeserttopinefor alleled intheLower48. A singleday of tains houseabiodiversityalmostunpar service. says Jason Douglas, abiologistwiththe they’ve comealotfurtherthanthatnow,” cies, alistthatisn’tlimitedtotheowls. cern forthreatenedandendangeredspe- the agencydecidedmineposednocon- federal agencytoreassess. Two yearsago, HCN madeforthisstory—promptedthe the subsequentphonecallsaboutitthat yons fordecades. Butthesighting—and spotted owls have roosted in those can- vice ortolocalbirders, whoknowMexican company, theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser breeze fromitswings. enough overheadthatshecouldfeelthe tractors, “because that’s moreredtape.” find,” says KarinaHilliard, oneofthecon- zinc. a day, chasing aveinofsilver, leadand one and15drillingrigsrunning24hours Mining Inc. hashadlightsandbetween threatened species, nearwhere Arizona ing ataMexicanspottedowl, afederally echoed thesentiment. They werelook- a treeandsaid, “Uh-oh,” andthesecond lowing adrywash. Then oneglancedinto Patagonia Mountainspausedwhilefol- Federal wildlife managers reassess will asouthern Arizona mine’s ways nearamineinsouthern Arizona’s wo fieldresearchers surveyingwater Don Taylor, chief operatingofficerof “We have transformedourselvesfrom Sky islandslikethePatagonia Moun- “That was then. We’re aware that The owlisn’tasurprisetothemining As theyhikedaway, theowlflewclose “That’s notwhatweweresupposedto Owl sighting reopens review sighting reopens review Owl impact on Mexican spotted owls B y E lizabe - - - - t h mine’s contractorforenvironmentalsur resources for WestLand Resources, the but we’regoingtobesensitivethat.” operation sofarhasnotaffectedanything, “We monitorthem, wetrack them, andour have notbeenpursued, Taylor says, adding, rass someofthosespecies. Those permits Wildlife Servicepermitstokill, harmorha- It notesthepossibilityofneedingFish and tiger salamanderandyellow-billedcuckoo. including theowl, ocelot, jaguar, Sonoran dangered, threatenedorsensitivespecies, eration. Douglaspointstorecent images ficient evidenceeventoinvestigatetheop- Spangle responded that therewasn’t suf- time, Arizona fieldsupervisorSteven habitat loss the minecouldcause. At that cuckoos besparedthedisturbanceand Mexican spotted owls and yellow-billed the Fish and Wildlife Serviceaskingthat least oncesince2012. ly 2000sandthattheyhave reproducedat been reportedneartheminesinceear veys, says aMexicanspottedowlpairhas M iller David Cerasale, directorofnatural In 2016, Defendersof Wildlife wrote - - from co E turbance.” hard tothinkthatwouldn’tbesomedis- and noiseinthedrainagenextdoor—it’s be foraneighboringowltohave lights on industrial. … To thinkhowthatmight one drillpad. “Since then, it’s becomefull- Visiting fouryearsago, herecallsseeing spotted owlsinthePatagonias,” hesays. basically destroyedhabitatforhalfofthe of spottedowlsinthePatagonias, you’ve them isrightbythemine. a Mexicanspottedowlwatcher, andoneof profit BirdConservancyoftheRockies as Beauregard, whohasworkedforthenon- the Patagonia Mountains, says Nick a coupleofbreedingareasremainin ests toclear-cutting andwildfires. Only cline alongsidelossofmaturepinefor plications. company tocompletevoluntarypermitap- the wildlifeagencywouldbetoinvite ented claims, sothelikelynextstepfor interest.” they’re pastthatnow, soit’s piquedour activity alongroadsandsomelights, but he says, “it was characterized asdrilling tailings storage facilities. Two years ago, from themine’s websiteshowingmassive lizabeth Millerisafreelance who journalist vers public lands and wildlife management publiclandsandwildlife vers “If you destroy habitat for one pair “If youdestroyhabitatforonepair Mexican spottedowlnumbersde- The mine operates on private, pat- N e w Mexico. C URREN www.hcn.org -

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N / ews ews S 5 In a California race, a confluence of tricky issues In the Central Valley, the rural-urban divide is blurring, and a U.S. House race is tightening B y Carl Segerstrom

s the searing heat of the early sum- district. The race is one of a handful that does exactly what they want him to do.” A mer sun pushes the temperature near could tip the balance of national political Since the start of primary season, triple digits, a tractor kicks up clouds power. It also echoes the shifting politics Denham’s seat has been a target for of dust, and a sign welcomes visitors to of California and much of the West, as lib- Democrats. Previous elections and district Oakdale, California, the “Cowboy Capital eral, urban population centers spread into demographics indicate that it could be of the World.” Here, on the east side of conservative rural communities. flipped. Denham, a square-jawed veteran California’s 10th Congressional District, Barely a week after the June 5 prima- who owns a plastics company that pro- where hypnotic rows of almond orchards ries, a group of about 50 pro-immigrant duces agricultural supplies like bins and march up into hilly grassland, agriculture demonstrators gathered to chastise Den- planting trays, had the narrowest margin is clearly king. ham, who had just the day before an- of victory of his congressional career in About 40 miles west, on the other side nounced that he would drop his bid to 2016. of the district, the same fertile soil yields a force a vote on four immigration bills. Here, where Hillary Clinton bested different crop: houses. In Tracy, California, Outside Denham’s Modesto office, in a Donald Trump by 3 percentage points, rows of them follow freeway corridors, and small business park across from a nut- Democrats hope the backlash against the developments along plastic-lined ponds processing facility and directly off busy In- Trump administration will inspire strong are advertised as affordable “waterfront terstate 99, his opponent, Harder, dressed turnout from the district’s large Latino homes.” Fleeing the out-of-reach prices in blue jeans and a button-up shirt, ad- community. Latinos represent about 43 of Bay Area real estate, commuters brave dressed the crowd. He castigated his op- percent of the population and about 30 hours of traffic or the disjointed public ponent for what he described as Denham’s percent of eligible voters in the district. transportation system to have a home and failures regarding Dreamers, the children For Democrats, high voter turnout, es- a little yard of their own. of undocumented immigrants who were pecially among Latino voters, is key to q Democratic In this district, amid the rows of or- protected by DACA, the Obama admin- gaining a seat in the deeply agricultural congressional chards and rows of houses, one of the istration’s Deferred Action for Childhood candidate Josh Harder district. walks in Modesto’s most important midterm races for the U.S. Arrivals program. At the rally, 19-year-old Julissa Ruiz Fourth of July parade. House of Representatives is underway. Its “Immigrants are the economic and Ramirez, a daughter of immigrants who u Rep. Jeff Denham result could hinge on a tricky confluence social fabric of where we live,” Harder came to the area when she was 4, said she with new American of issues, including immigration and wa- told the crowd. “We are not going to get thinks Denham has let the district down. citizen Gilberto ter. progress on immigration reform with the Ruiz Ramirez is a student at Stanislaus Nungaray of Merced in Republican incumbent Jeff Denham Congress we have today and with the con- State University in Turlock, California, at 2017 at the conclusion has held the seat since 2012. His chal- gressman that we have in this district. … the southern end of District 10. She’s ac- of a naturalization lenger, 32-year-old Josh Harder, is a pro- Our member of Congress, when he is told tive in Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx ceremony. gressive Democrat who grew up in the by his party’s leadership, he stands up and de Aztlán, a student group that advocates

Nicole Nabulsi/Harder for congress Joan Barnett Lee/Zuma press

6 High Country News July 23, 2018 THE LATEST Backstory About 150 years ago, white settlers claimed a 2,300-acre Northern Sierra valley that had long been home to the Mountain Maidu. Eventually, the parcel was granted to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company. When the utility went bankrupt in 2001, a search began for a new owner to conserve the valley’s forests and streams “in perpetuity for public purposes.” Pro-immigrant demonstrators gather outside Rep. Jeff Denham’s Modesto office to express their opposition to his wavering support of Dreamers. The Maidu, a tribe of carl segerstrom/high country news about 2,000 that is not federally recog- for students of Latino and Mexican de- young tech entrepreneur as out of touch ment. He supports building more water nized, competed with California’s Depart- scent. “Ever since Trump got elected, I’ve with the Central Valley. At the conclusion storage, which is generally at odds with ment of Fish and seen members of my community starting of the meeting, Whitfield reminded the environmental health, but also proposes Wildlife for ownership to attend protests for the first time,” she crowd of Ronald Reagan’s aphorism on incentives for farmers to adopt water- (“California tribe com- said. party unity: “My 80-percent friend is not saving irrigation systems. His most ambi- petes with the state to In her community, she’s up against the my 20-percent enemy.” tious suggestion involves building inland restore its homeland,” notion that voting doesn’t matter, a senti- Local Republicans are well-organized desalinization plants in the valley, a pro- HCN, 9/7/11). ment she has felt at times but is working and have built a stable platform that fa- posal that would raise a host of environ- to overcome. “For those of us that have the vors Central Valley interests over broader mental concerns in terms of energy use Followup privilege to vote, we are going to vote and state politics. Central Valley residents feel and the additional infrastructure neces- In May, the we’re going to do whatever it takes to get frustrated by a state political scene they sary to build the plants. Maidu Summit (out the Latino vote),” she said. see being driven by the Los Angeles Basin Harder is trying to appeal to the agri- Consortium, which A few days after the primary, the Re- and San Francisco Bay Area, where urban cultural community at the east end of the represents nine groups of Maidu, publican Party of Stanislaus County met populations dwarf the vote share of every district, while mobilizing the growing bed- was named the for the first time since the polls closed. The other region. room communities to the west. owner of Humbug meeting kicked off with a call for the party In the valley’s agricultural economy, At the protest in Modesto, Manuel Za- Valley (which they to rally behind Republican candidates in few issues are more important than wa- pata, who has a goatee and was wearing call Tasman Koyom). local elections, where they dominate. But ter. And many locals see Republicans as a a black baseball hat, warned the crowd of The first time in when Denham’s constituent representa- bulwark against the environmental inter- the impacts of Republican immigration California that a tive addressed the crowd, the tone of the ests that wield influence in Sacramento. policies. Zapata, a local organizer, is try- non-recognized tribe meeting shifted. People’s voices rose, ques- Jim DeMartini, the chair of the Board ing to tap into the energy of resistance has had its homeland tioning whether the congressman, who of Supervisors of Stanislaus County, for and rouse a politically inert base. returned, the action sets an important has been a moderate voice on immigration example, said a big part of Denham’s Democrats hold the edge in voter reg- precedent. The Maidu within his party, supported what they see appeal is his defense of the valley’s wa- istration in the district, but have a his- will partner with a as “amnesty for illegals.” ter supply. “Water is just a real big issue tory of low turnout, especially in midterm regional land trust Ted Howze, a local veterinarian who here,” said DeMartini, who also heads elections. Like many in the progressive and the state wildlife ran to the right of Denham, channeled the local Republican Party organization. wing of the Democratic Party, Zapata was department to develop the frustration of this energized flank DeMartini is such a strong Trump sup- moved to political engagement during the cultural and visitor of the local Republicans in his primary porter that he doesn’t plan on taking down 2016 election and served as a primary del- centers and trails, and campaign. In social media posts, Howze his yard sign “until (Trump) finishes his egate for Bernie Sanders. As he canvasses implement traditional called Denham a “pro-amnesty RINO (Re- second term.” on the streets of Tracy, Zapata says he ecological practices publican in name only).” Howze got more “We’re dealing with this left-wing Leg- hears over and over: “I didn’t know there like burning and pruning. than a quarter of the Republican vote and islature that wants to take the water out were any Democrats in Tracy.” Jodi Peterson sliced into Denham’s base. The incumbent of our dam, supposedly for the salmon,” he Turning this disconnected community finished ahead, but down 10 percentage said. “It’s ridiculous.” of Democrats into an engaged voting bloc points from the 2016 primary. That animus toward Democrats in could help bring on the blue wave Demo- Denham’s campaign manager, Josh Sacramento has fortified Republicans’ crats are hoping for in November. And Whitfield, a local city councilman whose waning demographic hold in the district. Zapata said Harder has already made large frame recalls his days playing foot- Pamphlets and road signs for the “state of inroads by campaigning in an often-over- ball at Hughson High School, tried to Jefferson” movement, which preaches se- looked community and hearing out local settle the crowd and remind them that cession from California, are making their concerns. “We’re trying to flip a district, they probably have more in common with way from the Sierra foothills to Central but we need to care about a pothole,” Za- Denham than Harder. On social media, Valley. As one Oakdale voter said, “Keep it pata said. His message to voters: “Maybe the campaign often derisively refers to simple, man: Friends don’t let friends vote Josh Harder can’t fix your pothole, but he the Democratic candidate as “Bay Area Democrat.” can do different things that do affect your Harder” — a dig that aims to paint the Meanwhile, Harder must walk a fine pothole. There’s a disconnect between lo- line between the agricultural interests of cal problems and congressional and na- Carl Segerstrom is an editorial fellow at the district and the environmental pri- tional problems, but we’re all suffering High Country News.  @carlschirps orities of the state’s Democratic establish- from the same issues.” lindsay wood www.hcn.org High Country News 7 The aftereffects of the Oregon standoff In Harney County, collaboration around public lands grows BYy TA WILES

n the night of Jan. 26, 2016, Brenda town had been wrapped in chaos, and now heads over livestock and wildlife. The O Smith was nearing the end of a six- this — a violent death. “It was pretty sur- bad blood extended beyond the Fish and hour drive home from the Portland area real,” she told me during an interview in Wildlife Service, to the Bureau of Land to Burns, in Harney County, Oregon, bask- May, referring to the coincidental timing Management and Forest Service, whose ing in the knowledge that her scrappy of the shooting and her grant funding. management decisions were tied up in nonprofit had just won a $6 million grant. Finicum’s death would mean more divi- litigation. Karges knew something had to The High Desert Partnership helps locals sion, even as the grant would bolster her change. The refuge was supposed to create collaborate on natural resource manage- efforts to build bridges for years to come. a new 15-year plan in a few years. “If we ment, and this was by far the biggest The occupation had been hard on didn’t do something different,” he told me, grant it had ever received. It meant that Burns, a small town in a huge county, pit- “we shouldn’t expect a different outcome she could finally rent a real office and ting friends and family against one anoth- than what the BLM and Forest Service hire other full-time employees. Smith was er. Yet High Desert Partnership seemed were experiencing.” exhausted from the long day, but things to represent an alternative to the extrem- So Karges and Marshall started look- were looking up. ists’ way. Where the Bundys, whose occu- ing around the West for communities that Around 10 p.m. on Highway 20, a sol- pation ultimately lasted six weeks, sowed had forged lasting solutions to thorny id line of police cars with flashing lights discord, Smith and her partners sought disagreements. They reached out to the sped by, traveling in the opposite direction. communication, compromise and collabo- Blackfoot Challenge in Montana, the Qui- Smith assumed they had something to do ration. The community has, in many ways, vira Coalition in New Mexico, and the with the occupation of the nearby Malheur successfully withstood one of the stranger Malpai Borderlands Group in Arizona, National Wildlife Refuge, now in its fourth moments in modern Western history, and all of which created successful partner- week. Self-described militia from across it could hold further lessons for other ships between federal agencies, locals and Forest Service the country had been driving around Burns counties where public-lands extremists conservation groups. Two things became personnel join since December, many demanding that the seek to bring division. Put another way: members of the clear: Natural resource projects needed to Harney County U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service somehow High Desert Partnership’s methods were come as much from the community as the Restoration turn the refuge land over to locals. The “what inoculated us from the Bundy dis- federal government, and they needed a Collaborative leader of the occupation — Ammon Bundy ease,” as one local rancher said. nonprofit to provide a safe, neutral forum and Harney Basin of Idaho — claimed he was making a stand High Desert Partnership began about for conversation around tough issues, like Wetlands Initiative against government “tyranny.” 15 years ago, as a conversation between cattle grazing in a bird sanctuary. for two days of After seeing the police cars, Smith Chad Karges, who was then deputy man- In the early 2000s, Karges and Mar- eradicating carp pulled over, flipped on the radio, and ager for the Malheur National Wildlife shall started assembling local adversaries from Malheur Lake learned that law enforcement had shot Refuge, and a cattle rancher named Gary to talk about land management, deter- and its tributaries in and killed one of the inner circle of occu- Marshall. Relations between local ranch- mined to bring community members into fall 2016. Courtesy of High Desert piers, a man named LaVoy Finicum, in ers and refuge employees had been vola- land-use planning from the beginning, Partnership a roadside confrontation. For weeks, her tile for decades, as the two sides butted rather than waiting for a federal draft

8 High Country News July 23, 2018 THE LATEST plan and a public comment period. “We County, had the culture of collaboration says the takeover forced her to choose a Backstory met for two years, just building relation- not taken root in recent years. “If it had political side, something she was not ac- After hunters ships,” Karges says. By 2005, they had been before 1999, the whole community customed to doing. “I don’t vote a straight introduced enough buy-in to establish the nonprofit. could have gone to the Bundys,” he said. ticket,” she said over the phone. “I never mountain goats High Desert Partnership’s first real Four months after the occupation, knew what I was in those terms — until to Washington’s test began immediately, with the refuge Bundy supporters tried to recall Grasty, the occupation.” Davies is now estranged Olympic Mountains Comprehensive Conservation Plan. The who had vigorously opposed the occupa- from some of her family, most of whom in the 1920s, the animals reproduced group provided a meeting space and facili- tion, but an overwhelming 70 percent of supported the Bundys. rapidly, damaging tators and gathered about 30 participants voters opted to keep him in his seat. That Today, many locals simply avoid the rare native plants to share ideas. At first, environmentalists year, several pro-Bundy county commis- subject as much as possible. “How we’re and alpine areas. and ranchers fell into their traditional sion candidates lost by wide margins. “As dealing with it is we try to not recognize Olympic National Park roles, arguing about livestock’s impacts a metric of support for the Bundy ideol- it,” Pauline Braymen, a rancher and for- relocated hundreds, on the land. But as the meetings went on, ogy, I think that was a pretty clear rejec- mer newspaper reporter, said. but eventually the two sides found something in com- abandoned the effort. mon: invasive carp. For decades, common A proposal in the carp had filled Malheur Lake and nearby 1990s to kill the goats waterways, squeezing out other species failed, and in 2010, a billy fatally gored a and throwing the ecosystem off balance. hiker. Officials again Migrating bird populations were declin- debated what to ing more as a result of carp than cows. So do next (“Can rocks rather than argue over livestock, the two and paintballs help sides made carp a cornerstone of the plan. humans and mountain In the five years since it was finished, the goats coexist?” HCN, Malheur plan has never been litigated. 11/13/13). The refuge still allows grazing in some areas, and the collaborative group is collect- Followup ing data to better understand livestock’s In June, after four impacts on the ecosystem. years of study and Other successes followed. A BLM public comment, the National Park district manager co-founded the Harney Service announced County Wildfire Collaborative to improve plans to relocate relationships between his agency and lo- about half of the cal fire associations and conduct more approximately 675 effective fire suppression. The Harney mountain goats in Basin Wetland Initiative was launched to Olympic National improve over 500,000 acres of wetlands Park. Rangers or on public and private lands. The Harney trained volunteers County Restoration Collaborative helps Harney County Restoration Collaboration facilitator Jack Southworth talks about the need for will shoot the rest. plan forest management projects for the fire-tolerant and ecologically diverse forest ecosystems in Crooked Creek Meadow. The park will begin Courtesy of High Desert Partnership moving goats this Malheur National Forest north of Burns. summer to national By the time the Bundys decided to take forests in the North over the refuge, on Jan. 2, 2016, the county tion,” says Peter Walker, a professor of Ammon Bundy, on the other hand, Cascades. Mountain had over a decade of collaboration under geography and environmental studies at talks about the occupation all the time. goats are native to its belt. “Bundy picked the wrong place,” the North Cascades, the University of Oregon and author of a In 2016, he was acquitted of charges re- Steve Grasty, a former county judge and but populations forthcoming book about Harney County. lated to it, and charges against him for co-founder of High Desert Partnership’s are low, and the Meanwhile, High Desert Partnership’s participating in a 2014 armed standoff in forest collaborative, told me during an in- U.S. Forest Service work has continued. The wetlands initia- Nevada were dismissed in January. This terview at his home outside Burns in May. and Washington tive has grown with the $6 million grant, year, he has traveled the West, speaking Department of Fish “He didn’t know about us.” and High Desert Partnership recently to small audiences about his dislike of the and Wildlife hope to Grant County, by comparison, just to launched a new initiative to engage lo- federal government and environmental- restore the species the north, at the time seemed more sym- cal youth. In May, the group held its first ists, as well as his fringe belief that the there. pathetic to the Malheur occupation. The “Harney County Way” summit to bring Constitution prohibits federal land owner- Jodi Peterson Blue Mountain Eagle, a local newspaper, together dozens of stakeholders working ship outside Washington, D.C. reported that Sheriff Glenn Palmer met on economic and natural resource issues, In May, Ammon spoke in Yreka, Cali- with central figures in the occupation and to exchange ideas and build relationships. fornia, the seat of the far-right state of called them “patriots.” Finicum and sev- Smith called it a celebration of collabora- Jefferson movement. There, he encour- eral others were allegedly on their way to tive work since 2005. aged people to “stand up” for their water meet with Palmer when the fatal roadside Certainly, the Malheur occupation has rights, not in the courts but “there at the confrontation occurred. State and federal left lasting scars in Harney County, di- diversion” — a suggestion that echoed the law enforcement deliberately stopped viding people here along ideological lines chainsaws and blowtorches that opened the occupiers before they entered Grant — those who support the occupiers’ anti- headgates in that region during the County because officials said more people federal message, versus those who don’t. drought of 2001. The Yreka crowd wel- there, including the sheriff, were sympa- Joan Davies, a former city adminis- comed Bundy’s words. thetic to their cause. In November 2016, trator at the time of the occupation, has But Harney County is another story. voters re-elected Palmer for a fifth term. moved away after spending most of her 63 Two years after the occupation, Karges Looking back, Karges thinks the Bund- years in Harney County. During the oc- and Smith see the Bundy episode as a ys’ ideology could have swayed Harney cupation, she received emails, phone calls mere bump in the road. As for how the and texts for weeks on end from a stranger refuge and locals are working together to T ay Wiles is an associate editor for who pressured her to run for county com- manage the land? “It hasn’t changed at  High Country News. @taywiles mission on a pro-Bundy platform. Davies all,” Karges said. Lowell Brady/Flickr www.hcn.org High Country News 9 THE HCN COMMUNITY David Cismoski | Fort Collins, CO Beth Conover & Ken Snyder | Denver, CO Frederick Dowsett | Lakewood, CO RESEARCH FUND Joshua Ewing | Bluff, UT Glenn Feldman | Paradise Valley, AZ Bill & Linda Ferris | Steamboat Springs, CO Mara Ferris & Joe Neuhof | Grand Junction, CO Stephen Fischer | Los Angeles, CA Thank you, Research Fund donors, John Fox | Blacksburg, VA Charles M. Fry | Parker, CO for helping us branch out across the West Herman W. 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10 High Country News July 23, 2018 DEAR FRIENDS Peter von Christierson | Port Townsend, WA Tom & Jane Meacham | Anchorage, AK William & Betty Walters | Salida, CO Melissa Mehring | Layton, UT Evan Ward | Portland, OR Pete & Jan Metzmaker | Whitefish, TM Elizabeth Wargo | Sandpoint, ID Wendy Meyer | Shaker Heights, OH Todd Warnke | Castle Rock, CO Paul Michabofsky | Pasadena, CA Steve Wegner | Canby, OR John F. Mijer | Ogden, UT Andrew Weiner | Albany, CA Andrew Minsk | Davis, CA Linda West | Vernal, UT Paula A. Moore | Pueblo, CO Judith Williams | Santa Fe, NM Jim & Leslie Morefield | Minden, NV John C. Wise | Hidden Valley Lake, CA Carroll Munz | Paradise Valley, AZ Liz Wise | Vernon, AZ Curtis K. Oberhansly | Boulder, UT Paul Worth | Idaho Falls, ID John J. O’Hara | Berlin, NJ Shelley Olds | Nederland, CO Friend Lee Overton | Paonia, CO Anonymous (7) Stephens Parker & Geni Miller | Durango, CO In memory of Matt Sanchez Rachel Paull | Highlands Ranch, CO Jim & Lucia Adams | Cashiers, NC Jared Pearce | Seattle, WA Brent Boehlert | Portland, OR Lisa Pepmeyer | Parker, CO Nick Carling | Salt Lake City, UT Sandra Phillips | Brecksville, OH Angela Dye of Telluride, Colorado, stopped by downtown Paonia with her Edward Corcoran | Lakewood, CO Richard Philps | Challis, ID whole bike trip crew. luna anna archey/high country news Dick Cumiskey | Monroe, UT Linda Pinkerton | Fayetteville, AR Mary Ellen Davis & Sheldon King | Larry F. Pyers | Georgetown, CO Colorado Springs, CO David Quinlivan | Englewood, CO A cheery cherry celebration Nancy Easter | Tucson, AZ Samuel Rankin | Billings, MT Summer brought Paonia very family; they left as new sub- Elizabeth Ellis | Anchorage, AK Meredith Reifschneider | Pacifica,C A hot temperatures, along with scribers. Pat is the former direc- Richard Ellsbury | Pueblo, CO Janet Reither | Cañon City, CO the annual Cherry Days Fourth tor of the Carnegie Academy Harry Freiberg | Brookings, OR Marion Richter | Anchorage, AK of July festivities and lots of for the Scholarship of Teaching Susan & L.D. Frome | Hamilton, MT Ray Ring | Tucson, AZ friends coming by to check out and Learning in Menlo Park, Raymond Gilkeson | Sequim, WA Ronald J. Roedel | Phoenix, AZ our headquarters. Here are and Don is a retired university Liberty Godshall | Santa Monica, CA Ronnie Rogers | Burien, WA some of the friendly folks who professor. Maureen Gonzales | Chama, NM Tam & Sue Scott | Patagonia, AZ stopped by. Lisa Norby and Dave Shaver Maureen & Bob Hall | Crested Butte, CO Kay Sibold | Ridgway, CO Angela Dye of Telluride, came by from Morrison, Colo- Brian Harrison & Felicity Fonseca | Dixon, NM Marcia Wirth & Rick Simmons | Brogan, OR Colorado, and her dog, Natasha, rado, on the Front Range. Lisa Carolyn Hawxhurst | Jackson, WY Karen Smith | Berkeley, CA breezed through the office on and Dave are both longtime David Henderson | Centennial, CO Thomas St. Martin | Denver, CO a Friday afternoon after an readers who work with federal Rich & Carol Holly | Ojai, CA Randolph Stadler | Westover, MD arduous bike ride over McClure land-management agencies. Alan Huth | Wooster, OH Robert Stoffregen | Moraga, CA Pass between Carbondale and Lisa is a friend of Deputy Paonia. Craig Jensen | Edmonds, WA Calvin & Mary Strom | Fort Collins, CO Editor-Digital Kate Schimel’s Christopher Smith of El- family. Kelly Johnson | Salt Lake City, UT Jeff & Nicole Szarzi | Homer, AK dorado Springs, Colorado, also We are proud to announce Edward Kikumoto | Idleyld Park, OR Donald & Nancy Taylor | Denver, CO visited on the last Friday in that HCN received seven Robbin Kimura | Broomfield, CO Hannah & Emily Thomas | Parshall, CO June. As a scientist, Christo- journalism awards from the Ross King | Paonia, CO Gary Thompson | Columbus, MT Pauline & Michael Klein | Heber, AZ pher is interested in fracking’s Native American Journalists Sue VanHoose | Clarkdale, AZ impacts on the West. Association. Among the winners Thomas & Linda Lance | Kodiak, AK Richard VanReyper | Tubac, AZ Carol Linneman | Merced, CA Ceal Klingler and Stacey for the National Native Media Darlene Velder | Fort Collins, CO Brown, from Bishop, California, Awards were Debra Utacia Krol, Ronald Lundquist | Denver, CO Bonnie S. Weathers | Pagosa Springs, CO stopped by with their dog, Kim Baca, Julian Brave NoiseCat, Marge Mansfield | Seattle, WA Minna White | El Prado, NM Oliver. Ceal has been reading Jacqueline Keeler, Anna V. Smith Craig Markham | Dundee, OR Elizabeth Winter | Taos, NM HCN since 1997, and a few and Julia O’Malley. Congratula- Margaret Marti | Santa Fe, NE Kent Winterholler | Park City, UT years ago, Stacey wrote about tions to all the hard-working Scott McKay | Nephi, UT groundwater in the Owens writers and editors at our tribal River Valley for our syndicated affairs desk! opinion service, Writers on the And congratulations to Fresh water rarely flows to the Gulf of California. Range. former editorial fellow Lyndsey These are tidal channels near the sea. Murat Eyuboglu Barry Miller, a Hinsdale, New Gilpin, who has launched South- York, anti-fracking activist, erly Magazine, a publication T he ColorADO, Christa Sadler 270 pages, large-format hardcover: $60. National Sawdust and and his friend, John Luse, were dedicated to ecology, justice and This Earth Press, 2018. enjoying a motorcycle tour of culture in the American South. the West. John, who lives in San You can learn more at souther- As the lifeblood and sculptor of vast expanses of the arid West, Francisco, is concerned over lymag.org. the Colorado River has defined the region’s human and natural the issues Indigenous people A few corrections from our history for millennia. In The Colorado, longtime river-runner, envi- face and appreciated HCN’s last issue (HCN, 6/25/18): In ronmental educator and author Christa Sadler invites readers to coverage of Chaco Canyon, New “Displaced/Erased,” the yellow- sit down by the riverside and listen to its stories. Mexico (“Drilling Chaco,” HCN, billed cuckoo was referred to The large-format book, which accompanies an award-winning 3/5/18). as an endangered species; it is documentary of the same name, reads like a tour through a natu- Digital subscriber Matt Her- ral history museum. Beautiful photographs, instructive visual aids listed as a threatened species and engaging writing take readers from the geology of the river man, who was also on a motor- under the Endangered Species to the customs of Native cultures, European colonial histories and cycle tour of the West, came to Act. And in “Little Weed, Big modern political debates. Along the way, it gives readers a better see the office and get out of the Problem,” we erred in describ- sense of the complex system that brings water to the people of sun for a while. ing the size of a plastic vial; the Southwest. Pat Hutchings and Don it was the size of a .22-caliber Accessible to the uninitiated and enlightening even for river Warder of Deer Park, Washing- cartridge, not bullet. devotees, the book has something to offer all who care about the ton, came to visit Development —Carl Segerstrom, Colorado River Basin. Carl Segerstrom Director Laurie Milford and her for the staff

www.hcn.org High Country News 11 Olivia Lone Bear, a mother of five, has been missing since October 2017, when she was last seen on the Fort Berthold Reservation in New Town, North Dakota. Courtesy of the Lone Bear family/ searchingforolivia. wordpress.com

The Search for Olivia Lone Bear Native families grapple with scant support to locate their missing loved ones

hirteen minutes into Taylor Sheridan really wanted to be true to life, in the United States, but the scattered Sheridan’s feature film Wind he would have ended his film with the data available paint a frightening picture. River, the body of a young Native family never finding the body of their The blog Justice for Native Women, run woman from the Wind River loved one, much less tracking down the by Makoons Miller-Tanner, Ojibway from ReservationT in Wyoming is discovered by culprit. On Oct. 24, 2017, a real Native Minnesota, uses crowd-sourced informa- FEATURE By Jacqueline the protagonist, a white hunter who works American woman, a 33-year-old mother of tion to put names and faces to Native for the federal government. That spurs a five named Olivia Lone Bear, disappeared women who have disappeared or whose Keeler multi-agency investigation, and within from the Fort Berthold Reservation in bodies have been found but whose deaths days, officers from the Federal Bureau North Dakota. Her family has been fran- remain unsolved. of Investigation and local and tribal law tically searching for her ever since. Like Week after week, more names and enforcement face off in a bloody, Taran- so many others, though, they’ve run up photos are added. Each listing begins tino-style shootout with the bad guys: against uncooperative law enforcement with the phrase, “This is ______,” oil workers living in the company-owned agencies, which are themselves stymied followed by a photo of the woman. temporary housing known as man camps. by jurisdictional complications and a lack Many of them are selfies, showing the According to Sheridan, the film is of resources. “(Tribal police) told us they women and girls as they wanted to be “inspired by true events” and the “thou- couldn’t investigate Olivia’s disappear- seen: vibrant and perfectly made-up sands of actual stories just like it,” ance because there was no crime scene,” young people, their smiles brilliant involving the sexual assault of Native her cousin, Matthew Lone Bear, told me with life and hope. “This is Nicole American women on reservations across in February, shortly after the Bureau of Morgan, missing from New Mexico the country. Yet Native families seldom Indian Affairs took over the investigation since 2018. … This is Val Caye, missing get such dramatic closure or swift justice. from the Three Affiliated Tribes police. from Washington since 2018. … This Rarely do local or federal law enforce- There is no reliable official database is Ashley Loring/HeavyRunner, miss- ment officers respond so quickly or take recording the names or even the number ing from Montana since 2017. … This is bullets in defense of tribal members. Had of missing and murdered Native women Natalie White Lightning, murdered in

12 High Country News July 23, 2018 “I remember, as a child, hearing my mother, my aunts and their friends at the kitchen table lowering their voices and whispering about those women in our families who went missing or were murdered.” —Tami Truett Jerue, executive director of the Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center

North Dakota in 2014.” Rhode Island. Named for a former U.S. nearly 10-year-long boom, the tribe was These data are kept mostly in the Army fort, the reservation is home to the pumping 333,000 barrels of crude a day, hands of civilian stewards. Justice for Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes, slightly less than Oklahoma’s oil produc- Native Women records about 600 names. otherwise known as the MHA Nation or tion. In three years, the MHA Nation Another Native activist, Annita Lucchesi, Three Affiliated Tribes, which together had paid off $100 million in debt and had keeps an “MMIW Database” with over have about 16,000 members. grown its operating budget to $57.7 mil- 2,500 names. The initials “MMIW” stand The reservation is also home to nearly lion, while squirreling away nearly $250 for “Missing and Murdered Indigenous one-third of the famous Bakken shale million for “special projects” funding. Women.” formation, which, according to the U.S. It was probably not the path envi- “We all know someone,” said Tami Geological Survey, holds somewhere sioned by Chairman George Gillette in Truett Jerue, executive director of the between 4.4 and 11.4 billion barrels of 1948, when, in tears, he signed away Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center, oil. That oil is recoverable using horizon- 150,000 acres of land for the construction during a congressional briefing in 2017. “I tal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, a of Garrison Dam, solemnly declaring, remember, as a child, hearing my mother, process by which a mixture of water, sand “Our Treaty of Fort Laramie … and our my aunts and their friends at the kitchen and chemicals is injected at very high Constitution are being torn to shreds by table lowering their voices and whisper- pressures underground to release the oil this contract.” The 1956 construction of ing about those women in our families from the rock. The tribe has benefited the dam, which created Lake Sakakawea who went missing or were murdered.” monetarily from the drilling, but tribal (named for the Shoshone Hidatsa woman The murder rate for Alaskan Natives is members are worried about the environ- known as Sakajawea, who guided the nearly double that of other Alaskans. mental damage involved, along with the Lewis and Clark Expedition), flooded the In October 2017, Sen. Heidi Heit- violence brought by transient workers best bottomland farmland on the reserva- kamp, D-N.D., introduced a bill that and the corruption that has festered in tion and devastated the tribe. Residents would address the lack of data on miss- the tribal government ever since the of traditional communities were relocated ing and murdered Indigenous women boom’s earliest days. by the Army Corps of Engineers to tract and seek to improve law enforcement The community is starkly divided homes in places like New Town, created protocols and collaboration between between the haves and the have-nots. in 1950. Tight-knit communities up and jurisdictions. It’s called Savanna’s Act, Tribal members who inherited fractional down the Missouri River became unrav- after Savanna LeFontaine-Greywind, ownership of energy-rich allotments eled, and over 2,000 Native Americans who vanished from Fargo, North Dakota, enjoy oil royalties from their mineral lost their farms entirely. One of the flyers in August 2017. She was a member of leases, while the rest receive few benefits, It was into this landscape that Olivia distributed on a the Spirit Lake Tribe, and her selfies even though they have to help carry the Lone Bear was born, and it was from her website the Lone Bear family set up to document her happiness at her pregnant burden — higher housing costs, violence father’s ranch house along Highway 23 help in the search for belly and the new life growing inside her. and drug use. Former Chairman Tex “Red — lined with oil well flares that give the Olivia Lone Bear. Her body was found, wrapped in plastic, Tipped Arrow” Hall has dubbed this new place a hellish aspect — that her voice was Courtesy of the Lone Bear family/ after an extensive eight-day community paradigm “sovereignty by the barrel.” last heard. Raised a citizen of a confedera- searchingforolivia. search. In an unbelievable act of cruelty, By 2014, toward the end of what was a tion of three surviving nations, around a wordpress.com her white neighbor cut Savanna’s daughter from her womb, stole the baby, and then murdered the young mother. In 2016, according to the National Crime Information Center, North Dakota accounted for 125 of 5,712 nationwide cases of missing Native women. Experts believe that the actual number is consid- erably higher, given that police departments are not required to identify victims as Native American. A 2013 National Congress of American Indians policy brief notes that Native women experience two- and-a-half times the rate of violence and double the rate of rape or sexual assault compared to American women of all other races. In some counties, Native women experience 10 times the rate of murder. Even in suburbia, Native American women are assaulted at nearly three times the rate of their non-Indian counterparts. In Canada, a government report cited 1,181 police-recorded incidents of First Nations women missing or murdered between 1980 and 2012. However, an advocacy group estimated that the actual number was closer to 4,000. Since there are far more Native people in the U.S. than in Canada, the number here is likely much higher. The Fort Berthold Reservation, which Lone Bear called home, spans nearly 1 million acres, an area about the size of

www.hcn.org High Country News 13 Caption. Credit

Lake Sakakawea on lake ostensibly named to honor a woman ‘You don’t need to be here’; ‘There really is by the tribe’s limited jurisdiction, which ex- the Fort Berthold of her tribe, she lived almost half her life no missing person.’ ” A Bismarck Tribune tends only to enrolled members of federally Reservation. The Lone in the midst of a Wild West-style oil boom article, one of the few media reports on recognized tribes. In 2015, after two years Bear family urged the that brought thousands of out-of-state Fox’s disappearance, took note of tribal of Republican opposition, the Violence tribal police to conduct workers to town, mostly without their law enforcement’s lack of communication Against Women’s Act (VAWA) was finally a water search for the families, and with money to burn. regarding the case, both with the press amended by Congress to expand tribal ju- body of Olivia Lone It was a difficult place to be a woman. and other local law enforcement agencies. risdiction to non-enrolled defendants who Bear, and although other agencies offered A bartender at the tribe’s Four Bears Fox was found less than an hour later, commit domestic violence on reservations. assistance, the tribal Casino told me that she and her friends a few hundred feet from her vehicle. This is critical, given that Native women police declined it. party only in their own apartments. They Although family members say the circum- are, more often than not, assaulted by Jacqueline Keeler never go out because it’s too dangerous. stances of her death were “suspicious,” no non-Indians. The MHA Nation, however, Every night after work, the bartender is cause of death was made public, and no still has not met the federal requirements walked to her car by the casino’s security. media outlet ever did a follow-up story. necessary to gain these expanded VAWA But Robin Fox, a 38-year-old mother The violence that seems to pervade powers, and the law does not cover sexual of three, lacked this sort of protection. On this corner of the world also seeped into assault outside of a committed relationship March 5, 2014, her car was found outside the life of Olivia Lone Bear. She once or due to sex trafficking. a local country club, door ajar, dome light worked as a bartender at Ranchman’s If a tribal member like Lone Bear on, keys in the ignition, and a large sum 23 Steakhouse and Saloon Restaurant in is trafficked or assaulted by someone of cash and her cellphone inside. Fox was New Town, an establishment frequented the tribe cannot prosecute, the FBI has nowhere to be found. by the mostly white oilfield workers. A jurisdiction. However, the FBI declines A Facebook group was created and waitress who worked with her described to prosecute the vast majority of cases, flyers printed with photos of Fox, a Three Lone Bear as a nice person and a good and with six counties sharing jurisdic- Affiliated Tribes member who was raised worker, but told me that she was fired tion over the reservation, sheriffs are in Seattle, and directed the Rockview from the job after the wife of an ex-boy- reluctant to respond due to the possible School for Tots in the reservation com- friend came in, confronted Lone Bear and jurisdictional confusion. munity of Parshall. In one photo, she is beat her up, repeatedly slamming her elegantly dressed in formal attire, and in head onto the pool table. In February, in New Town, North Da- another she proudly wears teal and blue In response to all the violence, tribal kota, population 2,500 and home to the to celebrate the Seattle Seahawks’ 2013 activists pushed the MHA Nation to tribal headquarters, I sat across the table Super Bowl championship. become one of the few Indigenous nations from Jim Hofhenke as he held court at a When volunteer searchers showed to outlaw sex trafficking. “Loren’s Law” — small table in a tiny, hole-in-the-wall bar up to help find Fox, they complained named after the late Loren Whitehorn, an on the main drag. Hofhenke, who is white that tribal law enforcement was, at best, MHA tribal member and sexual assault and in his 50s, is from California, but unhelpful. “Two hostile (tribal police) victims’ advocate — was passed in 2014 spends most of his time working in the officers were waiting for us when we ar- following numerous reports of sexual oilfields here. Occasionally, other white rived in Roseglen to search,” Lissa Yellow assault in man camps on or near the men approached him tentatively. He Bird-Chase alleged on Facebook. “We reservation. barely acknowledged their presence, say- were told, ‘We aren’t here to help you’; The law’s effectiveness is hampered ing little and hammering back beer after

14 High Country News July 23, 2018 If a tribal member like Lone Bear is trafficked or assaulted by someone the tribe cannot prosecute, the FBI has jurisdiction. However, the FBI declines to prosecute the vast majority of cases.

beer from a box at his feet. He was the Matthew Lone last person to hear from Olivia Lone Bear. Bear looks for his He told me that he and Lone Bear missing cousin using were friends. He called her his “running a drone donated buddy,” and said he lent her his truck for the search last whenever she needed it. The day she November. Below, went missing, a Tuesday, she sent him a Texx Lone Bear, Olivia’s father, and text message saying she was doing laun- Matthew are joined dry in her father’s house on Highway 23. by a volunteer Hofhenke said he later went by the house searcher to look over to drop off some groceries, but no one a map of the MHA answered the door. When her family came Nations’ nearly home, she was gone — without taking her 1 million acres last jacket, her debit card, her wallet or her October. cellphone. She did, however, apparently Desiree Kane take Hofhenke’s pickup. The last image the family has seen was taken by a security camera at a New Town bank, which showed Lone Bear stopping at a nearby store in Hofhenke’s metallic-gray Chevy Silverado. The police, citing the ongoing investigation, have not told the family exactly when the photo was taken. That Friday, the Lone Bear family reported Olivia missing, but police were slow to begin a search or even send out a statewide alert. “(The MHA Nation police) did not act on the missing person’s report until the following Monday,” Matthew Lone Bear told me. “And news couldn’t report and put it on air until the tribal police department filed a police report.” The family has criticized the tribal police’s apparent unwillingness to prioritize Olivia’s disappearance. They allege that on the second day of the search, lead de- tectives berated Texx Lone Bear, Olivia’s father, telling him: “This is not the only thing going on with the Fort Berthold Reservation.” “It set the tone for how they treated it,” Matt Lone Bear said. “They don’t treat it with urgency.” He believes tribal police investigators looked for excuses not to check out tips. Lone Bear claims they dismissed a tip on a truck that looked like Hofhenke’s because the informant didn’t give the color of the license plate. Family members say they’ve asked whether the police tried to locate the truck via an onboard OnStar system, but their questions have gone forced the department to act: He posted a headquarters — but not by local law unanswered. photo on Facebook of various watercraft enforcement. “They asked, ‘Where’s law The police denied these allegations to sitting unused in the police supply yard, enforcement? This should be full of police local news outlets at the time, but would sparking public outcry. officers.’ This was the first time they’d not discuss any aspect of the case with With tribal law enforcement mak- ever seen civilians running a search.” High Country News. The case is now ing such a lackluster effort, the family The space is well-organized, stocked being handled by the Bureau of Indian was forced to pick up the slack. The tribe with water bottles, snacks and flyers. With Affairs police. lent them offices from which they could the help of locals, the family extended the As the weeks went by and the water in coordinate the search, and they credit ground search to communities far from Jacqueline Keeler is Lake Sakakawea slowly began to freeze, Chairman Mark Fox for his support. The New Town, such as Minot and Dickinson, a Diné/Ihanktonwan the family urged the tribal police to con- tribe’s Victim Services paid for searchers’ North Dakota. Throughout the spring and Dakota writer and duct a water search. Although other agen- hotel rooms for about two months. summer, they continued to search, though contributor to The Nation and cies offered to help — the North Dakota Matt Lone Bear, who is 30, sat in the number of volunteers fell drasti- Yes! magazine. Her Game and Fish Department offered its Olivia Lone Bear Search headquarters, cally. Olivia Lone Bear’s aunt, her father book The Edge of sonar to help in the search — the tribal wearing heavy Carhartt coveralls to keep and her cousin seemed reluctant to leave Morning: Native Voices police declined it. At the same time, tribal out the February chill. He told me that search headquarters. It was if by staying Speak for the Bears police told the family they couldn’t search when an experienced search team out and remaining in active search mode, they Ears is available from the lake because they didn’t have any of Roosevelt County, Montana, showed could create a talisman that would protect Torrey House Press. boats available. Matt Lone Bear finally up, they were impressed by the family’s their loved one, wherever she might be.  @jfkeeler

www.hcn.org High Country News 15 FEATURE | By Gloria Dickie

Pay for Prey Inside Oregon’s troubled wolf payouts

ust before dawn on a chilly day last Sep- tember, a volunteer range rider left camp in Marr Flat, a ponderosa-pine plain in northeastern Oregon’s Wallowa County where ranchers run 200 cattle on private J land each summer. The cows were due down by month’s end, and the rider was looking for stragglers. Not 30 minutes later, he found something else — the ribcage of a half-eaten calf, gleaming in the sun. When Oregon Department of Fish and might be more successful than others producers,” she says. Wildlife biologist Pat Matthews came to in this regard. Oregon’s liberal-leaning But signs of trouble have emerged investigate, he found a carcass ringed by urban areas expanded support for wolves’ in the first fully participating counties, wolf tracks and covered in bite marks. re-entry, and legislators had years of suggesting potential pitfalls for other GPS pinpointed a radio-collared member data and experience to draw on from counties as they ramp up the program. of the Harl Butte Pack nearby. Roblyn other Western states where wolves had In Oregon’s Wallowa and Baker counties, Brown, Oregon’s acting wolf coordinator, returned earlier. The program required local oversight of loss claims has proven agreed with Matthews: A wolf had killed ranchers to implement nonlethal wolf unbalanced or thin in key cases, leading the calf. deterrents in order to be reimbursed — to approval of suspicious compensation re- Armed with this information, Todd something environmental groups like quests. Confirmed wolf kills may not have Nash, its owner, requested and received Portland-based Oregon Wild valued. skyrocketed, but missing cattle claims $930 from the state — the calf’s official It also gave rural communities more have, far outpacing them. Between 2012 value. Oregon, like many states where oversight, and recognized the challenges and 2018, the state paid nearly $177,000 wolves have made a comeback, has a ranchers face in an already marginal for missing livestock in just three coun- taxpayer-funded program that compen- business by adopting provisions for miss- ties, more than double the total amount sates ranchers for livestock killed by the ing livestock. paid for direct losses in the nine counties predators, offsetting some of the direct Seven years later, the rate of increase that have been eligible for compensation. costs ranchers bear for their return. In of confirmed livestock kills has remained Critics fear the program’s missing-cow al- theory, this should also help wolf conser- below the growth rate of the state’s lowance is being abused; ranchers counter vation by encouraging rural areas long wolf population, which increased from that the state’s official wolf population — at odds with wolves to eventually accept 48 in 2012 to 124 by the end of 2017. and depredation — numbers are too low. their presence. Brown believes ranchers are implement- Whatever the reason, such claims Before its adoption in 2011, some ing best practices for keeping livestock have serious implications for both ranch- believed Oregon’s compensation program safe. “Producers are learning from other ers and wolves. State funding has stayed

16 High Country News July 23, 2018 A wolf near the carcass of a dead cow, photographed in April 2014 by a camera trap in Todd Nash’s grazing area in Wallowa County, Oregon. Courtesy of Todd Nash

nearly 60 years. Two years later, the state updated its management plan, offer- ing staged protections to wolves as they returned home. But state law barred Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife from starting a payout program. As Wal- lowa’s wolf population grew, local rancher Dennis Sheehy began looking for ways to protect cattlemen’s interests. Sheehy, a slow talker with bright, crinkly eyes whose life has meandered from Hawaii to Vietnam to a Chinese commune in Inner Mongolia, now runs hundreds of cows in northeastern Oregon, with many grazing up in the Harl Butte area. Critics fear The trouble with compensating only for confirmed losses, Sheehy told me over the program’s coffee at his ranch house near the town of Wallowa, was that the region’s dense missing-cow forests and rocky canyons were too rug- allowance is ged for ranchers to be able to find all the livestock that wolves may have killed. being abused; Paying for missing animals is “about the only way you can have any possibility of ranchers accurate compensation out in the Marr counter that Flat, Snake River and Hells Canyon areas,” Sheehy said. the state’s The program that Oregon ultimately developed, overseen by the state Depart- official wolf ment of Agriculture, gave ranchers what Sheehy advocated for. Based on their population record-keeping, they would be compen- — and sated in full for missing livestock if, after wolves appeared in their area, their losses depredation climbed above their documented historical average. — numbers Under the program, county-level wolf are too low. committees would vet claims for missing animals and review investigation reports roughly the same since 2014 — $200,000 Mott Jr. reached out to the nonprofit before applying for state grants to cover every two years, plus a smaller federal group Defenders of Wildlife. He suggested claims for confirmed losses based on grant for preventive measures that the that a private fund to pay ranchers for market value. An additional 30 percent state must match. Increasingly, officials livestock losses might help head off ten- of funding over the county’s total an- have been forced to cut back on wholly sions. Defenders agreed, and over two de- nual claimed amount was added to help fulfilling missing cattle claims and fund- cades, as Northern Rockies wolf numbers ranchers pay for deterrents, such as range ing requests for nonlethal deterrents in surpassed 1,600, it paid livestock produc- riders to monitor cows, and fladry, colored hopes of stretching the money. ers more than $1.3 million. “Having the flagging that scares wolves away from And despite everything, ranchers don’t compensation in place helped get a lot of fence-lines. An Oregon Department of appear any closer to accepting wolves. (ranchers’) fears addressed early on,” says Agriculture official would provide over- This raises questions about whether there Suzanne Stone, who managed the group’s sight, but authority lay largely with the are better ways to incentivize coexistence, compensation program from 1999 until counties. and it shows just how controversial its end. Sheehy showed me the creased wolves can be — even when all the pieces By 2010, wolves were stable enough notebook where he tracks his cows. Other seem in place to support their return. that the feds began to withdraw protec- ranchers joke that he has fewer losses tions and Defenders ended its payouts. because his animals wear Alpine-style Wolves first returned to Western Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, cowbells, “like Heidi.” So far, he’s request- states on their own, trickling into Glacier Idaho and Washington filled the gap ed compensation only twice. That’s true National Park from Canada. In 1985, as through state programs, with the help for many ranchers — though some claims the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made of federal grants and seed funds from stand out. plans to speed things along by reintro- Defenders. ducing 66 gray wolves in Yellowstone Not long before, in 2008, wolf pups On a blue-sky fall morning, wolf advo- National Park and central Idaho, then- were born in Oregon’s Wallowa Moun- cate Wally Sykes picked me up in Joseph, National Park Service Director William tains — the first litter in the state in Oregon, his wolf-dog hybrid Koda peering

www.hcn.org High Country News 17 received $9,540. Critics believe the case could em- bolden others. Ranchers can only receive money for missing livestock if their animals are grazing in areas of known wolf activity — currently eight counties — as designated by the state wildlife department. But wolves are fanning out, and more counties will soon be eligible. Even in more moderate Umatilla County, there are concerns about the limits of oversight. The county’s committee has two wolf advocates, and for major claims, it closely investigates ranchers’ routines for monitoring cows and locating missing ones, says county commissioner and committee member Larry Givens. But there’s only so much vetting they can do. Givens worries wolves are getting blamed for cougar and bear kills, as well as cattle rustling. “I think that you’re going to face some risks if you have your animals up in outlying areas.” In 2018, compensation requests for missing livestock from four counties climbed to $42,000, far outpacing requests for direct losses, which have remained between $7,000 and $18,000 statewide annually. Roblyn Brown, the state’s wolf coor- Dean Tucker, cow from the backseat of his Subaru. Sykes, Sykes believes that’s led to question- dinator, said that she’s not aware of any boss at the Pine 72, has a trim white beard and wore a able decisions. In one case, the Wallowa biological reason for the surge. In theory, Valley Ranch, left, “Wolf Haven” ball cap. We drove into committee approved a $1,000 compen- places with high missing-cattle claims and rancher Chad the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, sation request and passed it to Jason should more closely track areas that are DelCurto talk wolves dodging deer hunters and cows, includ- Barber, the state official who oversees the known to have dense wolf populations or at Tucker’s place in Richland, Oregon. ing two of Sheehy’s belled animals, then program, for a calf killed by a wolf while high numbers of confirmed kills. In 2016, DelCurto hiked through thick pine forest to Marr illegally grazing on an allotment the For- In a case at Baker County’s Pine filed a claim for 11 Meadow, not far from where Todd Nash’s est Service had already closed. The state Valley Ranch, 24 animals disappeared missing cows and calf was killed two days earlier. A faint paid the full amount. without a trace in fall 2013. The rancher 41 missing calves. howl drifted through the trees. Neighboring Baker County has been requested more than $26,000. But just The state ultimately Though Sykes has seen wolves in the unable to fill its wolf-advocate posts, one confirmed wolf kill had occurred in paid $9,540 of his wild only a half-dozen times, he’s devoted which are currently empty. In 2016, the area, a year before. “If the producer is claim, which had an a lot of time to them, serving seven years concerns were raised when the commit- checking his livestock, you would expect estimated value of on the Wallowa County Wolf Commit- tee agreed to compensate for 41 missing the producer, or other people recreating $45,000. Courtesy of tee. The program’s enabling legislation calves and 11 missing cows, valued at in the area, to find several injured or Tony Schick/Oregon requires all the committees to include one more than $45,000. dead calves to correspond with the miss- Public Broadcasting/ EarthFix county commissioner, two livestock pro- At the time, there had been only one ing numbers, if wolves were the cause,” ducers, two wolf conservation advocates confirmed wolf kill in Baker, in 2012, said Brown. and two county business representatives. and, according to the state wildlife The spike isn’t good for either rural But Sykes said Wallowa’s committee is department, no pack had yet denned residents or for wolves. If wolves are biased by local anti-wolf politics, with the there. That cast doubt on the size of the solely responsible, then nonlethal preven- other conservation post historically filled claim. But the rancher who filed it, Chad tive measures aren’t working. That could by someone associated with agriculture, DelCurto, said wolves had been active lead the state to kill more wolves. To date, not wildlife conservation. on his allotment for three or four years. the state has paid $595,790 in state and Come fall, most of his calves were miss- federal funds to 13 counties for nonlethal ing. “I hadn’t had problems in the past, deterrents. But because the enabling until these wolves started coming in so legislation that required these deterrents thick,” DelCurto said. didn’t define what their “reasonable use” The committee’s response so alarmed would look like, Oregon Wild worries they Mike Durgan, one of Baker’s business aren’t being deployed effectively. Fladry representatives, that he quit. “Nobody works in small pastures, but not large believed (DelCurto’s claim) except our allotments. Wallowa County Commis- committee,” said Durgan. He worried that sioner Susan Roberts says the only thing it signaled a bigger problem: The county that has worked to keep wolves away lacked a consistent, defensible procedure there is human presence — the county’s for obtaining accurate documentation range rider. But that’s just one person for from ranchers. thousands of acres. Baker County Commissioner Mark Another possibility is that some Bennett acknowledged the case had claims are inflated, either unintention- problems, but said DelCurto hadn’t been ally or deliberately, blaming wolves using that allotment long enough to have for animals that disappeared for other historical loss numbers. When Barber reasons. “Wolves would have to do noth- began asking questions, the committee ing but kill livestock for 24 hours a day revised its ask, and DelCurto ultimately to get up to the numbers they’re talking Luna Anna Archey/High Country News. Source: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife 18 High Country News July 23, 2018 about,” said Defenders’ Stone. And if ranchers are submitting illegitimate, or poorly documented, claims, they’re not just taking money from taxpayers, they may also jeopardize public support for reimbursing ranchers. “That’s the kind of thing that’s going to kill this program,” Durgan said.

Some ranchers have another explanation for the discrepancy between missing cattle claims and confirmed kills: They believe there are more wolves in Oregon than acknowledged, and that the wildlife department is at- tributing actual wolf kills to other causes. They feel betrayed. I met rancher Cynthia Warnock at her home in Imnaha, overlooking rolling hills dotted with Indian paintbrush. She, her husband and brother-in-law have been some of Wallowa’s most frequent claim- ants for confirmed losses, receiving more than $4,000. In late 2016, when wolves killed one of their calves and maimed two others, the Warnocks asked officials to kill the offenders. They had lost more than four animals in the previous six months to wolves — the number legally required for a lethal removal permit. But the state in poaching, said Adrian Treves, director nearly doubled. In 2018, Barber had to One subadult and declined, because the season was almost of the Carnivore Coexistence Lab at the reduce payments on counties’ requests one pup from the over and the cows would be moved soon. University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2017, for nonlethal controls — $271,000 — by Catherine Pack on In another case, Cynthia Warnock after eastern Oregon passed a population more than half. Missing cattle payments, private property in eastern Union found a calf covered in bite marks. But threshold where the state’s plan begins traditionally reduced by 25 percent, were County, May 2017. investigators said they weren’t wide to relax protections, officials killed five cut to 50 percent. “It’s just simple math,” Oregon Department of enough to be from a wolf and more likely wolves at ranchers’ behest — the same Barber says. “We have to do more with Fish and Wildlife came from a coyote. A month later, the number killed in 2016 — despite far fewer less.” Warnocks found a partially eaten cow, confirmed livestock losses. An additional Several people are working on possi- but the state ruled that wolves had four wolves may have been poached. ble fixes. Oregon state Sen. Greg Barreto, scavenged an already-dead carcass. Oregon’s troubles raise questions R, introduced a bill last year that would Cynthia didn’t trust the findings; like about whether there are better ways to put more money in the compensation other ranchers, she felt investigators proceed. Some wolf advocates argue that fund based on wolf population increases. were biased in favor of the wolves the high-conflict areas just aren’t appropri- And Barber has been working with the department is charged with protecting. ate for grazing, and recommend paying county committees to improve claim Producers want Wildlife Services, which ranchers to give up those permits, rather documentation. One approach might be handles many rancher-wildlife conflicts, than killing native predators to save non- to have an independent third party verify often by killing predators, to take over. native livestock on public land. Others the number of animals before ranchers Phase three of Oregon’s wolf manage- suggest paying ranchers if wolves pass let them loose on their range for the sea- ment plan, which eastern Oregon entered through their private grazing allotments son. Chad DelCurto said he did that this in 2017, does allow Wildlife Services to — to reward them for maintaining a year, with the chairman of the Oregon conduct investigations once staff com- healthy ecosystem. That would eliminate Cattlemen’s Association Eastern Oregon plete required training. That prospect the moral hazard posed by programs that Wolf Committee present to help count worries Oregon Wild’s Rob Klavins. depend on hard-to-document, emotionally calves in his corral. Roughly a quarter of Wildlife Services’ fraught losses. “We’ve got more eyes and witnesses budget in Oregon comes from livestock The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- on,” said DelCurto, who has become more and agricultural producers. “There’s an vice is trying something similar with hesitant to apply for compensation since incentive to make a different decision,” the Mexican gray wolf in Arizona and the last time. He didn’t file any claims Klavins said. And with such investiga- New Mexico. In addition to receiving for the animals he says went missing in tions ultimately leading not just to a money for confirmed losses, ranchers are 2017, even though at the end of the year, payout, but deciding if wolves will live or paid based on the number of wolves on Oregon confirmed that Baker County die, the stakes are high. their private land and public leases, the had its first pack, the eight-wolf Pine Cynthia Warnock was clear on what number of livestock exposed to wolves, Creek Pack. “It’s not just a hearsay deal,” she wants. “If we have a pack that pre- and the rancher’s efforts to avoid con- DelCurto said. “We have a problem.” Less dates on livestock, then we eliminate the flicts. But the program has received just than 48 hours after DelCurto turned out Gloria Dickie pack,” she said. “Compensation helps us a third of its proposed $634,000 budget. his herds this spring, he said, a turkey is a freelance science adjust financially, but that’s it. … You “The funding issue is the biggest chal- hunter spotted wolves among his cows. and environmental can’t pay for what we feel.” lenge,” said John Oakleaf, the agency’s Despite using nonlethal deterrents, journalist currently field coordinator for the Mexican Gray burying bone piles, and hazing wolves reporting from the Oregon’s compensation program Wolf Recovery Project. away, DelCurto and another rancher still road. doesn’t appear any closer to achieving Oregon faces a similar financial lost four calves to the pack this spring. This story was funded local tolerance for wolves — one of its key struggle: The fund for wolf compensation They asked for a lethal control permit. In with reader donations goals. If it had, you’d expect to see fewer has barely changed since 2014, while April, the wildlife department shot and to the High Country requests for lethal removal and a decrease the number of wolves in the state has killed three of the Pine Creek wolves. News Research Fund.

www.hcn.org High Country News 19 MARKETPLACE

Notice to our advertisers: You can place partner. Package must include financial classified ads with our online classified support. Details: http://seeds.ojaidigital.net. system. Visit hcn.org/classifieds. July 20 is the deadline to place your print ad in the conferences and events Aug. 6 issue. Call 800-311-5852, or email [email protected] for help or information. Environmental Writing Institute with Robert Michael Pyle. Sept. 26-30, 2018, business opportunities in Missoula, Mont. 406-243-2904. phil. [email protected]. hs.umt.edu/ewi/. Maria’s Bookshop for sale — Thriving indie bookstore in the heart of Durango, Second Annual Taos Writers Conference, Colo. General bookstore with 34-year history Taos, N.M. – Taos Writers Conference, July as a community hub for southwest region 13-July 15, 2018, with workshops in fiction, of Colorado, with 1,800 square feet of very poetry, creative nonfiction and memoir. busy retail space in a 3,100-square-foot taoswritersconference.org. historic building. Long-term lease or option to purchase real estate. Current owners for past 20 years are ready to find the INSPIRED: Art at Work – Arts for next community-minded Maria’s Bookshop prosperity, protection, and perseverance - leader. Info at www.mariasbookshop.com. Elsewhere Studios, Paonia, Colo., Aug. 24- Inquiries accepted by email to opportunity@ 26, 2018. Enjoy film, writing, sculpture, mariasbookshop.com. dance, and multimedia presentations that advance dialogue on key environmental, Internet-based business for sale — cultural, social concerns and rural sense of Dream of owning your own business, being place. Farm-to-table meals — Saturday, Aug. your own boss, working from home ... this is 25. Information and tickets: http://www. the one. 928-380-6570, www.testshop.com. elsewherestudios.org/inspired-art-at-work/. More info at https://bit.ly/2Kgi340. employment Forge and fab shop — with home on one beautiful acre in Pocatello, Idaho. Director of Visitor Services and Blackrock Forge — retiring after 43 years! Bookstore Operations – The San Juan Fully equipped 5,500-square-foot shop, Mountains Association in Durango, Colo., including office, gallery and studios. Details is seeking a Director of Visitor Services and at blackrockforgeproperty.com. Bookstore Operations to lead our visitor information program and manage bookstore Conservationist? Irrigable land? operations across southwest Colorado. For a Stellar seed-saving NGO is available to serious detailed job description, visit www.sjma.org.

20 High Country News July 23, 2018 Cal Trout Sierra Headwaters Director Forest Stewardship Project Director Reporting to the Executive Director, the Sierra Become a force for nature and a healthy Headwaters Director (Director) will have planet by joining the Arizona Chapter as overall responsibility for implementation of Forest Stewardship Project Director. You will the CalTrout’s 2018-’21 Strategic Plan for the play a key role in achieving the Chapter’s region. The Director will also be responsible goal to accelerate the pace and scale of forest for the development, implementation and restoration in the Four Forest Restoration coordination of California Trout’s Sierra Initiative in northern Arizona. The position Headwaters Program and associated annual is based in Flagstaff, Ariz., and will work work plans and budgeting. The Director with diverse internal and external teams will supervise CalTrout’s regional staff to to implement a 20,000-acre Stewardship identify conservation priorities, ensure Agreement with the U.S. Forest Service. The programmatic cohesion, deliver program agreement aims to accelerate the pace of and project objectives, develop conservation restoration through strategic partnerships programs and projects, and develop with the agency and industry, integration of mechanisms to monitor, measure, and new technology, and modernization of agency adapt these conservation efforts to ensure guidelines. For more information and to success. The Director will be responsible for apply, visit http://www.nature.org/careers to building, advancing and facilitating strategic learn more. To apply, submit your cover letter partnerships and lead policy and advocacy and résumé for Job ID 46593. Application work to advance CalTrout’s headwaters and process is open until the position is filled; meadow initiatives. Résumé and cover letter however, the first review of applications to [email protected]. will be July 16, 2018. 520-622-3861. nature.org/careers. Land Conservation Director – Manage, develop and implement all stewardship and Experiential Education Intern/ land management plans and activities on Assistant – Actively introduce students to both private and public lands. Guide and experiential education, outdoor recreation, direct comprehensive planning efforts, and sustainability while engaging and provide support in identifying conservation challenging them to learn and participate goals, and prioritize those efforts. in these diverse opportunities. Room, board, Salary begins at $68,000 with an salary, starts August 2018. excellent employee benefits package. Contact: [email protected]. http://www.walkerbasin.org/. Truck driver – Class A & B drivers, pass all DOT requirements and clean driving record. 970-390-2414. [email protected].

www.hcn.org High Country News 21 MARKETPLACE

Director of Development will develop U ndeveloped 40 acres — Southwest and execute Wild Utah Project’s fundraising Colorado in beautiful Montezuma County. plan. Call, email or check full description of [email protected]. job online for more details: 801-328-3550. [email protected]. https://www. Salmon River, Idaho — 1,800 square-foot, wildutahproject.org/job-announcement- off-grid home on 1/4 acre, with 750 square- director-of-development. foot deck, private well, fruit trees, large organic garden. [email protected]. Executive Director – If you are deeply https://jzrebski.wixsite.com/ committed to public service and would like salmonriverhome. to become part of our high-performing, passionate and diverse team, NCAT is looking Hand-crafted log home in Teton Valley for an Executive Director in Butte, Mont. on 10 acres. Full view of the Grand Teton. Information at www.ncat.org/executive- 35 miles to Yellowstone and 20 minutes to Grand Targhee Ski Area. 208-709-4470 director/. [email protected].

home and garden Gila National Forest — Nine-plus-acre Western Native Seed – Specializing in inholding. Passive solar strawbale off the grid native seeds and seed mixes for Western at 7,400 feet. Three bedrooms, 1,200 square states. 719-942-3935. feet, $189,000. 575-313-2599.

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22 High Country News July 23, 2018 Solar-powered home near Capitol Reef Ojo Caliente riverside seclusion Classic New Mexico Views of the National Park — 1,800-square-foot home on Private, two-bed/two-bath green home Sangre de Cristo mountains. 3.19 acre 4.12 acres surrounded by national forest and on two acres on the Ojo Caliente River lot to build on to escape the crush of city/town recreational opportunities in a beautiful area between the confluence of the Chama and life. Short distance to trails, skiing, fishing, (Happy Valley) between Torrey and Boulder. Rio Grande rivers. Close to hiking, kayaking, [email protected], www. Rio Grande Gorge. Privacy! bouldermoutainreality/properties/grover/ rafting, skiing, arts and entertainment [email protected]. off-the-grid-in-happy-valley, 435-425-3593. in Taos and Santa Fe. [email protected]. Triplex, .8 acre, Kanab, Utah — Create a base in the center of southern Utah’s Grand Circle of National Parks. Multiple residential property with three established rental units and zoning latitude for much further development. 435-689-0254. cddewitz@ gmail.com.

Forty-acre organic farm — Potential fruit/ tours and travel hay with house, Hotchkiss, Colo., Scott Ellis, 970-420-0472, [email protected]. Former retreat center/conservation Learning adventures on the Colorado property for sale — 57 acres in Skull Valley, Plateau — Small group, active, adult field Ariz., 17 miles from Prescott, year-round creek, seminars with guest experts, plus private Secluded two-story custom log home swimming holes, secluded canyon, hiking/ custom trip options for your family or group. in 16-acre piñon pine forest with year- meditation trails, oaks, pines, garden, Canyonlands Field Institute, Moab, Utah. round stream, mountain views, wildlife. greenhouse. House, office building, garage, 800-860-5262. www.cfimoab.org. Garage, root cellar, wood shop, one-room shop, pumphouse, farm/maintenance cabin, RV shed, pasture, garden. equipment. 760-777-0370. atlaspine@gmail. vacation rentals [email protected]. com. https://ciphercanyonranch.com/for- Grand Staircase-Escalante, Utah sale-to-qualified-buyers/. The Old Bailey Place is where to hang your hat when visiting Grand Staircase. Small farm at the base of Mount Shasta, www.theoldbaileyplace.com. Calif. — Certified organic fruit/berry/ veggie/flower farm. Home, barns, garage, separate apartment, more. Just under two acres, edge of town. Famously pure air and water. Skiing, mountaineering, bike, hike, fish, more. $450K. [email protected].

WE’RE GROWING, and we need new pants. We’ve expanded our team steadily to tackle myriad complex issues. Subscriptions are increasing, but they haven’t kept pace with costs. Where does this leave us? We face a $100,000 budget gap this year. We need your help. To donate, visit hcn.org/new-pants or call 1-800-905-1155 today.

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24 High Country News July 23, 2018 Essay | By krista langlois

A baby born to fires The menace of a snow-free winter turns into the fear of flames

n November, we still thought winter home. Surely we wouldn’t have to leave. I would come. The sky was leaden, the tops As the evacuation line inched closer of southwest Colorado’s mountains edged to our neighborhood, though, we encoun- with snow. We had five cords of wood split tered a danger I hadn’t considered before and stacked. I was pregnant, and look- becoming a mother: smoke pollution. ing forward to cozy afternoons by the fire Each night around 10 p.m., a cloud of with a pot of soup simmering on the stove. ash and fine particulates sank into the But November passed without its valley and enveloped our house, and we’d usual storms. In December, I rode my rush to close the windows despite the fact bike down the same dirt roads I usually that the indoor temperature still hovered skied on. In January, my husband, Jesse, around 85 degrees. We slept less and and I bought our first house. After help- less. As I kicked off the sheets and pulled ing us move, our friends sat in the yard Josephine’s tiny, hot body close for late- in T-shirts and sandals, drinking beer night feedings, the smoke crept through in the sunshine like it was the middle of the cracks and crevices of our 70-year-old summer. home. By morning, it smelled like some- The mild weather might have been one had lit a campfire in the living room. pleasant, except each brittle sunrise Josephine, meanwhile, became in- seemed to carry with it the specter of creasingly fussy and difficult to console. wildfire, of dry rivers and dangerous As a first-time mother, I had no idea how heat. “The scary thing about drought,” I much crying was normal, how much was wrote in my journal that March, “is how due to the heat, and how much could be nebulous it is. There’s no way of know- attributed to the smoke. The daily air ing how long it will last; nothing you can quality warnings issued by the health do except compulsively check the 10-day department advised the very young and forecast, again and again, hoping for the very old to avoid smoke pollution, but rain.” they didn’t elaborate on what the reper- Still, Jesse and I took advantage of cussions might be if you simply couldn’t vacation gear and irreplaceable evacu- A young girl the weather to do a few house projects, do so. ation items: beach chairs, bathing suits overlooks the 416 and although I’m usually averse to loud So I did some research, and started and bike helmets alongside photo albums, Fire from a vantage noises, the banging of hammers and whir- to get worried. The best proxy for how journals and my grandmother’s jewelry. point on Lions Den ring of saws were soothing. They were the early exposure to wildfire smoke impacts A box of diapers shoved next to a beloved Trail in Durango. sounds of a home being made. The juni- children’s health seems to be a study teapot. Gas in the tank: check. A quick oil Kate Giordano pers may have been turning brown and on a group of rhesus macaque monkeys change: check. And then we were on our spring winds may have been carrying red who were exposed to smoke from the way, skirting national forests that were dirt to melt our meager snowpack, but 2008 California wildfires. Compared to a closed because they were so dry, passing the act of building a home felt like creat- control group, 3-year-old monkeys who’d landmarks some 85 miles from the fire ing a bulwark against the drought; like it breathed smoke as infants had reduced that were obscured by smoke. Along with could somehow shelter us from whatever lung capacity and pulmonary function, as reports that other children fleeing un- was to come. well as problems with their immune sys- healthy conditions were being “sheltered” Our daughter, Josephine, was born in tems. And because babies breathe more in abandoned Walmarts at the U.S.- April. Two months later, the fire started. air per pound of body weight than adults, Mexico border, it was enough to make me At first, Durango’s 416 Fire seemed they may experience more severe cough- feel like I was living in some dystopian, insignificant. Three other fires had been ing, sore throats and respiratory distress. climate-addled future. Except it isn’t the sparked in Colorado that spring, and Josephine wasn’t wheezing, and future. This is now. each had grown a few thousand acres and much of the time she was still a smiling, Still, Jesse and I are fortunate. By been put out. But this one grew, and grew, gurgling, chubby baby. But when the air sundown, we’d reached Flagstaff, Arizona, consuming the parched forest, flirting quality index broke 512 on a scale that where we saw a clear night sky for the with the edges of neighborhoods, jumping usually tops out at 500 and the smoke first time in weeks. We rolled down the streams and drainages. From our house, grew so thick we couldn’t see our neigh- windows. In her carseat, her face tilted we watched the plume of purple-gray bor’s house two blocks away, Jesse and toward the cool breeze, Josephine slept smoke turn into a looming mushroom I concluded that it was no longer safe peacefully. cloud and then an all-consuming haze. for her developing lungs. It was time to We monitored websites charting the fire’s leave. growth and the number of homes evacu- We made our decision on a Tuesday. Krista Langlois is a correspondent with ated while maintaining our improbable By Wednesday morning, we’d packed High Country News. She writes from Durango, optimism. Surely, it wouldn’t reach our my Subaru with an odd combination of Colorado.  @cestmoiLanglois

www.hcn.org High Country News 25 PERSPECTIVE

Solar’s low-income hopes California brings renewable energy to more residents

In central Los Angeles, just a couple of blocks from electric grid, and carbon emissions will be lowered the intersection of two major freeways, an almost overall. But what about the middle- and working- century-old, three-story brick apartment building class people, who are barely able to afford living in a stands. Known as the Alegria — Spanish for “joy” — city like Los Angeles? How will they gain? it is one of the few affordable residential buildings According to Grid Alternatives’ data, low-income in this industrial but increasingly coveted neighbor- households, or those earning annual incomes less hood, due to its proximity to the University of South- than 80 percent of area median income, account for ern California campus and downtown LA. Rent is set less than 1 percent of LA County’s residential solar at 30 percent of a minimum-wage worker’s salary capacity. Yet they typically spend a higher percent- (around $12 to $15 per hour), and Section 8 vouchers age of their income on energy costs, so they stand to Letter from are still accepted. benefit the most from utility bill savings. California Twenty years ago, the Alegria Apartments were Thanks to Obama-era executive actions and BY Ruxandra so infested by mice and cockroaches that only five private-sector commitments, low-income multifam- Guidi units were occupied. Across the street, less than 50 ily buildings can now get feet from the building’s entrance, an active oil-drill- fully subsidized arrays, ing operation exposed residents to health threats like the one the Alegria ranging from respiratory problems to cancer. Ac- has installed. But in order According to cording to a 2014 report from the Natural Resources for those to translate to Grid Alternatives’ data, Defense Council, there are an estimated 5,000 active savings for tenants rather oil and gas wells in Los Angeles County. More than than landlords, Los An- low-income households, half a million people, a majority of them people of geles County would need or those earning annual color, live within 1,320 feet of an oil or gas well. to adopt an existing state In 2004, the Esperanza Community Housing policy known as virtual net incomes less than 80 percent Corporation, a community development nonprofit, metering — a system that of area median income, bought the building and began to restore it. Now, allows people to share solar the Alegria has gone solar, thanks to a partnership energy among tenants and account for less than with Grid Alternatives, whose mission is to increase receive credits on their 1 percent of LA County’s access to renewable energy technology and job train- electric bills for any excess ing. This is the first initiative of its kind to bring free energy they produce. residential solar capacity. solar energy to low-income renters directly impacted “In the future, we hope by fossil fuel extraction. The solar energy will by that virtual net metering no means offset all the hardships involved in living will mean that financial next to an urban oil well. But it’s a hopeful sign of benefits can flow directly what’s possible in the future, with California leading to affordable housing residents to provide greater the way to environmental justice by making cleaner equity in California,” said Kadish, who is part of energy accessible to all, regardless of class. a coalition of clean energy and housing advocates “Part of what made this the right choice was pushing for strategies and programs to assist low- Alegria’s fight against the polluting AllenCo Energy income energy customers. Currently, renters make oil well facility across the street,” Michael Kadish, up about half of the LA Department of Water and executive director of Grid Alternatives in Greater Power’s customers. But without a utility policy like Los Angeles, who envisioned the collaboration, told virtual net metering, they cannot share a single solar me. “It was evident that this project could draw a system or qualify for rebates. stark contrast between old dirty energy extraction This is where the Alegria comes in: Its new solar that harms community members and the new clean array is little more than a symbolic gesture, assisting energy future that we are working to make as inclu- a mere 15 families, but it demonstrates that sustain- sive as possible.” able energy can and should be accessible and afford- The Alegria received a 34.5-kW DC solar able for all. Those 15 families represent a small frac- photovoltaic system, a medium-sized system that tion of the many low-income people who live in one Contributing editor will deliver an estimated $9,000 in savings annually Ruxandra Guidi writes of the most expensive and sprawling urban regions from Los Angeles, to the Esperanza Community Housing Corpora- in the country. In full view of the kind of fossil fuel California. tion. It’s an approach that seems ideal for the area: energy they hope to make obsolete, they are pioneer-  @homelandsprod Southern California has sunshine, an endless sea of ing a future that includes virtual net metering and rooftops — and a clean energy policy that’s becoming more equitable energy planning. In this way, they’re a model for other states. blazing a path for the years to come. WEB EXTRA California recently passed a landmark rule that “We continue to fight, because until we can dis- Read more from requires every new single-family home to have solar mantle oil wells — like the one across the street from Ruxandra Guidi panels, starting in 2020. This will translate to an us — we won’t truly have a good quality of life,” said and all our extra $10,000 fee for new homeowners, who, on aver- Victoria, an Alegria resident, at the “flip the switch” commentators at age, pay $674,600 for a home in LA. There will be ceremony last month. “But solar panels are giving us www.hcn.org clear long-term benefits for them and for the state’s a big help.”

26 High Country News July 23, 2018

U.S. $5 | Canada $6

HEARD AROUND THE WEST | BY Betsy Marston

THE WEST added some clothing once inside her apartment. Downieville, California, population 280, may be Houston’s unorthodox trip amassed a bevy of surrounded by the extremely flammable Tahoe charges, including felony criminal mischief and National Forest, but its Independence Day pa- felony criminal endangerment. rade always manages to entertain crowds with And then there’s the Curious Case of the fireworks — in this case, fireless fireworks. Two Wandering Kangaroo near the tiny town of wide rolls of Bubble Wrap, hundreds of feet long, Dodson, population 124, in western Montana. are rolled out on the town’s main drag, and dur- Two women were driving down a rural road ing what the Sierra County Chamber of Com- when they came upon a marsupial standing merce calls the “ultimate small-town parade,” calmly in front of them. The driver swerved volunteers are invited to stomp, crackle and to avoid it, but lost control and the car rolled pop their way across the plastic. The sound they over, reports KTVQ. Highway Patrol Trooper make is reminiscent of the cacophony of the real Matt Finley interviewed the women afterward thing, and much less likely to throw off hazard- at the hospital and admitted that he and some ous sparks. of the nurses laughed heartily at the idea that a kangaroo was involved, assuming that the cOLORADO driver was “just out of it.” But when the trooper After a raccoon climbed up a telephone pole in visited the battered car, he couldn’t help noticing Colorado Springs, a man walking by responded “a kangaroo in the ditch about 40 yards away.” in the way that seemed natural to him: He Finley said he was told there was a “kangaroo ARIZONA tried to shoot it down, reports KRDO. Police These new serpentine belts are always farm” in the area but was unable to find it. That getting loose. GREG WOODALL say it’s not clear how he botched the attempt, wasn’t the only thing missing. Now, “authori- but 67-year-old Don Upshaw was taken to the ties also do not know where the kangaroo is.” hospital with a gunshot wound to his lower leg. Meanwhile, the women were released from the Apparently, he was trying to shoot the raccoon Soy Cobre. Though ICE did not appear to be hospital, almost certainly hoping not to see a with his revolver, but “ended up on the wrong present, it was probably fortunate that the bear kangaroo pop up. side of the barrel.” entered the United States without cubs. There’s a place to go in Helena, Montana, if you’d like to rid yourself of a weapon. It’s called wyoming montana the National Center for Unwanted Firearms, Uh-oh: Grizzlies in Yellowstone National Park are An unusual incident made the news in Great Falls, founded 15 years ago by Bruce Seiler, who meandering a little too close to cars, with one Montana, recently. It all began on a Sunday worked for the U.S. Secret Service from 1987- “getting close enough to play with the antenna morning when residents of the Fox Hollow 1992. “There’s more than 300 million firearms in on one vehicle,” said the Cody Enterprise. “This Apartments felt their bedrooms shudder at the America,” he says. “There has to be more guns incident used to be rare,” said Yellowstone same time they heard a grinding noise, reports destroyed.” Most of his clients are middle-aged spokeswoman Morgan Warthin. “So far this year The Associated Press. Looking out their win- people who inherit guns they don’t want, and it’s happened twice already.” There is a park pro- dows, they saw a most peculiar sight: A topless don’t want them ending up in the wrong hands. tocol that applies to these dangerous encounters woman was operating a front-loading backhoe The first gun the center destroyed was a cheap — more dangerous for the bears than the hu- — deftly enough to bring the bucket close to revolver made of pot metal, which Seiler de- mans — though Warthin said she understands her apartment window, which she then climbed scribed as “more dangerous to the user than the that tourists simply yearn to see the animals up through. The backhoe operator was Heather intended victim,” reports YES! magazine. Says close. Her advice: “Honk and drive away.” Houston, 34, who had “borrowed” the loader and Seiler: “There needs to be a junkyard for guns in driven it across town to her apartment, along America.” the border the way crashing through a fence, damaging a A black bear in Naco, Sonora, decided there were parked car and scraping the wall of the apart- WEB EXTRA For more from Heard around the West, see better opportunities up north, so it clambered ment house where she lived. Though police told hcn.org. up the big, beautiful wall between the United the Great Falls Tribune that Houston was top- Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and States and Mexico and dropped safely down into less, that detail was omitted from their official often shared in this column. Write [email protected] or tag Naco, Arizona, reports the Mexican news service statement, perhaps because the woman quickly photos #heardaroundthewest on Instagram.

High “I returned again to the idea that they were doing more Country than just a professional job. They were demonstrating News “ For people who care about the West. an American neighborliness that had seemed High Country News covers the important issues and stories that are unique to the American West with a lost in the modern era of ‘me.’ magazine, a weekly column service, books and a website, Auden Schendler, in his essay, “In a time of division and hate, wildfire unites a community,” hcn.org. For editorial comments or questions, write from Writers on the Range,” hcn.org/wotr High Country News, P.O. Box 1090, Paonia, CO 81428 or [email protected], or call 970-527-4898.

28 High Country News July 23, 2018