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. hat, presenting himself as an indelible expression 5 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, and have widespread support from their neighbors, 26 PERSPECTIVE 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. JERRYAN NOL : 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.