Innholdsfortegnelse for April Vol. 55, No. 04 i High Country News

Chronic wasting disease is a horrible condition. Over the course of an agonizing year or two, it attacks the brains of infected deer, elk and moose, inexorably weakening the animals until it finally kills them. The symptoms of CWD were first recognized in Colorado in 1967; it has now been documented in 30 states, and is especially prevalent in the Rocky Mountain West. Despite decades of research on CWD and related diseases, scientists have yet to understand exactly how it spreads, much less develop a treatment or a cure. Now, as HCN contributor Christine Peterson writes in this issue, researchers are wondering whether restored populations of predators — mountain lions, bears or wolves — would kill more infected animals than healthy ones, and by doing so help contain the disease…

A life of bending lowto drop a seed and pat it home,of striding back and forthto hoe and water and wait. The rows run straight as everas Uncle’s prized corn growsin the same squared groundsince before I was born. What do they mean?Those sun-struck afternoonsafter church we gatheredin the grass beside his rows to talk and sing and scoopbuttery kernels steamingonto plates. This year and lastUncle’s corn grows with help. Left to himself he might wander,wonder why nothing came upwhere no seed went.When he can speak it, my name these daysis the deepening holewhere he will soon go, a lifeof growing under the sun those first green stalks,those shining silks.Straight as ever run the rows. WEB EXTRA Listen to Derek Sheffield recite his poem at hcn.org/golden-jubilee…

Amandla Baraka is a filmmaker and photographer inspired by the revolutionaries, artists and poets who raised her. Her work establishes an understanding of humanity through an intimate and empathetic lens. Katie Basile is a documentary photographer and filmmaker with a focus on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of Alaska. She grew up in Bethel, Alaska, and continues to live there today with her partner and two young sons. Nick Bowlin is a correspondent for High Country News and a freelance journalist. He lives in Gunnison, Colorado. Kaily Heitz is a geographer, climber and longtime supporter of organizations advancing DEI in the climbing community. You can find more of her work at kailyheitz.com. @skaiheitz. Laureli Ivanoff is an Inupiaq writer and journalist based in Uŋalaqłiq (Unalakleet), on the west coast of what’s…

You’re a reader. … No doubt you’ve seen worrisome headlines in recent months about deep cuts to local and national news teams around the country. In this industry, cuts like that send ripples of panic through newsroom staffs and boards. And while the economic concerns are real for many of us — you’ve read stories of genuine hardship in these very pages — a bigger concern might be: What happens when the voices of trustworthy journalists go silent? A healthy democracy relies on public-interest reporting. And because of the stalwart support of readers like you, High Country News is able to speak truth to power, uncover stories that are arresting and powerful, lift up the voices of people who might not otherwise be heard, and provide timely analysis of complex…

SEPTEMBER 2017. I didn’t know where I was going to live. I’d been surviving rent-free as a “granny nanny” in Orange County, California, for three years, living on $600 under-the-table per month. The agreed-upon term was over, and I was beginning to hope for a future sans caregiving. With the help of paper-and-book artist Jill Littlewood, I was building an anti-lynching website to call attention to historical and modern-day racist terrorism. I planned to use Paypal Credit for a long-overdue trip to visit my 80-something mother in Seattle. I had been reading about a 70-something-year-old Black woman, an unhoused former actress and Post Office employee, who was sleeping in an Orange County parking lot when a much younger man attempted to rape her. As she fought him off, her head…

CALIFORNIA When a pesky pest problem is percolating in your home, who ya gonna call? One worried homeowner in Glen Ellen, California, asked Nick’s Extreme Pest Control to have a look-see after, um, finding “maggots and mealworms emerging from the wall.” Yikes. When Nick Castro, the pest control technician, took the call, he thought it was just an average, everyday pest problem, maybe your average dead rodent rotting inside your everyday wall. Instead, he found something completely unexpected, something “he’d never seen in more than 20 years in the business,” according to the Washington Post. What could possibly be more surprising than maggots and mealworms? Well, when Castro cut a hole in the wall of the second-floor bedroom, a fantabulous flood of acorns spilled out like a slot machine’s jackpot…

High Country News is dedicated to independent journalism, informed debate and discourse in the public interest. We welcome letters through digital media and the post. Send us a letter, find us on social media, or email us at editor@hcn.org. GREAT AND INFORMATIONAL I just finished reading “The Sentinel” (March 2023) by Leah Sot-tile on Butte. Being a resident of Missoula for 44 years, I’m always interested in stories about Montana. I want to commend her on the article; it was extremely well written, well researched and informational. I hope our state legislators will come to their senses. Judy FreyMissoula, Montana Great cover article on Butte, end to end. No more than I would expect from HCN, of course. Where else can you read this stuff? Rick RossSweet Home, Oregon HUMBLED…

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JUSTIN BINFET, A BIOLOGIST with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, strode down a sagebrush-covered hill in the Deer Creek Range of central Wyoming, his phone in his hand. The mid-June sun beat down as the wind picked up. Binfet hopped across a clear, rocky creek and climbed hundreds of feet up the opposite ridge. He stopped occasionally to course-correct after checking his phone, which showed dozens of dots on a map, indicating that a mountain lion had been hanging out near the area. A female lion usually sticks around for one of two reasons: She’s made a den and has kittens, or she killed something big and is taking her time dining. Binfet hoped for the latter. Wind and hot sun can make quick work of a carcass, so…

MY CLIMBING PARTNER moves doggedly up the inclined face of “Steel Monkey,” a difficult climb up a granite face that arcs over a clearing in the woods near Lake Tahoe, California. After the brittle heat, we appreciate the cooler air in the evergreens’ dense shade — as do the mosquitoes. I stand in rapt attention, belaying and watching my partner’s every dancing step across scarcely visible chips on the rockface. She reaches behind her to pull at the rope tethering her weight to mine, ready to clip it through the carabiner “quick draw” dangling before her. That’s my cue to further slacken the rope so she can pull it and secure herself to the draw. This route is just beyond our comfort level, difficult enough to make it both an…