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Show THE ZEPH YR/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2003 | The third cat story. A year later, hiking illegally with my dog again, this time, the other dog, Muckluk, Squawker’s mother. (If I've said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, "You can’t go wrong with a dog...except for those damn Pekinese, because if you get them real upset, their eyes pop out.") We were trying to avoid the tourists (even then), and had cut cross country from Willow Flat in a direction we’d never tried before. ee dirt road, we crossed a blackbrush meadow, but soon found ourselves in the head of a drainage that eventually reached Courthouse Wash, several miles away. Muck had exited the wash on my left, in search of some poor helpless rodent to harass. But a split second later, she seemed to be charging right at me from the other side of the drainage. But it wasn’t Muck, it was a coyote. This wild canine came within 30 feet of me, stopped,and started to bark at me. Muck came back and the coyote barked at ( have served also barking. a minute, we and yipping ~~ Nu Yap 7 3 Oc P Rola ial y o A ber ye Pa 003 es HOW WE LOST SILENCE: And why we need to get it back" any purpose. In a moment, another And then another. And another. were surrounded by six coyotes, all and barking like crazed loonies or By Richard Mahler WEST. 6 NEW WORLD BLUES: Geor ge W Bush Says: ‘Bring it ON!" certain members of my own family. What was the deal? Had they By Jim Stiles 7... THAT WAS THEN... THIS IS NOW Utah Highway 95 was a winding dirt road in 1956. What's changed and what hasn't? 8... LOSING SOLITUDE i By Martin Murie 12... WHEN . of things. She’d probably An consumed her share of kangaroo rats and whiptail lizards, before JESUS SPOKE TO se BUSH : There was nothing to do but let them eat. This little kitty had a part of the natural scheme I2 i 4 fF mistaken me for the full moon? Were they in love with my dog? Were they part of the choir? I realized that I had disrupted something, and they were very upset as a result. I began to look around me, along the wash bottom, and on the edges of it. It didn’t take long to solve the mystery. Beneath a juniper tree, 30 feet downstream, I found a cat...a house cat, complete with a collar, a frayed tether, and killed so recently that it was still oozing blood. Somehow, this cat with bad karma must have broken away from its owners, probably at the Balanced Rock picnic area, and had wandered away, never to return. Who knows how long it had been out there, before meeting its end at the hands of a bunch of hungry coyotes? I had interrupted their dinner. become 3 eT both of us. Muckluk barked back, and I would have too, if I thought it would coyote appeared, In a matter of of them howling HH otherwor: Idly conversation By Jim Stiles : in the Oval Off Ice the predator had become the hunted. Muck and I left them to their meal. When we passed by there again, several hours later, I followed their tracks for awhile. I could see where the pack took turns dragging their victim to a place ee oe BEND AGAIN By Ken Sleight where they could eat in peace. This time they were adamant...no more interruptions. 20...RETURN TO MOAB, 2039 AD...REDUX I looked at my cat Fuzzy, who was casually grooming herself on my living room carpet. Looking ever so much like Jabba the Hut, resting on her haunches, licking her own stomach. "You ungrateful little wench," I snapped. "You have no idea how lucky you are. You could be a coyote’s meal if it weren't for me.” She stopped briefly, leveled a scornful eye in my direction for just a cae and returned to her grooming. RANCHING/ALFALFA AFTERTHOUGHTS For the last few years I’ve been trying to stimulate a discussion among my environmental peers by trying to raise a few questions about our own contribution to the degradation of the West. In June this publication addressed the issue of public lands ranching. Some of the views expressed were not exactly mainstream enviro thinking. I wondered out loud if the "amenities economy,” touted by the environmental community as the ultimate replacement of more traditional extractive Western economies, wasn’t just as harmful if not more so. The last time it was f cr laughs..and then I though i: ‘What's SO funny about the future? : By Jim Stiles 23..... HERB AMERICAN WEST 27..CAULDRONS In Memor y of I ohn By Mary Sojourner 29..... THE | ZEPHYR Wahl BACKBONE REPERTORY CO. 30...FEEDBACK: THE READERS RESPOND The response from the environmental community was what I have come to expect. Total silence. Not one member of any Utah enviro group felt motivated to express an opinion in an official capacity. Not one. Not even to argue against the points raised in that issue. I never thought I’d have anything in common with former Congressman Jim Hansen, and from the-standpoint of wilderness policy, I still don’t. But I can understand his frustration when he complained that not one enviro would give him the courtesy of a two-way conversation. "They won’t even sit at a table and talk!" he used to complain. I know exactly how he feels. And I give up. From the standpoint of a journalist and concerned environmentalist, trying to be honest and fair-minded, I’ve found their unwillingness et frustrating and counter-productive. Personally I have ca it to be heartbreaking. I mention all this, only so I can segue to an interesting piece of data that appeared in the August/September Zephyr. In Bill Love's article, "Water and Wealth in Spanish Valley,” he noted that, "the anticipated 431 acre feet (of water) purchased from George White Ranch will furnish approximately 550 new connections and provide water to 550 one acre lots." If you calculate an average of four ersons per connection, we can expect another 2200 residents at soe aon in the future who will 5b that parcel of land now Z Moab? You can’t get there from here. Or here from there. Strange Reptiles? Long agao G Far away... : 2002 UIPA NOMINEE Local Recssnal EET ONG pore : SUBSCRIBE TO THE ZEPHYR es mo EL VI a Na ery, ; $15... TWELVE ISSUES G TWO EIGHTEEN ISSUES Gelian AMV ey () : ' YE. ARS) aie) NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE 6 9-DIGIT ZIP PLEASE used for agriculture. In June, I talked about the "highest and best use” of land. Even READ THIS! The Post Office will NOT forward 3rd Class mail. If you do not send us a change of address, we cannot be responsible for issues you did not receive. Subscriptions must begin with the next issue. Back issues are when I see the water systems out there, irrigating at 2 pm on a hot available at ridiculous prices. Call for a price list. Those readers who choose to take advantage of the afternoon, the alternative--550 one acre ranchettes and , I consider fe Tiscali ores: And I have a difficult time complaining about all that "wasted" water. If the Urban Environmental community thinks Rim Village : : : multi-year discounts do so at their5 own risk. 3 There is: no guarantee that the world y will be here in three years, let alone this publication. CHECKS OR MONEY ORDERS ONLY TO: P.O. BOX 327, MOAB, UT 84532 and projects like it represent a higher and better use of the land, I just wish they’d say so. To do anything else, including saying nothing, is painfully disingenuous. : RINGER'S Herbs great passion was trains. ‘ | PAGE3 |
