Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | The push to change racially offensive place names has reached the birthplace of western movies: the high-desert badlands of gullies, canyons and outcroppings at the foot of Mt. Whitney known as the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area.The 18,600 acres of rough and rocky hills on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, along Highway 395 and about 140 miles north of Los Angeles, have appeared in more than since the silent 1920 western “The Round Up,” starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.It was named by Southern sympathizers in the Owens Valley after the...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | The push to change racially offensive place names has reached the birthplace of western movies: the high-desert badlands of gullies, canyons and outcroppings at the foot of Mt. Whitney known as the Alabama Hills National Scenic Area.The 18,600 acres of rough and rocky hills on the east side of the Sierra Nevada, along Highway 395 and about 140 miles north of Los Angeles, have appeared in more than since the silent 1920 western “The Round Up,” starring Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.It was named by Southern sympathizers in the Owens Valley after the...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The state Fish and Game Commission on Thursday set the stage for a fierce environmental battle by granting temporary endangered species status to the several hundred cougars still roaming Southern California and the Central Coast.The protection came with the 5-member panel’s unanimous decision to consider a petition filed by environmentalists to list as threatened or endangered six, isolated clans of cougars hemmed in by sprawl and freeways.The move is considered preliminary under terms of the state Endangered Species Act. Next, the...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | Advertisement The state Fish and Game Commission on Thursday set the stage for a fierce environmental battle by granting temporary endangered species status to the several hundred cougars still roaming Southern California and the Central Coast.The protection came with the 5-member panel’s unanimous decision to consider a petition filed by environmentalists to list as threatened or endangered six, isolated clans of cougars hemmed in by sprawl and freeways.The move is considered preliminary under terms of the state Endangered Species Act. Next, the...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | More than a century after railroads, ranchers and hunters vanquished their ancestors, pronghorn antelope are returning to this unforgiving expanse of desert along the California-Nevada border. A photo of a lone male and a harem of five does shared on Death Valley’s Facebook page in late April was only the latest indication that the American pronghorn, North America’s land speed champion, may be extending its migratory range into the Mojave Desert once again from cooler seas of sage nearly 100 miles to the north and east.“It’s not all gloom and...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | More than a century after railroads, ranchers and hunters vanquished their ancestors, pronghorn antelope are returning to this unforgiving expanse of desert along the California-Nevada border. A photo of a lone male and a harem of five does shared on Death Valley’s Facebook page in late April was only the latest indication that the American pronghorn, North America’s land speed champion, may be extending its migratory range into the Mojave Desert once again from cooler seas of sage nearly 100 miles to the north and east.“It’s not all gloom and...WW…

Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | This is a time of year that many rural towns in the Owens Valley usually celebrate — rodeo and fishing season.Normally, tourists from Southern California would be swarming into the eastern Sierra Nevada range, streaming into Old West facades and making cash registers sing. But the virus that locals have come to call “The Big Weird” has changed all that.Today, the towns of Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine and Bishop are silent except for the rumbling of passing trucks on U.S. Highway 395. Nearly everything is closed: tackle shops, art galleries,...…Copyright © 2022, Los Angeles Times | | | | This is a time of year that many rural towns in the Owens Valley usually celebrate — rodeo and fishing season.Normally, tourists from Southern California would be swarming into the eastern Sierra Nevada range, streaming into Old West facades and making cash registers sing. But the virus that locals have come to call “The Big Weird” has changed all that.Today, the towns of Lone Pine, Independence, Big Pine and Bishop are silent except for the rumbling of passing trucks on U.S. Highway 395. Nearly everything is closed: tackle shops, art galleries,...WW…