What Western Writers Cared About During a Tumultuous Year

Once the Trump administration took over the reins of government last year, attacks on public land came fast and furious. Elon Musk’s cost-cutters stormed into federal agencies to root out purported waste and corruption, but what Writers on the Range opinion writers found afterward was chaotic mismanagement.

Writer Stephen Trimble called it a “Valentine’s Day Massacre” after 2,300 employees of the Department of the Interior were summarily fired, leaving the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Geological Survey and several other agencies short-staffed. Eventually, the Forest Servic...