If Congress doesn’t act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund will end on Sept. 30.
Ben Long
Posted inMay 28, 2018: The River of Lost Souls
Selkirk caribou are quietly going extinct
The last herd of caribou in the Lower 48 has dwindled to just three animals.
Posted inArticles
The battle over Montana’s vacant House seat
A banjo-playing Democrat and a tech-industry Republican are fighting to fill Ryan Zinke’s spot.
Posted inArticles
Who is Ryan Zinke, really?
Trump’s Interior secretary pick set high standards for himself, but his lofty promises to rural voters are a problem.
Posted inArticles
Why the Malheur verdict sets a dangerous example
Lawyers “aimed too high” for a conspiracy charge—and lost it all.
Posted inArticles
Note to politicians: Don’t mess with fishing access in Montana
A candidate for governor is drawing heat over revelations that he sued to close river access on the Gallatin River.
Posted inArticles
Meet the man who changed humans’ relationship with bears
Montana biologist Chuck Jonkel, who recently passed away, invented bear spray — and saved bears in the process.
Posted inNovember 10, 2014: Fallout
Dear Forest Service: Today’s John Muir shoots video
Let people take all the images they want in wilderness areas.
Posted inRange
Green slime – coming soon to a lake near you?
The enemy is out there. It is green. It is slimy. Toxic algae outbreaks are a growing problem on our nation’s lakes, and maybe one you love. I’m lucky to live in a county with more than 150 lakes, including the biggest, cleanest freshwater lake in the western United States. Yet even here, we see […]
Posted inRange
How the BLM’s communication style can backfire
Land managers have a hard enough job without the repercussions of using words that leave the public confused and misled. The latest example comes out of southwestern Idaho, a modest parcel of public land called Big Willow near the town of Payette. There, off-road vehicle riders were running roughshod on both public land and adjoining […]
Posted inRange
Collaborative brings good news to Clearwater Country
Idaho is a paradoxical state. In some places it’s desert and sand dunes, in others, ferns and red cedar. Its people are also a complex mix of rugged individualists with strong churches and communities, of urban professionals and backwoods blue-collar workers. Those contradictions can pull the state apart or bring folks together. One of those […]
Posted inRange
Real bears get a helping hand from Hollywood
It’s a long way from the cold, rainy valleys of northwestern Montana’s Cabinet Mountains to the bright lights of Hollywood. But they are both bear country, in very different ways. Hollywood is about myths — taking old myths and digging them deeper. Grafting on new, odd branches to existing myths. Hollywood plays to the mythology […]
Posted inRange
Montana’s Rep. Steve Daines warms up to conservation
When the newly minted Congressman Steve Daines stepped into the press conference he wore cowboy boots, standard issue for Republican Congressmen from Big Sky Country. What set him apart were the words that came out of his mouth. Daines, a Bozeman businessman elected in November, held the conference to announce his support for the North […]
Posted inRange
Man’s (and livestock’s) best friend
It’s always fascinated me that domestic dogs are widely embraced as “man’s best friends,” while wild dogs like coyotes and wolves often elicit deep-seated animosity. So I was particularly taken by this video of livestock guard dogs by the Montana-based conservation group, People & Carnivores. The good folks at People & Carnivores work to resolve […]
Posted inRange
Sally Jewell’s Adventure of a Lifetime
President Obama’s nominee for heading the Department of Interior, Sally Jewell, is noteworthy not for who she is, but for who she is not. She is a mountaineer, an ultra-marathon runner, a CEO of the outdoor gear giant REI, and a former bank executive and oil company engineer. She appears to be some kind of […]
Posted inRange
Obama should look to New Mexico for conservation legacy
Conservation is about balance: balancing the wants of today with the needs of tomorrow; balancing freedom with responsibility; balancing human’s power to harness nature, with respecting nature’s force and wisdom. Last week, the Center for American Progress pointed out in a report one place where the Obama Administration is out of balance: protecting the best, […]
Posted inRange
Trouble In Mind
Two images stand out from photographs I’ve taken here in northwestern Montana in the last couple months. One is from hunting for deer in November, the other from hunting a Christmas tree last weekend. The snowshoe hare in mid November is practicing “mind over matter.” He trusts his natural camouflage to keep him safe, even […]
Posted inRange
Sportsmen given credit in Montana’s Dem governor win
Although not as highly watched as Montana’s seat in the US Senate, sportsmen are also being given partial credit for tipping the scales toward the Democratic victor, Steve Bullock, over Republican Rick Hill in the 2012 race for Montana Governor. A Lee newspapers analysis quoted Bullock campaign manager Kevin O’Brien, as he passed around the […]
Posted inRange
Sportsmen sealed reelection for Sen. Jon Tester
Outside special interests dumped some $30 million dollars on the Montana race for the US Senate between Democratic incumbent Jon Tester and Republican challenger Denny Rehberg, but the race came down to something that costs $19: A Montana resident hunting and fishing license. Sportsmen issues of access, wolves and gun rights headlined both the news […]
Posted inRange
GOP risks much with its zeal to sell public estate
The Republican Party has formally embraced a policy to sell off America’s chunks of our public lands. That’s likely to prove as welcome as a hornet in a pair of swimming trunks. The GOP 2012 Party Platform espouses a purely market-driven exploitation of natural resources, as opposed to the traditional American system that embraces both […]