Wildlife

At a recent barbecue during a breezy Sunday afternoon on the South Fork of the Shoshone River, near Cody, Wyo., I saw the largest beaver I’ve ever seen. It was floating in the river’s current like a big dog. The beaver looked to be about three feet long from nose to flat tail, and must […]

When the sun dips into the horizon during Wyoming’s twilight hours, dangers are suddenly everywhere. In an instant, dark figures begin darting onto the state’s roads, and the sound of squeaking brakes can be heard from Rock Springs to Cody. We call this time of day “deer o’clock,” and we grip the steering wheel just […]

For a start, you can blame the enthusiasm of “bucket biologists” in the West. As far back as the 1800s, these avid anglers and fishery managers took it upon themselves to bring fish — and fishing — to lakes and streams in the high country and backcountry of America. A lot of people praised them […]

This may sound harsh, but it’s true: Environmentalists tend not to see, handle or understand fish, to distrust agencies dedicated to their recovery, and to set up mental spam-filters for facts about short-lived fish poisons. Usually, these poisons are the only tools managers have for saving native trout from being eaten, out-competed or hybridized out […]

A new policy from the Bush administration on endangered Pacific salmon is startling in its simplicity and brilliance. The policy cuts through all the scientific mumbo-jumbo the press repeats and puts a finger on the basic problem: Salmon are endangered because there aren’t enough of them. If there were lots of salmon in the rivers, […]

One rides the summer thermals; the other glides through rivers and streams like a pale torpedo. They could not be more dissimilar, this big buzzard and the silvery fish, yet they have a great deal in common: Both are icons of the environmental movement, and both challenge us to deepen our understanding of the relationship […]

The first time I stood on the shores of Great Salt Lake, I spotted something pink in the midst of what seemed like a bazillion different species of bobbing waterfowl. “Are there supposed to be pink flamingos in Utah?” I asked my biologist wife while looking through a pair of binoculars. “It’s plastic,” she said, […]

Wilderness, as the conservationist Aldo Leopold put it, is “the very stuff America is made of.” As pioneers settled our continent, their encounter with wilderness shaped our national character. Today, as Americans flock to our national forests, parks and other federal lands, many seek the wilderness, savoring its scenic splendors and a quiet that’s increasingly […]

Perhaps it was an act of intentional deception when the U.S. Forest Service used old photos of a Montana timber lease to make the case for logging in California to reduce fire danger. It’s just as likely, however, that laziness and bureaucratic ineptitude are to blame. Either way, the incident raises doubts about the agency’s […]

Carter Niemeyer raises a shotgun to his shoulder and squeezes the trigger. An instant later, a rubber bullet bounces off a cardboard target. Niemeyer, Idaho’s coordinator for wolf recovery, is demonstrating non-lethal means of stopping wolves from preying on livestock. His audience is 200 Westerners at a meeting of the North American Interagency Wolf Conference. […]