As the climate warms, mosquitoes thrive, and communities try to figure out how to prevent disease outbreak.
Wildlife
Posted inArticles
West Obsessed: What’s the deal with Wildlife Services?
For an agency that researches non-lethal predator control, they sure kill a lot of critters. HCN writers discuss an agency trying to rethink its role.
Posted inMarch 21, 2016: Making Sense of Malheur
Meet the caribou hunter of Arctic Village, Alaska
Photos of this winter’s hunt and a community’s subsistence way of life.
Posted inArticles
A rare ecological event: ‘super bloom’ in Death Valley
The arid park is covered in wildflowers for the first time in a decade.
Posted inArticles
Interactive timeline: Fish & Wildlife Service proposes to delist Yellowstone grizzly
Decision marks the second time the grizzly has faced loss of federal protection.
Posted inArticles
The disappearing wetlands in California’s Central Valley
Where water is scarce, waterbirds pay the price.
Posted inArticles
Wolves are already headed for Colorado. Let’s make it official.
The official reintroduction of a breeding pair could help ecosystems and prevent conflict.
Posted inFebruary 22, 2016: Fractured
A wolf in elk’s clothing?
Mishaps and mayhem from around the region.
Posted inFebruary 22, 2016: Fractured
Scientists dig up the past in packrat middens
The animals’ sturdy nests can preserve clues about the climate for 50,000 years or more.
Posted inArticles
The science behind Yellowstone’s bison cull
Some wildlife biologists say the cull makes sense — but not because bison can spread brucellosis.
Posted inArticles
Should coyote hunting contests be banned?
The debate over organized kills and whether they actually impact population, via a new podcast.
Posted inArticles
Malheur occupation could set conservation efforts back years
Invasive carp may recolonize areas they were once eradicated from, depending on how long the occupation lasts.
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Wildlife Services and its eternal war on predators
The federal agency has been researching nonlethal means to protect livestock for decades. So why is it still killing so many carnivores?
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Fracking illness reports, fisher release and the worth of permafrost
HCN.org news in brief.
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
Latest: Yellowstone officials to cull hundreds of bison
Meanwhile, Montana released a plan to let bison roam year-round outside the park.
Posted inJanuary 25, 2016: The Forever War
The tree in the river
A writer ponders a remnant of past disaster.
Posted inArticles
A place where bears own the right of way
A few months ago, I found myself in a remote area of Alaska, watching pink and chum salmon splash through the shallows of an unnamed stream. The sounds of the salmon, the breeze coming off the ocean, the breakers on the beach, and the continuous calls of gulls made for an Alaskan symphony. A bush […]
Posted inArticles
Don’t delist: Yellowstone grizzlies still need federal protection
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has indicated that it plans to remove the iconic Yellowstone grizzly bear from the protection of the Endangered Species Act early this year. The federal agency’s plan is irresponsible and premature because grizzlies are struggling to adjust to declining food sources, even as they face an uncertain future caused […]
Posted inArticles
PZP: Where hope, science and mustangs meet
The longtime mustang advocate, TJ Holmes, and I head into southwestern Colorado’s Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area, searching for mustangs. We do this regularly. TJ has documented these mustangs for eight years, working in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management. A big part of her work is administering PZP, the fertility-control vaccine (porcine […]
Posted inArticles
The obscure music where wild animals sing from the heart
In a small corner of popular music, there are songs that have been written and sung in the haunting voices of animals, and the Canadian singer-songwriters Gordon Lightfoot and Ian Tyson have written what I think are the best of them. In Lightfoot’s “Whispers of the North,” a loon speaks: whispers of the northsoon I […]