Washington biologists test pressurized tubes to transport salmon over dams.
Wildlife
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
A better way to save
High Country News has an ad stating, “Together, we can save a forest” (HCN, 4/14/14), encouraging subscribers to elect email over snail mail and suggesting this could save a forest. Ads like this perpetuate the myth that paper use is leading to the loss of forestland. This takes the spotlight off the real threats to […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
A new mapping tool shows how states value wildlife
Habitat seen as a crucial resource in some states more than others.
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
Hooligans etch on a petroglyph, a cow breaks a natural gas line and a new website helps ranchers navigate drought.
NORTH DAKOTAEveryone knows that ravens can manipulate sticks as tools, and that squawking magpies enjoy teasing dogs and cats, but who knew that cows – with their bodies alone – could make pipes spill natural gas? In Bismarck, North Dakota, one cow apparently did just that, simply by trying to satisfy an itch or maybe […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Snowmobiling for science in Idaho
Scientists and snowmobilers team up for smarter wolverine management.
Posted inGoat
Reasons for massive starfish dieoff still unknown
Here’s some shocking news: Since last fall, when I first wrote about Pacific sea stars falling victim to a mysterious disease, turning into goo and dying, the aptly-named “starfish wasting syndrome” has not – as scientists hoped – subsided on its own. It’s gotten much, much worse. How much worse, you ask? Well, from the […]
Posted inWotr
Let bears eat those messy moths
Last year, I wrote a column for the Casper Citizen touting the annual migration of lowly miller moths (the army cutworm, Euxoa auxiliaris) through central Wyoming as something to be celebrated. I said it was a lot like other great migrations made over hundreds of miles by creatures such as African wildebeests or monarch butterflies. […]
Posted inGoat
Infographic: Hey, Wildlife Services — what did you kill?
Earlier this month, Wildlife Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture division responsible for animal control, released data indicating that it killed over four million creatures in 2013 — a million more than it did the previous year. The agency, whose stated mission is to provide “leadership and expertise to resolve wildlife conflicts,” undertakes plenty of […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Brine shrimp by the billions in the Great Salt Lake
Why is this shrimp fishery nearly conflict-free?
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Consider the sparrow
The Urban BestiaryLyanda Lynn Haupt337 pages, hardcover: $27.Little Brown, 2013. Most communities across the West, urban and rural, are home to the animals in Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s new book, The Urban Bestiary, a collection of joyful meditations on the fauna that scamper over our lawns and roost on our power poles. While eastern gray squirrels, […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
Paying for conservation
Hunters and anglers have largely been footing the bill for wildlife and conservation (“Hunting for conservation dollars,” HCN, 5/12/14), yet we’re continually under attack by environmental and animal rights groups who have so far refused to assist in funding wildlife management (minus the rare exception of Defenders of Wildlife, which compensates ranchers for livestock killed […]
Posted inJune 9, 2014: Border Out of Control
The Latest: Kill invasive lake trout to save native bull trout?
State and tribes disagree.
Posted inGoat
Bark beetle video series says there’s hope amid the carnage
The mountain pine beetle is perhaps the most infamous creepy-crawly in the Western United States. No larger than a grain of rice, the bug drills into trees and infects them with a blue fungus that makes them die of thirst. They’ve bored and left for dead millions of trees and affected 30 million acres in […]
Posted inGoat
Climate change expedites hybrid trout takeover
When two species mate, their offspring end up with undignified new names like ‘pizzly’ (a grizzly and polar bear pairing) or ‘sparred owl’ (for barred owl and spotted owl hybrids). But the more rare species in such couplings face a far worse fate – hybridization can be a path to extinction. That’s why hybridization is […]
Posted inGoat
Are invasive species really that terrible?
The West’s approach to managing invasive species has, for the most part, been a straightforward one: eradicate them swiftly and at all costs. Spray ‘em, poison ‘em, net ‘em, douse ‘em with fungus, and, when all else fails, eat ‘em – whatever the method, the important thing is that the invader is sent packing. But […]
Posted inGoat
New California shrimp: A reminder of the West’s undiscovered biodiversity
In 2010, Ed Hendrycks, a research assistant at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, was poring through his museum’s collection of caprellids with José Guerra-Garcia, a researcher visiting from Sevilla, when the Spanish scientist noticed an unusual specimen. One of the caprellids – tiny crustaceans whose slender, translucent bodies have earned them the nickname […]
Posted inWotr
Idaho has declared a war on wolves
Nearly 20 years ago, I served on the team that carefully captured and released the first wolves in Idaho and Yellowstone National Park. Though this reintroduction effort was heralded internationally as a significant American achievement in the recovery of endangered species, we’re in a far different place today, and especially in Idaho. The state has […]
Posted inMay 26, 2014: The Great Gun Rights Divide
Alaska’s wildlife war
The federal government pushes back as the state ramps up predator control.
Posted inGoat
ESA changes could help protect sage grouse on private land
In an increasingly subdivided and trailblazed West, southeastern Oregon’s Harney County is a place that can still make you feel small. From the empty blacktop two-lane highways 78 and 20, broad grasslands rise to sagebrush-studded mesas and hills that crest and break to the blue horizons like the landlocked waves of a parched sea. Drive-fast-with-your-windows-down […]
Posted inGoat
Feel-good salmon farms
Standing on a grated metal platform above a fiberglass tank, I’m entranced by silvery salmon gliding through a current of recycled freshwater. The salmon are lively and occasionally jump when a large feed bin, meticulously set with a timer, rains down an exact amount of feed pellets. Everything is designed to help the fish grow […]