Wildlife

Wildlife advocates won a round against energy development and grazing in Wyoming and Idaho last week, when Idaho Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill overturned two Bureau of Land Management resource management plans in favor of the Hailey, Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project. The nonprofit conservation group argued the BLM was too hasty in development […]

In the beginning was the bat. Roger, Isolde,* and I sipped margaritas on a warm August evening in their Boulder condo. Suddenly, Roger slammed down his drink, pointed to the ceiling and screamed, “Look out!” As a black, papery blur fluttered around the living room, I dived to the floor and slithered under the table. […]

Last week, or maybe it was the week before, a familiar sound drifted over from the hay field abutting the property where I live. Pop! Pop! Pop! My boyfriend and I looked at each other: “Prairie dogs,” we said in unison. Another few bite the dust. Our neighbors don’t seem to like the rodents, and […]

On Sept. 15, an excavator tore the first chunks of concrete from the Glines Canyon dam on Washington state’s Elwha River. It was a historic moment, kicking off the largest dam removal in U.S. history. When the dams are gone, salmon will swim up the Elwha for the first time in nearly 100 years. Seventy miles […]

This summer, southern Arizona – like much of the Southwest — experienced what weather mavens call a “meteorological singularity,” a weather event that happens every year around the same time. The phenomenon is the Arizona monsoon, a seasonal shifting of winds that moves moisture northward from the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico in July, August, and […]

_____________________________________________________________________________ Colorado’s summer is drawing to a close. But the season’s remaining dog days still hum with the coda of hungry insects rushing to fill up before the coming fall.  The other weekend, I happened upon one such bug, the pleasing fungus beetle (Gibbifer californicus), as it searched the hilly forests south of Denver for […]

Idaho and Montana’s wolf hunting seasons kicked off without much of a howl last week. This is the second year of hunting; the 2009-2010, was held after the Rocky Mountain gray wolf’s removal from the endangered species list. Idaho and Montana have wolf hunting seasons that last four and 10 months, respectively — part of […]

Dozens of dragonflies zoom  through my vegetable garden this time of year. Like hunchbacked sprites, they perch on the hog wire holding up the ever-heavier tomato plants, waiting for an unsuspecting fly or a particularly attractive mate to zip by. In the shallows of mountain lakes and irrigation ponds, blue damselflies, wings folded behind (unlike […]

The developed Yellowstone campground where John Wallace set up his tent last Wednesday probably made the national park seem relatively innocuous to the 59-year-old Michigan resident. It’s peak season, after all, and the place was likely humming with human activity, cars, chatter — those signs of weird, woodsy civilization peculiar to the West’s iconic natural […]

When it comes to imperiled species that get the shaft, invertebrates — in all their backboneless-glory — often top the list. And of those invertebrates, insects, with exception of the ever-adored butterfly and economically-key bee, have a particularly tough time garnering societal sympathy.  People tend to be suspicious of or “grossed out” by insects or […]