Wildlife

Summer nights wouldn’t feel quite right if the open windows did not allow me to hear the occasional howling of coyotes. The wild canines provide a sonic reminder that even though I live in town, it’s a small town surrounded by thousands of acres of wonderful Big Empty. But actually, the coyote howls convey no […]

For the rest of the country, Monday was Groundhog Day. But for Westerners, it was Prairie Dog Day. And the rodent’s in trouble all over the region, as bulldozers roll over its habitat, ranchers drop poison, and shooters go for target practice. Prairie dogs are now found in less than 10 percent of their original […]

updated 1/28/09 In the mountains of central Colorado, an overgrown elk herd has been chewing Rocky Mountain National Park to the nub for decades now. The ungulates munch new aspens and willows before they can grow, and graze alpine meadows to golf-course length. So park officials plan to return to the method they used to […]

This past year, the West’s wolves have had an even rougher time of it than usual. In the Northern Rockies, they’ve been bounced on and off the endangered species list, and in Yellowstone, more than usual have died. In the Southwest, it’s back to the drawing board after reintroduction plans failed miserably. After the Fish […]

Twenty years ago, I remember my grandpa complaining that the white-tail bucks he shot each fall were smaller than the monster deer he’d taken as a young man. The trophy heads in the basement of his South Dakota farmhouse all looked about the same to me, and I chalked up his grousing to nostalgia and […]

Tamarisk, a feathery green Eurasian shrub with pink flowers, was brought to the West a century ago to control erosion. It quickly became a pest along desert rivers from California to Colorado, sucking up water and choking out native willows and cottonwood. To get rid of it, federal agencies use herbicides, backhoes and chainsaws. But […]

Yet another last minute rule change has come down from the Bush administration. It hasn’t hit the mainstream press yet — the only information that’s been published about it comes from the BLM itself and from a coalition of environmental groups. The press releases describe the BLM’s recent revisions to a manual that tells land […]

The Bush administration is attempting yet another under-the-radar rules change on its way out the door (watchdog Propublica keeps a complete list of other such changes). This time it’s wresting away Western states’ abilities to manage their bighorn sheep populations. Wildlife management has historically been the responsibility of state wildlife agencies and the U.S. Fish […]