Conservation

  • Bozeman, Mont.—Conservationists are offering a $6,500 reward for information leading to the arrestand conviction of the person(s) responsible for killing a grizzly bear in the Centennial Mountains ofsouthwest Montana last fall. The collar of “Grizzly #726” was recovered from a stream on USDA Sheep Experiment Stationproperty on September 12, 2012. He had been fitted with…

  • I attended the Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolverine listing hearings in Helena.  Opponents, including a number of Montana state legislators as well as MDFWP,  argued that wolverine populations were “stable” or even “increasing” and therefore did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act. While the ill-informed state legislators who testified could be forgiven for…

  • The Supreme Court recently ruled in an 7-1 vote (Justice Stephen Breyer recused himself) that the EPA regulations about water pollution as mandated by the Clean Water Act did not apply to sediment and other pollution from logging operations. The timber industry is rejoicing over the ruling.  But citizens should be less sanguine than industry.…

  • By George Wuerthner State Fish and Game agencies are in the midst of a funding and mission crisis. They appear unable to adapt to shifting political and demographic changes much as the Republican Party is failing to adjust to new voter realities. The crisis is nowhere more evident than in their attitudes towards predators like…

  • A very happy development? Drones are in the news a lot all of a sudden. Welcome to the new world where they can help you or kill you. Poachers of African rhinos, elephants, etc. are often organized in semi-military units and more than a match for Park rangers.  Now in some places, Kenya in the…

  • In their December 29th editorial in the Billings Gazette, Scott Talbott of the Wyoming Game and Fish and Harv Forsgren of the U.S. Forest Service wrote that hunting was another step towards grizzly bear recovery. To read their editorial, go to this link: Guest opinion: Hunting another step toward grizzly bear recovery. Specifically, the authors…

  • Growing movement said not to work, resulting in disappearance of wildlife and spread of disease- There is a new movement of sorts that does not believe that feral animals, primarily feral domestic cats and dogs should not be killed . . . at all. The “no-kill” movement has made surprising advances in cities and towns.…

  • SAGE GROUSE:  PROXIMATE AND ULTIMATE CAUSES When I was in college, one of my favorite courses was animal behavior.  One of the more memorable lessons I learned was the difference between proximate and ultimate causes of behavior. Proximate and ultimate causes of events are important to distinguish. For instance, say a researcher finds that sedimentation…

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