Winter feeding of elk During my 22 years working at the National Elk Refuge (NER) in Wyoming, I and others dreaded the day that chronic wasting disease (CWD ) would reach the NER where 7,000 to 8,000 elk congregate each winter. The herd is supplementally fed alfalfa hay to support this number of elk which exceeds the habitat's carrrying capacity (available natural food resources). The crowding of elk at feedsites facilitates the transmission and maintenance of several

Over the years, Diana and I have noticed the steady decline of insects where we live in southwest Montana. Bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and even flies (we don't get to pick and choose), are all far scarcer. Some of the more charismatic species, like butterflies, are finally receiving research attention. And the findings are truly discouraging. Researchers investigating the status of 114 species of butterflies in the United States found that populations are decl

One of the excuses the Trump administration offered for moving to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule that protects over 60 million acres of US Forest Service lands -- our lands -- was to provide more road access to fight wildfires. But a new study published in the journal Fire Ecology , and summarized in Inside Climate News , reviewed the history of wildfire ignitions from 1992 to 2024 and found that wildfires were four times more likely to ignite within 50 meters of a road tha

A mountain goat in Montana In a status review of Montana's mountain goats that a colleague and I completed in 2017, we found that Montana's native mountain goat populations had declined 70% since the previous statewide assessment 70 years earlier. Yes, 70%! We attributed much of the decline to excessive sport harvest of the species during the mid-1900s. A lack of reliable population management data, limited knowledge of the species' population biology, human habitat

Every second last year, the Earth's oceans absorbed the energy equivalent of 12 Hiroshima-sized bombs. This is according to a report just released in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences , compiled by 31 international institutions. So what's the significance of this? When most of us think about the effects of global warming -- and read what's largely reported in popular media -- we think about terrestrial impacts: drought, wildfires, water shortages, crop failures, more s