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

I was once asked by an interviewer, "If you could come back as an animal, what would you be?" " If a bird," I replied, "I’d want to be an American kestrel. Why? Just watch one for a while!" Swift fliers (and they can hover!), resourceful, and spectacular in form and color, kestrels are a delight to behold. They also take well to artificial breeding sites. So if you have the right habitat, put up a nest box designed for this smallest of American falcons and you ma

A Montana coal power plant Montana state lawmakers passed three bills during the 2025 legislative session that essentially block the intent of the state Supreme Court's 2024 ruling that found in favor of 16 young plaintiffs who sued to protect their rights to a "clean and healthful evironment," as codified in the state's constitution. The case was titled Held v. Montana (so named for Rikki Held, the lead plaintiff). This past week, these plaintiffs alledged in a new complai

Can technology help solve environmental problems facing our planet? Sometimes. And sometimes those solutions come from the youngest among us. This inspiring article in Smithsonian magazine about two teenagers in Portugal is bound to lift your spirits. Not only because of the utility of the invention they developed, but because at such a young age they did this. Since the early 2000s, Portugal has lost over half of its forest cover, triggering erosion, water l

Dead elephant seals Do you know what's happening to plant and animal species that Indigenous peoples rely on in Amazonia? How about Siberian tigers in the taiga? Or the miniscule Macaya breast-spot frog of Haiti? Because there are so many consequential environmental and conservation issues, taking in the full scope of the challenges facing nature can feel overwhelming to me. But if we don't know about them, we won't care. And if we don't care, we aren't spurred to a

Congress has begun nullifying resource management plans that were developed and implemented to guide long-term stewardship of federal lands. Plans cooperatively developed by the federal Bureau of Land Management in Montana, North Dakota, and Alaska -- in consultation with scientists, conservation groups, indigenous peoples, industry, and other users of these tracts of federal lands -- are the first on the chopping block. These Resource Management Plans (RMPs) provide stabil