Mountain Journal

04/26/2025

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04/25/2025

A national strategy to increase timber production and use emergency authorities to protect forests from fire, insects and disease should be in place by May 3, according to an order by Forest Service Acting Associate Chief Chris French. At the same time, the agency is consolidating its nine regional offices into two or three centers.

What does that mean for national forests in the GYE? MoJo contributor Robert Chaney reports.

Feds look to consolidate regional offices while planning to roll out new strategies over the next two months.

04/23/2025

Already in 2025 the Wyoming Game and Fish Department found chronic wasting disease in three elk hunt areas and on four elk feedgrounds.

Wildlife managers are hoping an expanded elk occupancy agreement program will persuade Wyoming ranchers to move their cattle during winter months, allowing elk to winter on that land and relying less on feedgrounds where CWD is spreading.

Wildlife managers say winter range agreements may be one pathway to reducing deadly disease transmission among elk on feedgrounds.

04/22/2025

In an effort to rise above a vicious news cycle, incessant politics and threats to wildlife and public lands, MoJo columnist Susan Marsh seeks solace in nature and good friends.

This Earth Day, Marsh's words ring true, reminding us to look around and appreciate the beauty in Greater Yellowstone and in the natural world more broadly. Read her "Back to Nature" column below.

In an effort to rise above a vicious news cycle, incessant politics and threats to our wildlife and public lands, MoJo columnist Susan Marsh seeks solace in nature and good friends.

04/21/2025

A Wyoming Game and Fish Commission vote in July could bring the long-deliberated migration corridor for imperiled pronghorn a step closer to designation as a state corridor. The Path of the Pronghorn is the longest terrestrial migration route in the Lower 48 states, a path stretching roughly 200 miles from the Grand Tetons to the Green River Valley.

A Wyoming Game and Fish Commission vote in July could bring a long-deliberated migration corridor for imperiled pronghorn a step closer to designation as a state corridor.

04/18/2025

The White House is considering a draft executive order proposing full suppression of all wildfires and a restructuring of the nation’s wildfire management teams, which has drawn harsh criticism from fire experts who have reviewed it.

The draft order, whose existence was confirmed by The Washington Post and Politico on April 11, was also obtained from multiple sources by Mountain Journal. It expands upon Senate Bill 441, cosponsored by Montana Senator Tim Sheehy, which would consolidate firefighting resources and create a new national wildland firefighting service.

Robert Chaney has the feature story below.

On the cusp of wildfire season, a new proposal recommends consolidating all federal firefighting resources, calls for immediate fire suppression.

04/15/2025

The torture and killing of a wolf in Daniel, Wyoming, last year made international headlines and in 2025 the state Legislature made attempts to ensure the incident never happens again.

Two bills were introduced to stave off wildlife torture in response to the incident, when Daniel resident Cody Roberts ran down a female wolf with his snowmobile, taped its muzzle and tortured it in a bar before killing it. One of these bills was among the 165 bills sent to Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon’s desk this year and signed into law.

Two bills in the 2025 Legislature were introduced in response to the torture and killing of a wolf in Daniel, Wyoming.

04/14/2025

While Secretary of Interior Doug Burgum hailed the scientific revival of prehistoric dire wolves on April 9, his critics questioned the potential extinction of modern-day grizzly bear scientists.

At issue is the fate of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team and its role overseeing the Endangered Species Act status of the Rocky Mountains’ keystone predator. The same week Burgum touted “de-extinction” as a way to restore valued creatures, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a Freedom of Information Act request for documents about the fate of the study team.

As Interior Secretary Doug Burgum touts successful dire wolf revival, IGBST fights for survival.

04/11/2025

In a ruling that juggles ranching interests and grizzly bear conservation, a judge has ordered state and federal agencies back to the drawing board over controversial grazing permits in a vital wildlife corridor north of Yellowstone National Park.

In a win for environmental coalition, wildlife agencies ordered to review livestock grazing impacts on grizzly bears.

04/10/2025

Two conservation groups are petitioning the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to designate the Big Hole River, a treasured southwestern Montana fishery, as impaired for nutrient pollution.

The groups argue that an impairment designation will lead the state to put the Big Hole on a “pollution diet” to limit the nitrogen and phosphorous that are contributing to the fishery-damaging algal blooms that have become a recurrent issue.

Amanda Eggert with Montana Free Press has the story below.

Petitioners say pollution-related algal blooms are threatening the Big Hole’s famed trout fishery.

04/10/2025

What happens when wildfire comes? MoJo recently moderated a wildfire panel discussion at Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Montana.

On the conversation table were fuels reduction, fire-resistant building materials, planning and zoning, and homeowners insurance in the wildland-urban interface. Check out the full video below.

Mountain Journal Managing Editor Joseph T. O'Connor hosts Big Sky, Montana's first Wildfire Awareness meeting on March 29, 2025. Speakers and panelists inclu...

04/09/2025

The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has filed a motion to pause legal proceedings on the proposed Stibnite Gold Mine to revise a water quality issue for the mine to be in line with the Clean Water Act.

DEQ’s motion came after conservation groups voiced concern over potential mercury, arsenic and antimony pollution at the mine and its potential to contaminate the Salmon River watershed.

Agency requires mining company to revise water quality plan related to a gold mine that would process 120 million tons of tailings over 15 years.

04/08/2025

Mountain ski guides frequent the high alpine where whitebark pine grows. Two, Aaron Diamond and Nancy Bockino, are educating others on the power and grace of this endangered tree.

Wyoming contributor Claire Cella has the feature below.

Mountain ski guides frequent the high alpine where whitebark pine grows. Two are using their time in the backcountry to educate others on the power and grace of this endangered tree.

04/04/2025

The “Stand Up For Science” movement representing researchers from public laboratories and college campuses across the country will find itself rallying shoulder-to-shoulder with a national “Hands Off” protest tomorrow.

Greater Yellowstone communities planning Hands Off events on April 5 include Bozeman, Livingston, Gardiner, Red Lodge, Columbus, Jackson, Wyoming, and Driggs, Idaho, along with most other major Montana cities including Missoula, Billings, Helena, Great Falls, Kalispell and Butte. Most events are set for noon Saturday in public places such as county courthouses.

More than 1,000 “Hands Off” protests are scheduled for Saturday across the nation and Greater Yellowstone.

04/04/2025

Earth Day offers an opportunity to reflect on the natural world and a chance to give back to the Mother who's provided so much.

On April 22, Patagonia will release "Tools to Save Our Home Planet: A Changemaker’s Guidebook," a 432-page anthology of essays, case studies and advice is geared toward grassroots environmental organizations across the country. Katie Hill has the MoJo review below.

A new book from Patagonia offers time-tested guidance on grassroots environmental activism. Here’s how it could benefit rural communities.

04/03/2025

Management of Montana's gray wolves continues to spark fierce debate, their future hanging in the balance between science-based conservation and mounting political pressures.

Last week, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks unveiled its finalized 2025 Gray Wolf Conservation and Management Plan capping two decades of state oversight even as lawmakers advance multiple bills that would significantly expand wolf hunting across the state.

Wildlife managers release first wolf management plan in 22 years, set minimum baseline population to 450.

04/02/2025

A Mountain Journal inquiry to see if a Lyme disease story needed updating produced a disturbing response: There has not been any follow-up research to confirm the prevalence of deer ticks in Montana because the National Institutes of Health scientists who would have done that work have their federal budgets frozen.

The fallout from HHS cuts is hitting home: Scientists at Rocky Mountain Labs are losing their jobs, and it's having devastating effects on science and research in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Lab workers studying tick expansion lose staff, resources involved in Lyme, chronic wasting disease, coronavirus research and related threats.

04/01/2025

On March 1, hundreds of people gathered in Gardiner at the North Entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The crowd — which included residents from across the state and current and former public lands employees — was part of a nationwide protest against the layoffs of federal workers.

Roughly 5 percent of National Park Service workers have been caught up in the sweeping layoffs carried out by President Donald Trump’s administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. This isn’t counting the hundreds of others who are taking the “fork in the road” offer to resign from their positions. The staffing crisis facing national parks is felt not only within the federal workforce itself but also in gateway towns like Gardiner, where the economy depends heavily on Yellowstone.

Read the full story below from our friends at Grist.org

Shutting down federal funding through the Park Service could cripple Gardiner, Montana.