The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) has announced two new wildlife refuges. The Wyoming Toad Conservation Area and the Paint Rock River National Wildlife Refuge in Tennessee become the 569th and 570th refuges in the National Wildlife Refuge System, and the announcement comes amid National Wildlife Refuge Week, which started Oct. 7 and runs […]
Twenty-nine uncontained wildfires are blazing in the Western U.S. right now, raising concerns that 2018’s fire season could rival 2017’s record-breaking season for devastation, The New York Times reported Monday. The fast-moving County Fire in Northern California, which started Saturday and has burnt more than 60,000 acres of land as of late Monday, has belched […]
The Wyoming Game and Fish Commission voted unanimously Wednesday to approve the largest grizzly bear hunt in the lower 48 states, despite opposition from environmental groups, tribal nations and wildlife photographers, The Washington Post reported. The vote comes less than a month after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service affirmed its June 2017 decision to […]
By Joe McCarthy Wyoming produces 40 percent of the U.S.’s coal, nearly quadruple the amount produced by West Virginia, the second highest producer. So far this year, production in the state has increased by 15 million tons. Yet Wyoming hasn’t opened a new coal mine in decades—long-standing mines are filling the demand. And it looks […]
The Animal Legal Defense Fund filed a complaint last week on behalf of a Wyoming resident in an attempt to stop an upcoming coyote-killing contest. The “Wyoming Best of the Best” involves teams of hunters vying to kill as many coyotes as possible from sunup to sundown. Non-hunting participants place bets on the teams they […]
Republican lawmakers in Wyoming have introduced a bill that would block the use of renewable energy in the state. If passed, utilities that use wind or solar to produce power for Wyoming residents would be penalized with a costly fine of $10-per-megawatt-hour. Under Senate File 71, only six resources—coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, oil, natural gas, and […]
By Ted Auch The New York Times’ Diane Cardwell and Clifford Krauss recently published a piece on the interaction between the Greater Sage Grouse (GSG, Centrocercus urophasianus) and fracking in Big Sky country. We thought it might be helpful to dig a little deeper into the issue given the sensitivity of this species’ as well […]