Montana Untamed

It’s the suit-and-tie version of a grizzly bear hunting season, with the federal government announcing it will consider petitions from Montana and Wyoming to remove the grizzly from Endangered Species Act protection and state legislators scrambling to make new laws and policies to exert local control of the big bears.  But a lot of fine print stands between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revie...

For almost three-quarters of a century, the start of ski and snowboard season was marked by the Warren Miller Film Tour that fall. The narrated films, shown around the country and world, have documented the evolution of skiing and the rise of snowboarding across multiple generations. But for the first time, a new Warren Miller Film won’t actually be filmed this year. On this episode, Missoulian ne...

It’s a fish of many names: burbot, ling, eel pout, lawyer, mud shark and poor man’s lobster, just to name a few. Montana’s major rivers and reservoirs are home to a fish that may not be the first to come to mind like trout or walleyes for anglers, but ling have a certain following when it comes to a unique fishing experience and great eating. Today I’m with Tom Kuglin with the Montana State News B...

Across the West, federal and state land management agencies are strategically logging, thinning and burning forests with the goal of making them more resilient to uncontrolled wildfire, as well as diseases. But conservationists and wildlife advocates worry the work will harm grizzly bears and other federally-protected species that call those habitats home. In Western Montana, three projects from d...

In Montana’s backcountry, as well as along some well-traveled highways and railroads, avalanches are a cause for concern. Scientists have been working for decades to better understand these natural phenomena for a number of reasons – the biggest being to save lives. At the same time, national forests have created avalanche forecasting services to provide daily information to backcountry snowmobile...

What does it take to become leader of the pack? For wolves in Yellowstone National Park, research shows it might be exposure to a cat-centric parasite. A recent study by University of Montana and Yellowstone biologists found a remarkable thing about toxoplasma gondii– a single-celled parasite that can survive in almost any warm-blooded animal but only reproduces in felines. It turns out that wolve...

Tony Bynum operates at the intersection of conservation, wildlife, beauty and truth. The photographer and conservationist has stamped out a career capturing images of western big game, documented oil and gas development along the Rocky Mountain Front, wilderness values across Montana and a host of projects internationally. But while many find inspiration in beautiful landscapes and wildlife, few h...

Each fall as winter nears and cold temperatures descend on Hyalite Canyon near Bozeman, water that weeps from the cliff bands lining the canyon walls freezes into bulging layers of ice with translucent hues of white, yellow and blue. And each year, that frozen water allows human to defy the gravity that pulled the water out of the rock in the first place.  If, of course, they're willing to climb i...

Glacier National Park’s namesake ice fields attract millions of visitors a year. Many wonder if they’re making a funeral visit. Predictions that all the glaciers in the park will melt by 2030 or sooner have been floating around for a couple decades. That deadline now looms less than a decade away.  What would happen if Glacier Park’s glaciers disappeared? And what are some people thinking about as...

Thirty years ago a young German outdoorsman crossed the big ocean and landed in Montana. He quickly became fascinated with the freedom of opportunity to hunt and fish in the West. Since then he’s dedicated his career to answering why and how North American conservation works. Thomas Baumeister has dedicated his adult life to conservation both professionally and personally. Baumeister recently reti...

The imperiled status of the river-dwelling population of Arctic grayling in Montana continues to roil the waters of public debate about the fate of the species’ survivors in the Big Hole River. The latest wrangle focuses on the utility or futility of stocking grayling in a Big Hole watershed creek and tributaries during a time of low flows and warm water. This fall, the Montana Department of Fish,...

Montana’s wolf hunting season is in full swing with trapping season set to begin soon, but a recent state judge’s order has put a temporary halt to some regulations and an upcoming hearing could have major implications on the remainder of the season. Republicans in the 2021 the Montana Legislature passed a number of laws aimed at reducing Montana’s wolf population, which pushed the Montana Fish an...

The Badger-Two Medicine region nestles between the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park and the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. It also lies in legal limbo after the latest court decision re-opened a fight over energy drilling rights that’s been going on for three decades. On September 9, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ordered the Department of Interior to re-instate a fed...

Part teacher and part guide, Whitney Gould is one of the finest casters in the world and fresh off competing in the World Fly Casting Championships  in Norway where she took home a trove of medals, including a gold. Her first world championships was both exciting, she said, and a learning experience for what to expect and how to train for the next championships in two years. Gould is a spey specia...

GPS collars attached to wildlife like deer, bears, moose, elk and pronghorns have opened biologist’s eyes to how far these species may move across the landscape as the seasons change. Epic feats of travel have been recorded in Wyoming showing elk swimming streams in spring runoff to reach ideal grazing areas. A mule deer doe has trekked 500 miles each year from the Red Desert of southwestern Wyomi...

Bears have been in the news a lot lately, because they’ve been getting into a lot of things lately. As drought continues its grip on western Montana, berry crop failures are sending desperately hungry black bears into human environs with unusual frequency and boldness.  This means that conflict-prevention measures are more important than ever, especially in places that may not be accustomed to the...

Montana’s fishing industry is an economic juggernaut, now accounting for one in five tourism dollars spent in the state and an estimated at $750 million annually.  Fishing is important both economically and culturally, with communities built up near popular rivers to cater to locals and visitors. We also know that during low water and high temperatures, fishing can stress trout. To protect the res...

In early September news broke of a plan to re-develop Holland Lake Lodge. The proposal seeks to remove 10 aging structures and add 32 new buildings, including a new 28-room lodge, a new restaurant and 26 new cabins near the lake. Originally built in 1924 and last updated in 1947, Holland Lake Lodge Inc. owns the buildings but leases about 15 acres of land from the U.S. Forest Service to operate un...

With pheasant season fast approaching, on this episode we are talking about a new program here in Montana that has stirred plenty of debate for the last year and a half. Housed at Montana State Prison, inmates there are now raising pheasants for release on wildlife management areas. We attended the release of some of the first prison-reared pheasants at Lake Helena recently for the special youth s...

If you have a problem with your neighbor, you’d try to work with them to sort it out, right? Or what if your neighbor’s friend was causing you issues? You’d probably ask your neighbor to talk to their friend about it, right? Well, that’s happening right now with British Columbia and Montana. Contaminated water from coal mines in British Columbia is flowing into Montana, and it’s harming wildlife i...

In mid-June historic floods ripped through Yellowstone National Park. Thousands of visitors were evacuated and the park was temporarily closed as officials assessed the damage. Eventually, all but two entrances to the park were reopened. The North Entrance, near Gardiner, and the Northeast Entrance, near Cooke City, have been closed to the public all summer due to road damage caused by the floodin...

What’s Montana’s most loved river? The Smith? The Yellowstone? The Bitterroot?  Well, if you measure love by usage it’s most likely the Madison. Given angling pressure on the river, with rafts as prolific some days as caddis flies and with trout being hooked and released multiple times, many people believe something has to change. For years now, both commercial outfitters and recreational anglers...

This year the Scapegoat Wilderness marks its 50th anniversary. The 240,000-acre wilderness makes up the southern portion of 1.6-million acre Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and includes some great backcountry hiking and backpacking. Some of the most well-known locations include Scapegoat Mountain, Webb and Heart lakes and Red Mountain.  But beyond the beauty of the landscape, the Scapegoat has a f...

It might surprise some to learn that Montana’s largest National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t contain a single mountain. Instead all 1.1 million acres of the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, or CMR, consists of sweeping prairie encompassing the massive Fort Peck Reservoir and rugged, impassable badlands that spin the land into a labyrinth of gumbo hills and plummeting draws.  But for all its...

Inside a trench the length of a football field, against the mesmerizing backdrop of the Rocky Mountain Front lay a scattering of granite-hued bone fragments, each exposed for the first time after some 75-80 million years preserved in the Two Medicine Formation’s alkali powder.  David Trexler, a lifelong resident of nearby Bynum, Montana, and paleontologist for a half-century calls it the most spec...